Pizza Night

Ever since Jessica and I took that Pizza class at Kitchen Conservatory, pizza has become a favorite meal at our house.  We've done pizza night a few times now and have been having so much fun coming up with new ingredients and topping ideas.  (Bit of advice: there is a reason people on '80's movies asked for pizza with NO anchovies.  Despite how much we wanted them to work (salty fish = yum) they did not.)  And bonus points to Pizza Night for actually getting my husband involved in the cooking!  While I make the dough, he helps with preparing all the toppings and ingredients (slices the mozarella, roasts the red pepper, cooks the chicken, etc.).  It's really fun to work together on a pizza and be able to enjoy it hot and fresh right out of the oven.   

Here's how we do things:  I make the dough (or you can buy pre-made dough in the bag at Trader Joe's.  Jessica swears it's just as good).  I usually double the recipe, which gives you 4 personal-sized pizzas.  While it's rising, Ryan and I prepare the topping ingredients.  It really helps to have everything completely ready before you start.  Each pizza only needs 10 minutes to cook, so the process goes pretty quickly.  This might not be the best way to do things, but we make one pizza at a time (b/c we only have one pizza stone) and eat it hot when it comes out.  We end up devouring the first pizza because we're starving.  By the time we get to the 4th pizza, we're so damn full we can't possibly eat another bite.  But we've discovered that the pizza is REALLY good left-over the next day!  So we definitely don't mind having too much (and usually fight about who gets to take it to work for lunch). 

Here's the dough rising.  I have the recipe at home, so if you want it, just email me and let me know. 

Tonight's four pizzas are the following:

1. Roasted red pepper, spinach and goat cheese pizza

2. BBQ chicken pizza

3. Turkey sausage, mushroom and mozarella pizza

4. Chicken, tomato and anchovy pizza

First thing to do, get all your ingredients ready!

Grill the chicken.

Chop and saute your red onions.

Saute your mushrooms.

Chop (or slice) your mozarella.

Roast your red peppers.

Check out Christine at Fresh Local and Best's recent post for a great tutorial on how to roast red peppers,

Slice them up!

And prepare your dough.

Put your dough on a peeler (covered with cornmeal so the dough doesn't stick) and dress your pizza.

This is the BBQ chicken pizza.  First we add BBQ sauce.

Then add your sauted red onions.

Then the chicken.  Topped with a little more BBQ sauce. 

We used Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ sauce and it was amazing!

Pop it in the oven for 10 minutes.

And ta-da!

I think the Pioneer Woman adds some cilantro to hers (which would be amazing but I didn't have any).

Ryan made a turkey sausage, mushroom and mozarella pizza.

Yum!  I forgot to get a picture of this one when it came out of the oven (probably because we ate it so quickly). 

But I did get a picture of the chicken and anchovy pizza!  I know you all want to see this one.

It doesn't look that bad...

But it kinda was.  Just trust me on this one.

And lastly, we had the roasted red pepper, spinach and goat cheese pizza. 

It's kinda weird shaped, but that gives it personality, don't you think?

This pizza just might be my favorite.  You just can't go wrong with goat cheese. 

Are you hungry yet? 

What's your favorite type of pizza? 

Anyone have any interesting toppings or combinations that we should try?