-1 batch of your favorite pizza dough recipe, I use Cuisinart's that came with my food processor which is enough for a 14 inch pizza
-about 10 meatballs (for about a medium sized pizza) thawed. I used Trader Joe's mini party meatballs. I love them!
-Mozzarella cheese (I like the mozz you can get in rounds, not rectangles, and I really like Trader Joe's)
-Favorite pizza sauce (I like light sauce but add to your preference obviously, believe it or not I typically just use Hunt's tomato pasta sauce, cheap and tasty)
-4 to 5 string cheese sticks, halved longways
-olive oil and cornmeal
Stretch or roll your crust out fairly thin and brush it all with olive oil. Once mine was stretched, I transferred it to a baking sheet that I could use like a pizza peel (having a flat edge that I could slide it off onto my stone). Have the stone in your oven preheating to 425, I baked mine on the lowest rack.
Anyway, once the crust is on the baking sheet and oiled, place the string cheese halves around the edges, bringing the crust over them and sealing. I did not seal mine very well so it popped open, but string cheese is not exactly the most meltable thing that ever existed so it did not really make a difference to be honest. But you will seal yours well anyway.
Top the middle with sauce and cut your meatballs in half. Place them around on the pizza, and top with cheese. I used chunks of cheese and did not bother shredding it, I would highly recommend that.
I never buy preshredded cheese. It is just weird. And like plastic.
Anyway, once it is all topped, you can optionally hit it with a little fresh cracked pepper. To transfer mine to the stone, I moved it around a little on the pan to make sure it was not sticking, and I scooted it close to the edge that it would need to slide off.
Open your oven prepared with an oven mitt on, and pull out the rack that has the pizza stone (I took my top rack out just to make sure I did not accidentally burn myself). I grabbed the edge of the pizza and slid it right off, and then adjusted it quickly to center it on the stone. My pizza dough made a large enough pizza that it covered the majority of my 15 inch stone.
Return the rack to its proper position, close the door, and bake for about 12-14 minutes or until the cheese is bubbly and brown.
10 minutes the cheese had NO color on it. The picture above was at 13. You really need to watch this thing once it gets close to the end.
Since my pizza stone said to not cut pizza on it, I grabbed the edge of the pizza when it was done with tongs, lifted it up, and slid it on to my original pizza pan that has holes in the bottom. The craziest part about this pizza is that my pizza cutter sliced it like butter....that never happened before! It made a really great crispy crust.
And, it is good because it still gives me a use for my old pan, because I definitely won't be going back to that for making pizza. This one was amazing.
I topped mine with fresh grated parmesan when it came out of the oven.
I made this because a large snowstorm and temperature drop is baring down on us here. My lights blipped off right after the dough started to raise and I was so worried this would not happen. But we made it through, the lights are still flickering every now and then when the wind picks up a bit, but hopefully this will all pass by without a hitch.
Happy crafting!
No comments:
Post a Comment