BLT Pizza

I LOVE trying new pizza recipes.  When I found this recipe, I knew it was one we needed to try.  I did exactly what she said to do, except I added red onions and I didn't measure at all.  That's one of the best things about making pizza ... you can just throw whatever you want on top.  No measurements needed.

Ingredients:
Dough - use your favorite recipe or store bought.  (There are a few recipes on the beans blog that you could try.  I'll be posting my go to recipe soon ...)
Alfredo sauce, I used store bought but you could totally make it if you wanted to
Tomatoes, sliced
Red onion, thinkly sliced
Bacon, cooked
Rocket (arugula if you are in America)
Mozzarella cheese, shredded

Method:

It's not complicated.

Roll out your dough and spread alfredo sauce on it.  Top with tomatoes, red onion, bacon and mozzarella cheese. 

We cook our pizzas in a outdoor pizza oven but you can do it in the oven on 200C/390F for about 10/20 minutes.  You just want the dough to be cooked through and the cheese to be melted and golden.

Top cooked pizza with arugula.

Delish.

Funky Lime Pizza

I originally posted this funky lime pizza here. I have refined it a fair bit so am reposting with the refined directions ...

pizza dough enough to make two pizzas

4 cloves garlic, minced ~ I do a whole lot more but you do what you like !!

2 T extra-virgin olive oil

2 ears of corn, kernels removed

pinch of black pepper

2 cups Mozzarella, shredded

1/2 red onion, thinly sliced

zucchini, thinly sliced

feta cheese, crumbled

fresh cilantro (coriander) leaves, coarsely chopped

juice of 2 or 3 limes

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F/ 200 C if using oven.  (We do ours in our outside pizza oven ... and have even done it in the weber ... just cook it however you would normally cook pizza)

Use your favorite dough, roll out two bases.

Drizzle olive oil on both bases, spread around with a spoon.  Sprinkle with black pepper.  Top with zucchini, onion, corn and feta.  Top with mozzarella.

Bake for about 8 minutes then swap which rack the pizzas are on. Bake for another 5 - 8 minutes, til cheese is done to your liking ! I like it a bit brown ...

While the pizzas are cooking, heat the olive oil in a small frying pan. Add the minced garlic and cook, stirring occasionally, til light brown ... DON'T BURN IT !! Burned garlic is bitter and narsty ! (that's for you Jimmy !)

Immediately after removing the pizza from the oven, top with garlic, squeeze a lime over the top and cover with the cilantro.

I serve with additional lime and we sqeeze more lime over during the meal !!

PS ... I googled funky lime pizza today and my original post came up FIRST ! How fun is that ? It also brought up another couple people who have reposted the recipe. One I knew about. One I didn't. Again ... FUN !!!

Buffalo Boneless Chicken Pizza

This pizza is so easy.

I saw a recipe for it and just had to try it. She used ranch in her base ... Rory doesn't like cooked ranch so we didn't bother. Here's how I made ours ...

Leftover boneless buffalo chicken
Your favorite pizza dough
Thinly Sliced Red Onion
Mozzarella Cheese

Break up the chicken bits and spread them, with the sauce onto the pizza base. Top with red onion and Mozzarella Cheese.

We cook our pizzas outside in our pizza oven but just cook it however you normally cook pizza.

This got gobbled up ! Jono dipped his in ranch. Rory and I just inhaled ours. Alia doesn't like spicy ...

PS ... If you don't have any leftover buffalo boneless, just melt 1TBLS butter, add 1/2 cup Franks hot sauce (or hot sauce of your choice) and then add some shredded chicken.  I make shredded chicken in my crock pot and keep it in ziplock bags in the freezer.

Roast Garlic & Chicken on Cream Cheese Pizza

This was delicious. Rory says he's not convinced about cream cheese on pizza but the kids and I are ! We loved this !! I found this recipe that I wanted to try but rather than go buy extra stuff, I decided to use what I had. This is the resulting pizza ...

Use your favorite pizza dough.

Ingredients:

2 heads of garlic

cream cheese mixed with cream

parsley, thyme, basil, oregano ... all fresh, chopped small

provolone and mozzarella cheese, grated

a cooked chicken, pulled apart

red onions, sliced

Roast 2 heads of garlic. Get that started before anything else as it takes a bit of time. I just wrap the heads in tin foil, into a hot oven for about 30 minutes or until soft and smelling amazing !

I didn't really measure anything else.  I had some cream cheese in the fridge,  I used a couple of spoonfuls, mixed it with some cream that I also had in the fridge just to soften up the cream cheese and make it a bit more spreadable.  I didn't use much cream.  Maybe a tablespoon ?   It won't matter how much you use ... cream cheese and cream, you can't really go wrong !

I spread that on the bottom of the pizza and then sprinkled the herbs on top of that.  Top that with as little or as much chicken as you want to pull off of your cooked chicken.  We froze the rest of our chicken to make Trina's chicken casserole later.  Top with onions and then cheeses.

Bake in 425F/220C oven for about 10 minutes ... or until cheese is melted to your liking. 

The Bendeguz

So ... the other day my husband was craving Eggs Benedict. But it was already way past breakfast time and we didn't have any of the ingredients anyway so we just left it.  Then our friends invited us to come have pizza for dinner.  We never turn down pizza with Craig & Jodie ... this was no exception !  Rory threw out the idea of making an Eggs Benedict Pizza.  Craig was up to the challenge and the rest my friends, is history !  Mouth watering, record breaking, best pizza eva history !

So, how do you make it ?

You'll need your favorite pizza dough recipe. This one had a nice thick crust.

Roll out your dough.  Top with "funky lime" garlic and the oil you cooked it in.  (funky lime garlic ... heat olive oil in a small frying pan. Add freshly minced garlic and cook, stirring occasionally, til light brown ... DON'T BURN IT !! Burned garlic is bitter and yucky !)

Top with mozzarella cheese and sliced bacon.  Cook the pizza til cheese/crust are golden.

While pizza is cooking, make hollandaise sauce and poach a couple eggs. (recipe here)

Once pizza is cooked, drizzle hollandaise sauce on top, top with baby spinach leaves and poached eggs.

Try not to make groaning noises when you eat this ... (but don't be surprised to find that is an effort in futility !) 

the mini-me ~ a bella russia original

last night we did pizza night with friends

it is tradition with these friends that you make your signature pizza on your first visit

so, last night ... it was Bel's first visit ... and she pulled off a ripper

THE MINI-ME

she calls it

You will need ...

Pizza dough
Tomato based pizza sauce
Kalamata olives, diced
Red onion, slivered
Feta cheese, finely diced
Broccoli, finely diced
Sun dried tomatoes, finely diced
Fresh parsley
Mozarella

Yogurt or sour cream
Garlic, crushed
Fresh chives, chopped

Here's how you make it ...

Mix yogurt (or sour cream) with garlic and chives to taste. Set aside.

From Bel ... and I quote "The key with the mini-me is the spacing and finely chopped-ness. It is a vegetarian dish from the backstreets of Florence. The recipe has been passed down through families over centuries and was initially dated back to some time near AD250."

Everything after her first sentence may or may not be fictional ....

Using your favorite pizza dough, spread it with a tomato based pizza sauce, evenly space all ingredients (as you will see demonstrated in the photo below). Top with a light sprinkling of mozzarella. Cook in pizza oven, BBQ or oven .... you decide.

Top with garlic chive yogurt ...

Pizza Dough

The long awaited pizza dough recipe!
After recieving my Kitchenaid mixer for my birthday, I had to rework the recipe a bit.
I've included both a mixer method and hand mixing method in this recipe.

This dough makes enough for two pizzas.

You can freeze the dough for another day.

If you freeze it, thaw it in the refrigerator overnight, or on the counter for 1 ½ hours.

Dough is easier to roll out at room temperature.

1 ½ cups warm water (105-115°F)

1 teaspoon sugar

2 ¼ teaspoons active dry yeast

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 ½ cups all-purpose flour

1 ½ cups bread flour

2 teaspoons salt

*½  - 1 cup of all-purpose flour

·   Combine warm water and sugar in mixing bowl. Sprinkle yeast and let stand until foamy, about 5 minutes. Stir in olive oil

·   In a medium bowl, mix together the 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour and 1 ½ cups bread flour with the salt.

·   Turn mixer, attached with dough hook, on to lowest setting and slowly add flour and salt mixture. Raise speed after most of the flour is combined. Mix until dough forms into a ball *adding the remaining ½ cup – 1 cup of flour if necessary so that dough no longer appears sticky, and is easily handled.

·   Turn dough onto floured surface and knead briefly until smooth and elastic, sprinkling with flour until no longer sticky.

·   Spray a large bowl with nonstick spray; place dough in bowl. Cover lightly with plastic wrap or a tea towel. Let rise in a warm spot until double in size. About 1 hour.

    (Tip: Turn oven on, set to ‘warm,’ for about 5 minutes and then shut it off. On the lower rack place a large bowl filled with the hottest water you can get out of the tap. Place the bowl of covered dough on the upper rack, close oven and allow the dough to rise in this warm moist spot.)

·   Punch down dough and cut in half. Roll out and place on pizza pans/stones lined with baking paper. You can also refrigerate or freeze in floured Ziploc freezer bags.

If Mixing by Hand: Combine water, sugar and yeast in a large bowl. Set aside until foamy. Stir in oil, flour and salt until the dough starts to gather around the spoon. (You may find that you will use less flour with this method.) Turn dough onto a lightly floured surface; knead until dough is smooth and elastic, about 10 minutes. Spread onto pizza pans lined with baking paper.

Click image for printable recipe:

Pizza Poppers

I saw this recipe and had to immediately try it !

pizza dough ... your favorite kind will do.
16 bite size pieces of mozarella
sliced pepperoni, olives, mushrooms .... whatever you want to go on the inside !
2 tsp italian herbs (oregano, basil, parsley, and garlic)
1/4 cup olive oil
3 tbsp grated Parmesan cheese

Pre-heat oven to 400C/200F

Super easy ... I rolled out a small ball of pizza dough. Cut into 16 pieces. Put a piece of cheese and a bit of something else (i did all pepperoni last night) into one piece. Fold over and place 'seam' side down in a oiled pie dish. Repeat. Mix oil and herbs. Pour on top of pizza poppers. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese. Bake 15-20 minutes or until golden. Watch them though ... the cheese explodes if you leave them in too long.

Serve with marinara or ranch ....

Bonnie's Carbonara Pizza

(photo taken on my iPhone)

Ok ... so this was super easy to make ! AND so delicious !

One pizza base ... I used Craig's dough recipe ... I still need to post that for you. Soon. I'd do it now but I'm going to have to do it as a video post because it's a show you, not tell you kind of recipe ...

2 red onions, caramelized
1 head of garlic, roasted (cut off top of cloves, wrap in tin foil and put in preheated 200C oven while onions caramelize) (here's a good recipe to show you how to roast garlic ...)
A couple of rashers of bacon, chopped
A bit of cream ... maybe 1/2 of a cup ?

So ... in my big electric fry pan, I caramelized the onions then pushed them to one side and cooked the bacon in the same pan. When the bacon is cooked, add the cream and stir the lot together. Get the garlic that has been roasting out of the oven, squeeze cloves into bacon/onion mixture. Stir. I chopped up the garlic a bit with my spatula so it mixed real well. Spread this mixture onto the pizza base. Grate fresh Parmesan cheese on top. Put into still-hot -from-the- garlic oven for about 15 minutes or til dough is cooked.

That's it.

So yum !

PS ... I think I might add some rosemary next time ...

Ruth's Potato Pizza

A friend of mine had been telling me about her favorite pizza ... I decided one night to give it a go. It was yum, although our rosemary seemed a bit bitter so we added some fresh parmesan cheese ...

It is dead simple.

Pizza dough ... we used a whole wheat, thin crust that I make in the bread maker.

Top that with a drizzle of good olive oil, thinly sliced potatoes, a nice salt and plenty of fresh rosemary. Bake ... ours took about 10 minutes in a 200C oven.

Sprinkle with freshly grated Paremsan cheese !!

PS ... if you're wondering why I didn't post the second half of my two week menu, it's because I never shopped for it so we never ate it !! It's been a total FLY BY THE SEAT OF MY PANTS week and I've hated every minute of it !!! Two week menu planning when I have to shop weekly (because of fresh ingredients needed) is not going to work for me !!

BUT ... I got an iPhone4 this week and I have downloaded some cool apps and I'm going to start using them to get more organized !

AND ... a cool thing I did yesterday ... I was wandering around the shop after work, trying to figure out what to make for dinner. I NEVER DO THAT !! NEVER EVER !! Couldn't think of anything. Pulled out the iPhone, opened my Whole Foods Market app and found this recipe, bought the ingredients, made the dish and am thrilled with this new option for disorganized shopping !

Seafood Pizza

I made this ages ago and never posted the recipe.

It was delicious. I'll make it again soon. Very simple recipe !!

All I did was mozzarella and gruyere cheese as the base. sliced red onion, garlic powder, capers, feta cheese and prawns (w/garlic and parsley) that I cooked for a minute in the fry pan before adding to the pizza. Top with a bit more Mozzarella and then into the oven at 200C. I use a thin crust ....

PS ... I made this up.

Rosemary Chicken Pizza

I found this recipe and just had to try it ! It was delicious ! Alia had requested pizza for her night of helping me cook ... she made this and also funky lime pizza.

You'll need Lemon Grilled Chicken for the pizza and it needs to marinate. Like this ...

2 chicken breasts
juice of one lemon
1 Tbsp. oil
1 tsp. minced garlic
1 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper
1/2 tsp. oregano

Marinate chicken overnight or for several hours. Grill.

Make your favorite pizza dough ... see how Alia rolls it out !

1 large lemon grilled chicken breast, thinly sliced
1/2 red onion, thinly sliced
1/2 cup sun-dried tomatoes packed in olive oil
2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese, divided
2 garlic cloves, pressed
1/4 cup fresh parsley, chopped (or 1 Tbsp. dried)
1 Tbsp. fresh rosemary, chopped (for 1 tsp. dried)
1/2 tsp. Kosher salt
1/4 tsp. ground pepper

Toss all ingredients together with 1 1/2 cup cheese.
Spread mixture over dough and sprinkle with remaining 1/2 cup cheese.

Bake on 200C for about 20 minutes or until golden brown.

Spicy Potato Pizza

This was a little experiment ... I liked it ok the first night ... I liked it lots as leftovers !

I used my whole wheat pizza dough ... and then the recipe for spicy potatoes ...

All I did was thinly slice a potato or two ... just enough to cover the top of the pizza. In a bowl, I mixed a bit of olive oil and the spices:

1/4 tsp ground turmeric
1/4 tsp chilli powder
1/4 tsp salt

Add the potatoes. Let them sit while you roll out your dough ... then add your potatoes to the top of the dough. I drizzled all the olive oil and spice mixture onto the top ... there wasn't a heap left ... you really just want them coated ... Put your pizza into the oven. 200c/400f ... for about 15 - 20 minutes.

While that's cooking ...

2 tbls oil
1 or 2 tsp black mustard seeds ( I never measure these, just pour 'em in ... )
3. 4, 5 (??) garlic cloves, crushed
1 tbls sesame seeds

Get your smallest frying pan and heat the oil. Add the mustard seeds. I use a combination of black and yellow seeds. Fry the mustard seeds a couple minutes ~ til they splutter. Add the garlic. Fry for a couple of minutes. I like the garlic to begin to turn brown. Then add the sesame seeds. Fry for a couple of minutes ~ til they begin to turn brown. Remove from heat.

When the pizza comes out of the oven, top with the mustard seed mixture !!

**

We think this needs something ... maybe a sauce for the base. Don't think tomato will be good, that's why I didn't use anything. Any ideas ?? A cream base ? A pesto base ? Help us out here ... this could be an AMAZING pizza if we could just find that 'something' it needs !!

Dessert {Pizza} Experiments

We had dessert pizza at our friends place ... made in a wood fired oven ... a while back. The kids rave about it still so I thought I'd give it a go ! My pizza dough recipe actually makes four thin crust pizzas. I just roll one smaller one and three equal size ones. I use the smaller one for the dessert ...

For the blueberry and nectarine ... I just spread thickened cream on the base. Added frozen blueberries, slivered fresh nectarine, and then sprinkled with our nut/oat mix. Drizzled with a bit of maple syrup and into the oven. 400F/200C - still on from the dinner pizzas (!). 15 minutes or so ... but watch so the oats don't burn ! I drizzled with thickened cream to serve.

The second experiment was actually with a different dough (you can see it in the previous post if I forget to come back and link it !) that I like even better. The toppings were 1 cup mango - blended with a couple tablespoons of thickened cream and 5 dates. (I just threw those three things in my hand mixer and whizzed 'em into a thick paste) Spread that paste onto the dough. Sprinkle with same oat/nut mixture ... except that we've now added sultanas (raisins) and goji berries to the mix. 15 minutes in the 400F/200C oven and dessert is served. You could probably top with cream again but we didn't. This one was even better than the blueberry one !! Can't wait to try more ....

40 Clove Garlic Chicken Pizza

We had leftover 40 clove chicken the other night and I decided to try a little experiment. Seriously ... I think that's pretty much all I do these days ... experiment ! I wanted to try and change up the dough a bit. Last time I made it, I found it a bit hard to roll out and I had read that adding a small amount of gluten flour will help with elasticity. So ... I made my dough like this ....

1 and 1/3 cup water
2 TBLS honey
2 TBLS olive oil
2 cups whole wheat flour
2 cups whole wheat spelt flour
1 TBLS gluten flour
3/4 tsp salt
1 and 1/4 tsp yeast

This dough was really nice. It is much wetter and required more flour on the surface to roll but the taste was great ! I think I'll try adding half as much gluten flour next time and see what that does. I'll tweak it til it's perfect !! :)

Here's the pizza before we put the mozzarella on top ...

The toppings went like this :

Tomato Sauce:
2 TBLS tomato paste
1 TBLS thickened cream
Leftover garlic and onions from the 40 clove garlic chicken

Mix and spread on dough.

The Rest of It:
One small potato, unpeeled, uncooked and thinly sliced
Leftover 40 clove garlic chicken, maybe we used about 1/2 a cup ? Do it to your liking.
A handful of fresh baby spinach leaves
A dozen or so kalamata style olives
Three homemade sun dried tomatoes, defrosted earlier and cut into chunks
Red onion, sliced
Spring onion, chopped
Camembert cheese, slivered

And then top with mozarella cheese. Bake in oven 15/20 minutes on 400F/200C.

ABSOLUTELY DELICIOUS !!

Stuffed Crust Whole Wheat Veggie Pizza !!!

I am soooo excited about this !!

Shifting from white flour to whole wheat flour has been one of my biggest fears in this whole unprocessed journey. I finally decided early in the week that I just needed to 'give it a go' ! If I have some failures along the way, no worries ... just 'give it a go' again !! Last night, I put this dough into the bread maker and it worked ! And it's delicious ! And I'll make it over and over again !! I think I like it even better than my white flour pizza dough. And knowing that it's doing our body some good is just a cherry on top !

I hadn't planned on doing a stuffed crust but when I rolled the dough out, it was bigger than the pizza tray so I decided to go for the stuffed ! Probably wouldn't do it all the time because it just adds more cheese but it was good ...

You know how to do stuffed crust right ?
You just spread the cheese around the edges and then fold 'em over ...



Did anyone else notice that I forgot to round the corners on those pictures ? Duh.



Here's how I topped this pizza.
Tomato paste ... garlic flakes ... fresh oregano, parsley and greek basil from our garden.
Onion, thinly sliced
Fresh Spinach, diced like the herbs
Zucchini, thinly sliced
Green (preservative free !!) Olives
Pumpkin, thinly sliced
Mushrooms (except on the kids one)
Asparagus
Pine Nuts and Mozzarella Cheese




It was sooo good.
Just look at it.



You can almost taste it ...



But not quite ...

I think you might need to go make your own !

Here's how you do the dough ... compiled from about four different recipes I found on line to meet my own requirements !

1 & 1/3 cups water
2 Tablespoons honey
2 Tablespoons olive oil
4 cups whole wheat flour
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 & 1/4 teaspoon yeast

Put it all in your breadmaker, I did mine in that order. Turn it on to the 'pizza dough' setting. When it's done, roll it out. It will make two stuffed crust pizzas or 4 thin crust pizzas !

PS ... I forgot I was going to make 'mini pizza' ... oops ! I'm thinking I'll do that soon and pop 'em in the freezer for easy lunch options !

****
Edited to add ... I cook my pizzas in an oven preheated to 200C/390F - for between 10-20 minutes. Totally depends on how much is on the top ! I just do it til the cheese is a nice golden brown.

Prosciutto Pizza

You all may have noticed that we have a new addition to the beans blog ! Andrea posted her first recipe today !! I'm very excited about this !! She's always talking (on facebook) about amazing things she makes that I finally just sent her an invite and a suggestion that she post some of them here ! I think you all are going to be as glad as me that she took me up on the offer !!

And now ... the Prosciutto Pizza recipe !!

This was so yummy.
I started with a homemade pizza dough. I make mine in my breadmaker. Easy.

For the topping.
I used a few scoops of Roasted Garlic and Onion Pasta Sauce for the base.
Baby Spinach
Prosciutto, I used about 7 thin slices
Basil leaves, I used Greek Basil (from my garden) which has very small leaves
Kalamata Olives
Mozarella Cheese

Baked in a pre-heated 200 C oven for about 10/15 minutes til cheese was my desired level of brown ... and dough was cooked.



~~

PS ... The photo in my last post was of a lamington ...

{my bread maker pizza dough recipe}

200ml water
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon salt
2 & 1/2 cups bread flour
1 & 3/4 teaspoons yeast

put into bread maker. select 'pizza dough'. press start button.

takes 45 minutes ...

Funky Lime Pizza

I got this recipe here. If you need a recipe for the dough she's got one included. Or you could try Khrista's whole wheat dough, or my bread maker dough. (I used my bread maker dough for this, as I do for every pizza I make !)

So ... I made two pizzas with this amount of topping ... (and yeah, I modified it but not too much)

3 cloves garlic, minced

2 T extra-virgin olive oil

1 ear of corn, kernels removed

pinch of black pepper

1/2 t red pepper flakes (I just put this on the table for people to sprinkle as wanted)

1 lb Mozzarella, shredded

1/2 onion, thinly sliced

zucchini, thinly sliced

feta cheese, crumbled

fresh cilantro (coriander) leaves, coarsely chopped

juice of 1 lime

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. (she did a bunch of tricky stuff with the pizza baking process, i prefer simple so didn't do any of that ... you should go check out her way if you like tricky ... )

In a small bowl, combine the garlic and olive oil and set aside.

In a bowl, toss the corn kernels with the black pepper and red pepper.

Scatter half of the Mozzarella over the pizzas, leaving a 1/2" rim. Place the onion over the cheese and the zucchini over the onion. Scatter the remaining Mozzarella over the zucchini. Sprinkle with the feta and the corn.

Bake for about 8 minutes then swap which rack the pizzas are on. Bake for another 5 - 8 minutes, til cheese is done to your liking ! I like it a bit brown ...

Immediately after removing the pizza from the oven, brush the garlic oil onto the rim, squeeze the lime juice over the top and garnish with the cilantro.

This method of brushing with the olive oil left the garlic a bit raw for our tastes. Next time, I think I will add the garlic to the pizza itself and just brush with plain olive oil at the end ...

Menu Plan Monday - Bonnie - Edition 8

Ya'll KNOW we had pizza for dinner Friday night. We tried Pam's version of my asparagus pizza (it's mine not her's pictured here). We had friends join us for pizza and movie night this week so I wasn't takin' food photos !!

Plans to go to the beach Saturday had me preparing this vegetarian lasagna in the afternoon so I could just pop it in the oven when we got home. Unfortunately, when we got home there was no power !! Still none by time to eat dinner ... so, we went out.

Sunday was a crazy day around here ... dinner was sporadic. Grab a bite and run. The kids had hot chips at the cafe after church. Rory had a milkshake and some of those chips. I had a Sprite and called it good. Actually, I had a piece of the leftover pizza about 4:00 and that was pretty filling !

Monday - tonight - we will FINALLY eat the lasagna !!! I'll be posting the recipe later in the week.

Remember when I made a bunch of spaghetti sauce and chili and froze them ? We'll be having spaghetti Tuesday night and chili Thursday night.

Out of order, but that just leaves us with Wednesday since my menu's start on Fridays. We'll be having Lemon Baked Cod and trying Khris's lemon spaghetti. (her photo shown here)

And that's what we're havin' . What' s on the menu at your place this week ? Pop over to Laura's place and share ...