Yesterday I posted a blog entry that talked about our family night and homemade pizza. It was so good.
I complain a lot about my camera, but I have to make do for now. Below are pictures on the final results. The color is off on one (with orange tones) even though all three pictures were taken under the same light and both the pizzas were on the same cutting board. I can’t figure out why my little camera does this. But, despite the pictures, the pizza was delicious.
This one was for my youngest son. (Of course it was way too big for him and we had leftovers, but he loved having his own pizza that was different from the rest of us.) We put pizza sauce, pepperoni and mozzarella cheese on his. That’s all he wanted. He sat there watching a show with us and eating like he thought it was the best thing ever.
(I haven’t gotten the hang of hand-tossing pizza dough so I roll it out and press it into shape using both hands. My left hand slightly holds on while I stretch the dough out with my right. Then I turn the dough slightly and do it again until there are no thick sections. My pizzas are always rustic looking. But, I actually like them like that.)
This one had a thicker crust than I intended. I put the dough onto a cookie sheet. While the other one was baking, this dough was continuing to rise. So, it had quite a thick crust. I hadn’t gone shopping so whatever we had in the house was what we were going to use.
With pizza sauce as the base, I layered on sausage that I had cooked into large crumbles and drained, pepperoni that hadn’t been used during the last pizza experiment, onions, green peppers and grape tomatoes cut in half. Then I put mozzarella cheese all over the top.
My husband said it was the best pizza I’d made so far. The thing I love about homemade pizza is that you can experiment and put whatever you want on it… and it’s a fun thing for your kids to help with, especially if they’re making their own personal pizza.
We had leftover pizza dough. Instead of wrapping it tightly in plastic wrap, putting it in a freezer bag and freezing like I usually do, I decided to make cinnamon rolls for Saturday morning breakfast.
I formed the dough into a log to make it easier to get a rectangle shape then rolled it into a rectangle. Again, I hadn’t gone shopping and was completely out of nuts. So, I just spread butter on the rolled out dough and sprinkled brown sugar and cinnamon over the entire surface. After rolling it up and cutting it into 8 pieces, I put it into a buttered 9″ pie dish, put another pie dish on top and “tied” the two together by wrapping the dishes up tightly in plastic wrap. (Using the second pie dish on top gives plenty of room for rising while keeping it moist enough between the pie pans that the dough doesn’t dry out.) It went into the fridge to rise very slowly overnight.
My husband got up earlier than I did and took it out of the fridge to get it to room temperature then turned the oven on to 350° F. While the oven was heating up, the cinnamon rolls started rising at room temperature. By the time I got up, all I had to do was pop them into the oven for 20 minutes. (Of course, I’m not a morning person and my brain wasn’t fully awake so I didn’t get a picture of the baked rolls.)
The house smelled heavenly this morning!! We all sat down and enjoyed cinnamon rolls for breakfast with really no more effort than it took to make pizza dough for dinner last night. (And yes, I know. I likely blew my weight loss attempts this week.)
I didn’t know what kind of cinnamon rolls the pizza dough would make. It turns out that when quickly cooked in an oven at high temperature as a pizza, the texture of this dough is just slightly chewy. But, when cooked at a lower temperature for a little longer, it is very tender and soft.
My son said they were delicious and my husband called them “bodacious”. Both had seconds. I love nuts, so the next time I do this I’ll make sure to go shopping. They will have chopped pecans in them.
I really encourage you to experiment and try different things. You may be surprised at how fun it is and how many delicious things you can come up with yourself. (Don’t forget to click on the link in last night’s Family Night blog entry to get the pizza dough recipe.)
Have a blessed day!
