I think it’s safe to say that making your own pizza will change your life. At least it changed ours in the way we feel about eating it…

Let’s face it, pizza is delicious — dough, sauce, cheese — although it’s not one of those foods that I just have to have. We just about never go out for pizza and when it’s delivered it’s usually mediocre at best. Pools of grease that then sit heavy in your stomach. Ugh. I generally don’t feel so great after a pizza delivery experience, a quick crap fix of a meal that cost a pretty penny. Not to mention the standard pizza sauce surely involves onions. Delicious at the time but not always a feel good situation in the end.

Last winter Joe and I got into making our own pizza and haven’t gone out or ordered pizza delivery since.  It’s just so simple and so much cheaper to make our own; it’s actually quicker too. While you can’t deny that it is pizza you are eating, it feels better for you because you control everything that goes into it. For example the cheese — you can use as much or as little, you can buy a cheese that is light or of higher quality.  You can load it with vegetables so it’s not just dough sauce and cheese, you can roll it out as thin or as thick as you like…. basically it’s fully customizable, so how could you lose?  Make it just how you like it and feel good about eating it. Have it for lunch the next day too…

This recipe makes 2 big delicious pizzas:

roasted red pepper sauce:
6 medium peppers
1 jalapeño
1 head of garlic
4 tomatoes
kosher salt to taste

dough:
1 1/3 cup warm-to-hot water (about 100 degrees F)
2 1/4 teaspoons dry active yeast (1 packet)
1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon salt
2 tablespoons olive oil
3 1/2 cups flour

topping:
2 potatoes
1 tablespoon rosemary
3 cups chopped mushrooms
12 oz shredded mozzarella cheese

First prepare your sauce; this can be done the day before if you plan ahead but we often just do it the same day. Doesn’t matter.  Preheat oven to 425°. Wash ingredients to be roasted. For this sauce we used 6 medium peppers (2 red, 2 orange, 2 yellow), 4 small tomatoes, 1 jalapeño, and a head of garlic. Place on a greased baking sheet and brush with oil. Wrap the head of garlic in foil and drizzle with oil, place on baking sheet as well.  Roast for about 40 minutes turning once or twice during that time. The peppers will be slightly blackened and soft when the are done.  Remove from the oven and allow to cool before handling.

Before blending, remove the stems and seeds from the peppers, you can leave the jalapeño seeds in and cut out the stem from the tomatoes. I also like to peal away the skin from the bell peppers and tomatoes to create a smoother textured sauce. Include the garlic and blend until desired consistency.  Salt to taste. We ended up with about 4 cups of sauce which is a little more than we would use for the two pizzas. 3 cups should be enough. But we wouldn’t want to run out so we planned to have a little extra instead. Set aside while you prepare the rest the dough and toppings.

Next prepare the dough. In a large bowl or in a stand mixer combine 1 1/3 cup warm water with 2 1/4 teaspoons of dry active yeast (or 1 packet). Allow to sit for a couple of minutes to give the yeast a chance to work. Add a tablespoon of sugar, a tablespoon of salt, and 2 tablespoons olive oil. Mix in 3 1/2 cups flour and let the dough sit for about 15 minutes while your prepare your ingredients.

Preheat oven 425°
(check that your rack is at the lower setting before the oven gets hot)

Peal and chop the potatoes in smaller pieces, we usually cut them to about 1/2 inch cubes or similar sized rectangles. Slice mushrooms. Remove rosemary leaves from stems and coarsely chop if you’d like. Shred your cheese. We always buy the block of cheese to grate ourselves for a couple of reasons; it’s generally less expensive and there are unnecessary preservatives added to prepackaged shredded cheeses — same stuff with a bit of extra questionable ingredients added to the mix. No thank you, we’ll grate our own.

Time to roll out the dough! Get out two large baking sheets and grease them up. Sometimes we use butter and other times we’ll use a spray oil. You can also use a sprinkle of cornmeal if you’d like. we’ve never had a problem with the pizza sticking.

Cut the dough in half making 2 balls. Roll out one at a time on a lightly floured surface. The dough might be a little tough if you’ve never rolled dough before, but you can stretch it out a bit by pulling at the edges and letting it hang off your hands. If you want to be really daring, practice spinning it in the air; this might seem like an unnecessary flourish but it actually helps stretch the dough.

Now it’s time to top the pizzas…

First layer is the sauce, spread an even layer across each pizza.  It takes about 1 1/2-2 cups of sauce per pizza. We usually roll out each pizza to be about 12 x 15 inches or so.  You’ll probably have more sauce than you need so put as much as you like.

Second layer is the potatoes.  Divide your cut potatoes in two and scatter them on top of the sauce.

Third layer is the rosemary. I usually chop up about a heaping tablespoon or so of rosemary to share between the 2 pizzas. You can add more if you want a more intense rosemary taste, but it’s a pretty strong flavor so you don’t want to overdue it especially if your cooking it for other people.

The forth layer is the mushrooms. Find some open spaces between the potatoes and fill them in with mushrooms. There’s room for everyone here.

Last but not least is the cheese! We use about 12 oz of mozzarella between the 2 pizzas, but you could cut it down a bit for a lighter pizza or bulk it up some for a cheesier pizza, of course.  Sprinkle an even layer on each. We also usually add Parmesan to the top as well but this time we were out, it’s delicious either way.

Bake at 425° for 15-20 minutes or until it’s golden. Baking time may vary depending on your oven. We like to bake ours at the bottom for a slightly crispier crust.

Two large custom pizzas for well under $10 — in under an hour!

I’m continuously on a quest to find ways to prepare squash and pumpkin in a satisfying way. I mentioned in a previous post that I don’t care much for squash mostly because they are most often prepared in a sweet way. However, it is possible to successfully prepare the squash family in a savory way as well. This year we picked our pumpkins mostly for the seeds with no intention to carve.  Unfortunately when we opened our pumpkins we found the most pathetic dilapidated flat seeds I have ever seen ;( — they were completely unusable and severely disappointing to me.  In a moment of panic upon this discovery I feared that we bought and lugged these pumpkins home for no reason… I was peeved. Deep breath, we had to give them purpose — this meant making pumpkin puree!

And with that puree we made bread, muffins, cookies, lasagna, and even gave some away! I would have never had the desire to make my own pumpkin puree if those seeds were any good. I would have happily moved on to roast and devour the seeds without thinking twice about completely wasting the rest of the pumpkin! We made our puree from two pumpkins, which left us with about 16 cups! So of course we had to search for different ways to use it, what the heck could you do with so much puree!? I will forever look at a pumpkin as more than a carve-able surface filled with delicious seeds.

One of the most interesting dishes I discovered was pumpkin lasagna; I have never heard of or thought of it but I was sure ready to try it out.  I got the idea from Food Mayhem, they made it last year as well.  Of course I didn’t follow their exact recipe, I had to cut out anything sweet and add a little more savory to the mix.  It turned out nicely. Lasagna is one of those meals that really doesn’t need many rules. Noodles, sauce, cheese, and anything else baked in layers — that’s basically how it’s done. This is how we made our first pumpkin lasagna! If you’re a sweeter pumpkin eater you should have a look at Food Mayhem’s recipe as well and adjust to your preference.

Ingredients used: pumpkin puree, cayenne powder, cumin powder, ginger, kosher salt, lasagna noodles, fresh ricotta, fresh mozzarella, spinach, tofu, mushrooms.

3 cups plain fresh plain pumpkin puree-
spiced with :
1 tsp pepper powder or cayenne pepper
½ teaspoon cumin powder
½+ teaspoon kosher salt
½ teaspoon fresh finely minced ginger.

lasagna noodles of choice
15 oz fresh ricotta cheese
8+ oz fresh mozzarella
3 cups sliced baby bella mushrooms
2 cups fresh or frozen spinach
½ block of tofu

Begin by spicing up the pumpkin puree; simmer puree in a sauce pot and add ginger, cumin, cayenne powder/pepper powder, and salt to taste.  Cook over lowest heat while you prepare the rest of the ingredients (cut mushrooms, tofu, and spinach).

Preheat oven to 350°

In a 9 x 13 glass baking dish spread a thin layer of pumpkin puree at the very bottom, place the first layer of lasagna noodles and cover with a thin layer of pumpkin puree. Having a bit of puree on the very bottom will help the noodles cook and avoid it from sticking to the bottom of the pan once cooked.

Add tofu; we sliced ours but crumbling it would also be nice. Add a layer of spinach — we used frozen spinach because that’s what we had, we always have frozen spinach on hand because it’s super cheap and a perfect ingredient to add to any sauce, beans, rice, casseroles, lasagna, etc…

Time for another layer of lasagna noodles & of course a layer of pumpkin puree.

Clump fresh ricotta onto the mix and spread it out into an even layer.

Place the sliced mushrooms in an nice even layer and place your last layer of lasagna noodles.

One last layer of pumpkin puree and top with mozzarella! We accidentally bought a fresh mozzarella filled with cream: Burrata — fresh mozzarella filled with cream. When we first chopped into the surprisingly soft and gooey cheese we worried that we made a mistake.  Of course we used it anyway and it didn’t seem to make a difference at all. Once Baked all of the cheese melted together and was delicious as expected.

Cover with tin foil and bake at 350° for 50 min.  Allow time to cool — cut and serve. Now tell me that doesn’t look delicious! Ha — ok, I know, it’s not exactly a beautiful looking dish. But it’s definitely a nice way to remake a traditional lasagna into a seasonal treat…

Gourstada, as in gourmet tostada.

Tostadas have to be one of the easiest and quickest meal or snack to make.  We make some sort of variation of a tostada meal at the very least once a week. Whether it’s our huevos rancheros, a simple bean and cheese, or loaded with random delicious it always proves to satisfy.

On this tostada we used almost all home grown vegetables! Starting from the top- straight from the garden, 3 anchos, a handful of cherry tomatoes, and fresh basil were combined with balsamic vinegar and salt to make a fresh Italian inspired salad. Just beneath baby bella mushrooms sauteed in plum sauce with home grown kale. Below that are black beans warmed with fresh jalapeno from… you guessed it, our garden!  And of course at the base of it all are El Ranchero’s tostadas.

Ingredients : cherry tomatoes, basil, ancho, balsamic vinegar, kosher salt, baby bellas, kale, plum sauce, black beans, jalapenos, El Ranchero tostadas, mozzarella, and cheddar cheese.

At the base of most our our tostadas we use some sort of bean, in this one we used black beans- no, we did not grow them. However the jalapenos were fresh cut from the pot, our first actual harvest of peppers all year! We may have picked these jalapenos a little soon, but they have been growing for quite a while & we just wanted to try them. There are plenty more where they came from; our jalapeno & “red” chili pepper pot is growing like crazy. So many peppers to go. Now, if only these supposed red chilis would turn red. Back to the black beans and jalapenos- drain black beans and simmer on low heat with diced jalapenos while you prepare the rest of the meal.

Next prepare your salad for the top.  We used all the red cherry tomatoes from our garden, which was about ten and an additional handful from our organic produce delivery. They were chopped in quarters from the top making small wedges, a perfect bite size for this dish.

3 anchos were hollowed out, sliced in thin rings and then halved. They were the largest of our peppers so far, although they probably would have grown a little bigger; we felt it was time to cut them down as the slender stems could barely hold them up anymore and were not producing any more flowers. They were perfect for this meal though, very crisp and had a nice mild spice to them.  The basil was sliced into thin strips as well. All ingredients were combined and tossed with some balsamic vinegar and kosher salt to taste.  Set aside and refrigerate until serving time.

The last step in preparation for this meal is the mushroom kale layer.  First chop kale into small pieces.  Remove the stem from the center and slice or tear the leaf into small bits.  Set aside and slice the mushrooms, in a large frying pan heat up a 2-3 tablespoons of plum sauce and a splash of olive oil, sautee mushrooms coating them with the plum sauce flavoring.  Toss in kale and saute a bit more. Once they are done cooking it’s time to plate your tostada.  Remove from heat and get ready to assemble your meal.

Joe and I made 4 tostadas, 2 each and it was the absolute perfect amount.  We were both completely full but not even a little bit over stuffed!

To assemble : lay El Ranchero tostadas on the plate, add beans and jalapenos, sprinkle with cheese if desired- we used a mixture of shredded cheddar and mozzarella because that’s what we had. Next make a layer of the mushroom and kale with plum sauce and top it off with your fresh ancho, basil, and tomato salad.

Generally we think of tostadas as being a mexican flavored dish, we still used a lot of the same traditional ingedients (beans, corn tostada, tomatoes, and jalapenos) but introduced some completely different flavors to the dish as well. I really enjoyed this combination because the bottom layer of beans was a bit spicy and totally cooked, the middle layer was cooked a bit but still somewhat fresh with sweetness of the plum sauce, and the top layer of salad was also a bit spicy and flavored with basil but very fresh. It’s an odd mix of flavors but they all add something interesting to the dish and complement each other quite nicely.