fifteenth week of pizzas!

fifteen weeks of pizza creations! and we are still going strong. the holiday brings all of our friends back to the fox valley. it's a week we alway look forward to immensely. what not a better way than to show them our love than making a few pizzas for them...

i ended up making three pizzas, though the last one i forgot to snap a picture of before it was snatched up and eaten.

1st one in the oven was a tomato and basil pizza with mozzarella

2nd one in was a mushroom, feta, kalamata olive, artichoke heart, and tomato

3rd was pepperoni with mushrooms (sadly, no picture...sigh).

all of them were exceptionally flavorful...though i should have added sliced garlic to the tomato and basil pizza, but remembered after the pizza was cooked. the mediterranean themed pizza was the hit of the night. perfect crust, excellent ratio of flavors. i think it was consumed the fastest.

a wonderful first holiday season was had by the vandenbergs in our new home. we hope to make this a tradition of pizza over christmas time.

traditional pizza

after doing a little research on pizzas, i discovered the original way pizzas were created. little personal sized crusts, fried in a hot pan for a couple of seconds on each side, then topped with sauce and mozzarella and baked until the cheese is melted. absolutely delicious. so simple and tastey. we even had one left over that i ate the next day for dinner.

not the best...

early last week i made a late night pizza (i had a late lunch). i started making the dough just after nine pm and didn't eat 'til after ten. it felt weird, but i was hungry, and decided to make a pizza while i had the opportunity.

i sauteed (just for a couple of minutes) up some broccoli, mushrooms, sun-dried tomatoes, and red peppers. then mixed some pesto that i had made this summer in with my red sauce. this was the tastiest part of the pizza. for some reason, my taste buds don't really care for sun-dried tomatoes. in the end, i ended up picking off most of them. but i will try them again, just not on a pizza. i also sliced some fresh garlic and added to the top of the pizza so that it gets cooked perfectly...

using fresh mozzarella, i put the pizza together and baked at 425. the pictures make it look delicious; however, i didn't particularly care for this pizza.

cream cheese pear and brown sugar glazed bacon with feta pizza

wowwy, i think we have a winner this week. my wonderful and ever thoughtful friend, sarah boss of my hart photocopied me a recipe. I woke up to find it on our dinning room table. i was so excited about the combination of flavors i had to make it for dinner.

i tweaked the recipe a little bit by making my own crust, and using red onions instead of green onions...but basically this is the recipe. it also called for pecans but we opted out, as neither of us care for that nut.

i made a crust and baked it by itself...then...

place 6 strips of bacon on some aluminum foil and place on a baking sheet

1/4 c packed brown sugar and a pinch 'er two of cayenne pepper

mix those two together and generously cover the bacon and bake at 400 until crispy

meanwhile take 8 0z of cream cheese and let it soften a bit, chop up some onions and mix with the cream cheese, sprinkle with some fresh ground black pepper

slice up a pear

after the crust has baked, spread the cream cheese mixture on top of the crust

crumble the bacon and put on pizza

add the pear slices

and top off with wonderful feta

bake 'til the pizza is just slightly browned and the pears are cooked.

you will never be the same, i promise.

thank you dear sarah, i will make this for you, i SWEAR.

a tasty little treat...

our roommate inspired me to make a taco pizza, and rather than he beat me to the punch, i made one before he could make one for us. and i didn't even share it with him. (hahahaha, evil, i know.) i browned about a pound of hamburger and added a full packet of taco seasoning. meanwhile, i made the crust as per usual, and baked it all by its lonesome in the oven.

i cut up some tomatoes, green peppers, spinach, and shredded some local cheddar cheese. sliced a deliciously ripe avocado.

i patiently waited for the crust to bake to perfection, and took it out of the oven. i layered the hamburger, cheese, tomatoes, green peppers, and the chopped spinach and threw it back in the oven.

after the cheese got a little melty and the spinach wilted, i pulled it out of the oven and topped the pizza off with the sliced avocado and a few dollops of sour cream, and cut away!

it was pretty good, todd gave it a 9 outta 10. leftovers weren't as delicious (i ate them cold).

a couple of weeks ago my sister had given me some pizza recipes that she lovingly tore out of a magazine. the recipes looked delicious so i had to try one out for the week's pizza. sweet and sour chicken pizza. i marinated slices of chicken in a sweet and sour sauce, pan cooked it and set it aside.

we also added some pineapple, feta, and slices of red onion. i can say that it wasn't my favorite, nor was it todd's.

this past week i've made a few trips to wonderful jacobs meat market, picking up a rather large turkey, and then to purchase some pepperoni. i always forget how i love going into that store, even when i was a kid. todd's idea for this week's pizza was a pepper jack cheese with pepperoni. i honestly can say that i cannot recall the last time i ate pepperoni. jacobs does a nice job on their pepperoni. except you have to buy the whole log of pepperoni, but the woman that helped me, broke the rules and just gave me enough to top a pizza! i don't know what i would have done with the left over had i bought the whole thing. sheesh.

the pizza was really good. but for some reason, this time around the crust didn't get as cripsy on the bottom as it normally does. i baked it at the same temperature as usual...i may have made the crust a little more moist than usual.

a little far behind

last week i had to do double time of pizza making...my days got away from me...and my pizza making went a long with it. so the week before last week's pizza was a spinach and feta with red sauce and white big ol' slices of white onions.

it was really good. almost better than if it were made with a white sauce. well, actually, when i think of spinach and feta pizza i think of sal's pizza's spinach and feta. at one point, i think i may have come close to overdosing on that variety, and so that variety of spinach and feta no longer sits well with me. too much white sauce equals boring blahness...there was no depth.

spinach and feta:

chop fresh spinach

crumble feta (amount is determined by your taste)

slice up some onions

slice up some fresh mozzarella

make a red sauce

working quickly, place all ingredients on pizza crust, bake between 400-425 degrees until cheese

i've also been having difficulty with the pizza sticking to the pizza peel. so the past two weeks i have had some misshaped pizzas. but the taste was still there, for sure!

last week's pizza was supposed to be up to the mister to figure out ingredients. well, we had some red, orange, and green peppers lying around..."Lets just do a pepper pizza!!!"

so, we did. only i made it with [drum roll please] a stuffed crust!!! on a whim, i purchased some string cheese at the grocery last week. what an easy and delicious way to stuff a crust! i then seasoned the crust with olive oil, garlic powder, salt, and oregano...brushed it on to the crust before baking.

wow! seriously, i thought it was pretty damn tasty, to say the least.

on the menu is a sweet and sour chicken pizza.....

the best so far...?

I decided that I wanted to think outside of the (pizza) box and try something completely and entirely new. I don't even recall when or where I created this little beauty, perhaps on my drive to and fro school. Todd gave it a 9.25(!), and as for myself, I think this weeks pizza was pretty up there.

Picture this, a homemade baked crust with nothing but olive oil drizzled on top of it. While that crust is baking to perfection, there is a head of garlic roasting in olive oil. On the counter awaiting its baked crust, spring mix (the good organic kind), sliced grape tomatoes, grated Romano cheese. On the stove top, balsamic vinegar reducing to a sweetened, nearly syrup. The garlic: caramelized, fragrant, soft, perfect.

Out comes the bubbly crust... working quickly I mashed the garlic, and spread it over the crust. I then added the spring mix, cheese, and tomatoes. Finally, I drizzled the balsamic vinegar over the whole pizza.

Oh me oh my...what a pizza!

saturday night pizza

I have always wanted to designate a pizza night of the week. Friday seems cliche, as does Saturday; however, I was short on time all this week (this seems to be a common theme as of late....school rules my life at times) and before I knew it, Saturday was nipping at my heels.

So, I made a pizza. I felt like Old Mother Hubbard whose cupboard was bare. We only had some mushrooms and one tomato left from our groceries. I whipped up a sauce (same recipe as always) and made a crust (same recipe, as always) and threw her in the oven.

Todd gave it an 8.5, "this is the best pizza by far!" I actually made two pizzas....one on the stone and one on a baking sheet that turned out super thin crust and crispy (!).

It's amazing what results when you have limited resources....kinda like life sometimes.

sauceless pizza

My first attempt, ever, of a sauceless pizza! It was so delicious, no lies. Gorgonzola cheese with sliced garlic, the last of the grape tomatoes, walnuts and olive oil.

As I progress into this pizza commitment, I'm realizing some techniques that I had been missing before. Though I'm still not completely satisfied with my crust (and regretfully I've not tried that new crust, I know, I know, I need to get on that). But just little secrets that I've discovered make this little weekly adventure more adventurous, and taste wonderful.

Next week (the 18th) the mister and I are celebrating two years of marriage. I have plans for a special pizza for him...onions galore.

A few photos; next time I plan on placing the cheese all the way to the end of the crust.

our first pizza dinner guests

todd's parents came over this wednesday night to join us for dinner. i purchase some ground pork from jacobs meat market and found a recipe to guide me in flavoring the meat for sausage.

the crust turned out super thin and pretty firm as well (still not the crust recipe i've been meaning to try). i threw some sliced red onions on as well.

sausage and onion pizza

the vandenbergs ate it up right quick

instead of just one pizza, i also made a simple grape tomato with basil....i guess todd and i ate ours really fast as well. so can i take off one week of the 52 because i made two different pizzas?? i used up the last of sarah's famous pizza sauce....i will have to perfect mine.

tomato and fresh basil......simple and delicious

fifty more to go. . .

pizza number two was a success! four cheese with homemade almond pesto and white sauce. it turned out to be super rich, and i could only muster enough room for 2 pieces. i dined alone will the mister slept in order to be ready to work at 12 am. but he ate a cold piece and said he couldn't rate it because it was not fresh and hot. (maybe he was being nice, as i didn't particularly care for this pizza.) i'm afraid to say this, but maybe too much garlic from the pesto and white sauce. i never thought those words would come out of my mouth, but i've got indigestion like you wouldn't believe.

four cheese pizza:

crust from scratch (still not the recipe i've been meaning to use; having two exams this week is kicking my rear!)

almond pesto

white sauce

fresh mozzarella

grated romano

cheddar

and a bit of feta

one and counting

so, it's over and done with. i made my first pizza of this whole year long commitment. todd kept saying, "what are you going to name this pizza?" i couldn't think of a name, so i'll just list the ingredients. though my first failure of this whole experiment was not making the new crust recipe that i found online....i just didn't have the time. next time.

finely chopped artichoke,

grape tomatoes,

a little red onion,

feta,

mozzarella,

a new homemade sauce from sarah b.

after it was finished baking, i added some fresh basil and parmesan cheese.

todd rated it a 7.5, "what, i can't give you a ten on your first pizza." i should've said it wasn't my first pizza.

we enjoyed a side salad as well, with red leaf lettuce, grape tomatoes, and some parmesan cheese....

it is my only hope that these fifty two pizzas will inspire and create, and hopefully even challenge us as well. and of course increase with taste and interest.

the beginning is near

we've decided our first week of pizza making will ensue this wednesday. i've a new recipe for a crust that will ferment and blossom in the fridge overnight. my friend sarah made some pizza sauce with tomatoes from her mom's garden, and it smells so garlicy good. can't wait to use it. so i think we'll just start it at that, new crust, and new sauce will ring in week one of pizza.