Three Cheese Garden Pizza

This is my new found favorite pizza! I had it at a Pampered Chef party last month and have made it twice since.

Three Cheese Garden Pizza
1 pizza dough
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 small onion, diced
1 small zucchini, thinly sliced
2 roma/plum tomatoes, sliced
1 oz grated Parmesan cheese
4 oz mozzarella cheese, shredded
4 oz cheddar cheese, shredded
1-2 teaspoons Italian seasonings

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Roll or press out dough on to a lightly oiled cookie sheet, pizza pan or preferably a pizza stone. Sprinkle garlic over dough. Bake for 8 minutes. Put toppings on pizza and then cover with cheese. Sprinkle Italian seasoning on top. Bake until cheese is melted and crust is browned.

How to Make Homemade Pizza, Part 1: The Dough

Pizza dough can be as easy or as complicated as you want it to be. I've made pizza dough in 5 minutes and I've made pizza dough over a few hours. You can really use any bread recipe you like as your pizza dough. Just shorten or skip the rise unless you like a thicker, breadier crust, then by all means let that baby rise!

I think the easiest way to make pizza dough is just to use a hunk of Artisan Bread in 5 minutes A Day Master Recipe. I almost always have this dough in my fridge and in a pinch, I scoop out a hunk, roll it out and go. The crust is FABULOUS!

My current favorite dough is Camille's (nope, not me!) Best Ever Bread Dough. While this dough requires a few more ingredients and steps than most pizza doughs I've used, it is truly impossible to mess up. It also has a magnificent flavor. I love that there is no need to let the dough rise. At all. I make 4 pizzas out the recipe.

The basic pizza dough recipe below is the one that started it all for us. We still use this recipe on a regular basis and I love it.

The best thing about pizza dough is that you can freeze it! I always make a double batch (or in the Best Ever Bread Dough, I just freeze half that single batch) and freeze. I wrap the dough in plastic wrap and tuck it way back in the freezer so that it freezes quickly. I then put the frozen dough in a freezer bag. I'm not perfect at thawing it and I'm trying to pin down a precise thawing process. I like to give it enough time to thaw and warm up and rise just a bit so I know the yeast is good to go. How long that takes just depends on the time of year. But I usually let it sit out on the counter all day long.

Basic Pizza Dough
1 cup warm water
1 package dry yeast (2 1/4 teaspoons)
1 teaspoon sugar
2 Tablespoons oil (I like olive oil)
1 teaspoon salt
3 cups all purpose flour (you can substitute some whole wheat)

In a bowl, mix yeast, sugar, and water. Add in olive oil, salt and 1 1/2 cups of flour. Mix to combine. Keeping adding flour by 1/4 cups until the dough is smooth and tacky, but not too sticky. Bread dough should almost always have a little annoying stick to it. Let dough rest for 5 minutes, covered, up to 2 hours.

Do you have a favorite pizza dough? I'd love to try it out!

Margherita Pizza

I spent a summer studying in Athens while I was in law school. Around the corner from where we lived was a little pizza shop that specialized in hemp dough. I always stuck with the good old fashioned white dough made in to a margherita pizza. Margherita is still my favorite pizza.

Margherita Pizza

Favorite Pizza Dough recipe
2 roma tomatoes
1 clove garlic, diced
2 Tablespoons olive oil
1/2 teaspoon salt
Mozzarella cheese (as much or little as you like)
Parmesan cheese (as much or little as you like)
Basil, chopped fresh or dried

In a small bowl, combine diced tomatoes, garlic, olive oil, and salt. Set aside. Make your pizza dough. Pre-heat oven to 500 degrees. Spread dough on to pizza pan or peel. Brush dough with olive oil. Top dough with mozzarella cheese and then tomato mixture. Drizzle with olive oil. Bake pizza for 15-20 minutes or until cheese is bubbly. After pizza is out of the oven, sprinkle on basil and Parmesan cheese.


Enjoy!