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!

Throughout spring and summer we prepared fresh salsa about once a week- sometimes even more.  As fall set in I noticed that we had not been making fresh salsa nearly as much, although we have been making many meals that are naturally complimented by salsa.  We started to miss it. With busy lives and produce seasons changing the desire and convenience of making fresh salsa has slowed down.

We never buy store bought salsa for a few reasons, the first being the fact that I don’t tolerate onions and I have never seen a store bought jar of salsa excluding them (let me know if you know of one!) We consciously try to avoid purchasing pre-packaged food that contain unnecessary ingredients and preservatives, and also because it can get kind of pricey — once you figure out how inexpensive and delicious it is to make your own fresh salsa it just doesn’t seem worth it to buy mass produced versions anymore. Of course there are decent market fresh salsas — but all of which will contain onions, suitable for the majority. A jarred salsa is so convenient and a perfect snack, and since we don’t purchase it from the store and haven’t been making it fresh, we have been deprived. This is why we decided to can our own. We have thought about doing this for a while and now we’re living the dream! We have a full stock of custom salsa in the cabinet! Like fresh salsa there are many “right” ways to do this.  Here is how our first attempt went.

Ingredients : plum tomatoes, bell peppers (green, red, orange, yellow), jalapeños, habeñeros, lime, salt, cilantro.

Supplies needed : canning tools, 5-6 pint jars, large pot for boiling.

Recipe:
8 cups plum tomatoes seeded and diced
2 green peppers
2 yellow peppers
1 red pepper
1 orange pepper
4 fat mild jalapeños
2 habeñeros
5 pieces of garlic
7 table spoons lime
4 teaspoons kosher salt
2 bundles cilantro- 1 heaping cup chopped

Before you start this process make sure you have all of your canning equipment ready (jars with fresh lids, a pot large enough to boil the jars with 2 inches of water over top, and canning tools for lifting the hot jars/lids from the water). Wash your jars with hot water and soap, set aside while you prepare your ingredients. If you have an extremely large pot to boil your jars it may take quite a while to heat up the water — you can set it to warm up at anytime so you’re not in a situation where you are waiting for long.  Fill the pot with enough water to cover the tops of the jars with 2 inches of water.

Prepare all of the ingredients before cooking.  Seed and dice the tomatoes and peppers, pluck the cilantro leaves from the stem and chop finely, crush and mince the garlic.  Once you have chopped everything it is time to cook!

We used a 4 quart pot which would hold up to 8 pints worth of salsa — this batch made 5 1/2 pints for us. Heat up the pot with a splash of olive oil and add your garlic, jalapeños, & habeñeros. Saute for a moment and include the rest of your peppers.

Add tomatoes and simmer for a couple of minutes, it will become more soupy.

Throw in cilantro, lime, & salt to taste. Bring salsa to a full boil for at least 5 minutes.

Remove from heat and cover while you sterilize your jars before canning. Place washed jars in the pot of water to simmer for 5 minutes, do not boil.  Place lids (not the rings) in a separate pot of water to simmer, do not boil. Remove the jars from the water bath with the jar lifters and place on a heat safe surface, we use a wooden cutting board.

Fill your jars with the salsa leaving about a ½ inch of space from the top. Use a funnel to avoid spilling on the jar.  Poke the mixture with a clean utensil to push out any extra air bubbles — we use a chop stick. Wipe around the rim of the jar with a clean towel before closing.

With the magnetic lid lifter place your jar lid and screw the band on with enough force but not too tight. Use the jar lifters to place jars back into the water bath and bring to a rolling boil for at least 5 minutes. Remove jars right side up and place back on to the heat safe surface, allow to rest undisturbed for 24 hours.  Over the next hour you will hear pops from the lids which indicates a successful canning. The following day your jars should be complete. Test that they were canned successfully by lifting the jar by just the sealed lid (remove the screw top), it should be securely attached.

For more instructions and information on canning please refer to Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving or other sources with more experience; we are amateurs.

The salsa turned out to be delicious, though fresh is still better, but now we have enough salsa to last us several weeks, maybe even months! It took a little time to do, but if you’re like me it was a fun activity and we saved a lot of money by doing it. We listed out the cost of this particular salsa below, to make 5+ pints of salsa it cost us just under $9.00! I’d say that’s pretty good, an average pint of salsa at the grocery store would cost around $5.00 which means we saved over $15.00 and we are glad to know exactly how it was made and processed.

Cost :
tomatoes- $3.30
bell peppers- $2.94
cilantro- $1.10
jalapeño- $0.38
lime- $0.25
habeñero- $0.18
garlic- $0.07
salt- $0.01

total cost $8.95 for 5 pints of fresh custom salsa.

Salsa is one of the most obvious and easy snacks, especially when you can just pour it out of a jar or pick up a fresh batch from your local grocer.  But wait!  That salsa has onions in it! This situation comes up frequently; almost all salsas and guacamole contain onions, lots of fresh onions (the worst). Bummer.  Have no fear, making your own salsa can be easy and will most certainly be fresher and taste better.   We make a fresh salsa at least once a week. The recipe always varies slightly and is never disappointing.  It’s actually much cheaper than buying a jar of salsa and you end up with a lot more if you make it yourself.  You really can’t lose with this one.  Here is an idea on how to make your own….

In this salsa we used :: 4 tomatoes, 1 medium cucumber, 1 yellow pepper & 1 red pepper, jalapeño, limes, salt, cilantro, garlic, and NO onions.  Looks can be deceiving; the cucumber kind of looks like onion for those who are expecting it ;)

Dice up all of your ingredients into small bits. Combine tomato, cucumber, peppers, & cilantro. Then add your flavor enhancers to taste, jalapeño, garlic, salt & lime.  Enjoy this refreshing snack.