Sunday, January 8, 2012

Homebaked Pizza: PestoRomaBella

The TJ's pizza dough on floured surface, ready for Bethany

Adding the fresh mozzarella

Dotting the top with TJ's Pesto, Bethany's idea!!!

Voila! Homebaked pizza with homemade honey lemonade!
I have a thing for pizza. I assure you it has nothing to do with the fact that I'm from New York...and more related to the fact I love yummy things. So, after one of my housemates last year Megan made a pizza, I was totally inspired to do the same. I chanced upon Trader Joe's and decided that the best thing to do was buy some garlic herb pizza dough. What happened next pretty much changed my life.

I had fresh mozzarella, baby bellas, a roma tomato, and pesto on hand. Obvi it clicked: these would be toppings for an insanely good homebaked pizza. I don't deserve to call it homemade since Trader Joe made the dough....but it was baked here in my house and that should count for something, right? PS it's basically against my food mantra to eat out of a box or cook out of one for that matter, but sometimes rules are made to be...adjusted for special cases like awesome premade pizza dough. Ok, enough of the justification game- on to the recipe.

Here is it. I invited my friend Bethany over to make this pizza with me so we could eat, drink (lemonade) and be merry. Thank you for all your help if you see this Bethany!

Homebaked Pizza: PestoRomaBella (I tried to be cool)
-ball of pizza dough, enough for 12 inch round
-1/4 cup of all purpose flour
-olive oil (just have the bottle around....)
-a block of fresh mozzarella (8 oz), sliced
-a roma tomato, sliced
-three small to mid sized portabella mushrooms, sliced
-3+1 tablespoons of pesto

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees (F) and sprinkle some flour on a clean surface, where you'll knead the dough. Knead the dough till it's not so sticky anymore- which you'll be grateful for when you roll it out. Roll out the dough with a rolling pin (seriously, its just one of those things that doesn't seem necessary, but is totally necessary when no other substitute will do) on the floured surface. I ended up rolling it out into a rectangular shape, so it would fit on a cookie sheet.
2. Transfer flattened/rolled out dough onto a cookie sheet. I like to grease the bottom with olive oil, since it'll prevent sticking mishaps and help the dough brown on the bottom. Win.
3. Spread 3 tablespoons of pesto onto the dough. Cover the dough with cheese, tomato/mushroom slices, and dot some pesto on the top.
4. Bake the pizza at 425 for 12-20 minutes or until crust is nice and brown/crisp (if you like the crust this way..either way it needs to be cooked through). The range is big, I know, but it all depends on how thinly you rolled out the dough in the first place. NOTE: if you want to bake the pizza on the oven rack or on a pizza stone (lucky you, owning a pizza stone!), transfer the assembled pizza onto the rack/stone and bake from there.
5. Suggestions: serve with a nice tall glass of honey lemonade. The acidity helps cut through the richness of the cheesy goo.

missing real brick oven pizza,
HK

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