Mini Deep-Dish Pizzas

Recipe from my new favorite cookbook magazine, Everyday Food, a Martha Stewart magazine. This recipe is perfect for appetizers at a party or a fun night with kids. You can add different toppings to each "muffin" for a variety of pizzas! Here's how it works:

Ingredients:

• Olive oil for muffin pan
• all-purpose flour, for rolling
• 1/2 pound homemade or store-bought pizza dough in 12 pieces (I made my own dough with my breadmaker!! and it worked!!)
• coarse salt and ground pepper
• 1/2 cup shredded mozzarella
• pizza sauce (I made my own)
• desired toppings (I used pineapple, artichoke hearts, red bell pepper, tomatoes, and mushrooms)

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Lightly brush muffin pan with oil. On a lightly floured workspace, roll out dough pieces to rounds that fit the muffin cups. Fill each cup with 1 round, gently pressing dough into bottom and sides of cup. Season with salt and pepper.

Add about a tablespoon of sauce to bottom of each dough cup. Add cheese, and then toppings. Bake until dough is golden brown and crisp, 12 minutes. Let cool 2 minutes before removing from cups. Serve and enjoy!

Homemade Pizza

Not surprisingly, pizza is one of our favorite foods. We order out from a local pizza parlor, Paisanos regularly, and Dominos is our staple pizza place for a quick and inexpensive dinner. But every now and then I make pizza at home!

Dough: I use either Pilsbury pizza crust or Trader Joe's pizza crust. And for my next pizza, I am going to try making pizza dough from scratch with my bread maker.

Sauce: I make my own sauce using a small can of tomato paste, canned tomato sauce (with no seasoning) and petite diced tomatoes (either fresh or canned, whatever you have on hand). I mix the sauces together in a small bowl, and add oregano, ground pepper, garlic salt, basil, and some crushed red pepper.

Cheese: I use shredded mozzarella either from an already shredded bag or fresh mozzarella that I shred myself. I also sprinkle with parmesan cheese.

Toppings: My favorite toppings are artichoke heart, mushrooms, and pineapple chunks. But you can add whatever you want. Pepperoni, bell pepper, tomatoes, already cooked chicken, sausage, whatever you can imagine! 

I prepare the dough on a non-stick baking sheet sprinkled with corn meal so that the pizza doesn't stick to it. I also sprinkle the cornmeal on top of the dough to give it a little crunch! Meanwhile, I prepare my pizza stone in the oven at 450 for about 15 minutes. I add the sauce, cheese, and toppings to the dough and then transfer the pizza to the pizza stone from the baking sheet. This can be tricky but if you used enough corn meal on the baking sheet, it should slide off pretty easy. 

Cook the pizza for about 15 minutes or whatever the dough instructions say.

Slice and enjoy!!