roasted broccoli and garlic white pizza

I LOVE this savory garlicky pizza!

Ingredients:
– 1 pizza crust
– 1 batch of white sauce from scratch or alfredo from a jar
– roasted broccoli and garlic
– shredded cheese
– ricotta

Make a batch of your favorite pizza crust. I recommend Kenji’s New York style pizza crust. It’s great on a super thin-crust, too. Of course, you could also use a pre-made crust from the store!

Preheat oven to 500F, or whatever your oven’s highest setting is.

Roast your favorite veggies. I love whole roasted cloves of garlic and broccoli for this pizza. You can add anything from roasted sliced sweet potatoes to caramelized onions! I also think this would be incredible topped with “garlic chips” (cloves of garlic sliced thin and roasted on super high heat til crispy). I like to toss everything in olive oil, and roast everything on a SUPER high heat for this pizza (think 425). That leaves the florets crispy like broccoli chips, while the bits of stem stay a little crunchy. Very texturally interesting and amazing on a pizza. If you want it even healthier, though, chisel and fork just barely cooks the broccoli in a skillet, so it retains its raw crunch.

Start a white sauce. You can make a simple white sauce in five minutes flat. You can also use alfredo from a jar. Season to taste with whatever you like. I like garlic powder, cayenne, a pinch of oregano, and tons of black pepper with this pizza.

Build your pizza! Get the crust ready, then top with sauce. Shred a bunch of cheese over that. I like brick mozzarella, but any melty cheese will work. You can even mix in a little sharp cheddar for that “broccoli-cheddar soup” taste!

Top with glops of ricotta. (That’s fun to say out loud.) If you want to go super-fancy, top with spinach and basil leaves, fresh grated parmesan, maybe even a sliced cherry tomato or two or some crumbled bacon. This pizza really doesn’t need meat, though!

Bake at your oven’s highest heat until the cheese starts to brown in spots.

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recipe by chisel and fork – I highly recommend you click this link and admire those beautiful photos of this pizza!

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My favorite homemade pizzas on Earth are:
1. a caramelized onion and lemon cream sauce pizza,
2. a sausage, bleu cheese, and caramelized onion pizza,
3. THIS broccoli and ricotta pizza!

It’s a real crowd-pleaser.

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caramelized onion pizza with lemon cream sauce

pizza with lemon pepper cream sauce

Do you like food that is inexpensive to make, but looks and tastes like a million bucks? Do you like sweet and sour? This will be your new favorite pizza. I posted a vegan version way back in 2012, but this is the original. This pizza is a super affordable recipe that is easy to adapt for vegetarians or meat eaters.

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Preheat oven as high as it will go (500F on my oven).

CRUST:
any pizza crust. you can buy one pre-made from the grocery store, use toasted leftover french bread, or make an unbelievably good New York style pizza crust from scratch.

LEMON CREAM SAUCE:
Make a simple bechamel. Add 2T butter to a saucepan. When melted, add 2T flour. Stir constantly until the mixture starts to smell toasty. Add milk, about a cup and a half. Cook til a bit thicker. It will continue to thicken as it cools.
When almost thick, add just a little lemon zest. Turn off heat and add tons of fresh lemon juice, black pepper, and salt to taste. Optional: add a pinch of nutmeg, and/or a pinch of orange zest.

ONIONS:
Slice onions super-thin. Saute over medium-low heat for longer than seems possible, stirring often.

(If you like, adding a splash of apple cider vinegar and honey towards the end makes them taste like candy.)

Optional: add leftover roasted vegetables like broccoli or

FOR MEAT EATERS:
Add slices of prosciutto or, really, any meat. You can use ham for a Canadian bacon flavor, or crumbled bacon or sausage.

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Top crust with sauce and a mild white cheese, like brick mozzarella.
Add onions and other optional toppings.
Bake.

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One of the best pizzas of all-time. Based on a retired menu item at Bertucci’s: the Nolio pizza.
Adapted by friedsig.

new york style pizza crust

Without question my favorite pizza crust recipe of all-time.

22 1/2 ounces (about 4 1/2 cups) bread flour, plus more for dusting
1 1/2 tablespoons sugar
.35 ounces kosher salt (about 3 teaspoons)
2 teaspoons instant yeast
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
15 ounces lukewarm water

recipe by Kenji @ serious eats

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The recipe was written for a food processor. I’ll include my adaptations.

1. Combine flour, sugar, salt, and yeast in bowl of food processor. Pulse 3 to 4 times until incorporated. Add olive oil and water. Run food processor until mixture forms ball that rides around the bowl above the blade, about 15 seconds. Continue processing 15 seconds longer. (Or, if you’re like me and you don’t have a working food processor, just combine the ingredients with your hands in a huge bowl.)

2. Transfer dough ball to lightly floured surface and knead once or twice by hand until smooth ball is formed. It should pass the windowpane test. (If you don’t have a food processor, knead by hand until it passes the windowpane test, usually 8 to 15 minutes depending on humidity and flour used. Mine took 13 minutes.) Divide dough into three even parts and place each in a covered quart-sized deli container or in a zipper-lock freezer bag. (Each chunk fits perfectly in a big yogurt container.) Place in refrigerator and allow to rise at least one day, and up to 5.

3. At least two hours before baking, remove dough from refrigerator and shape into balls by gathering dough towards bottom and pinching shut. Flour well and place each one in a separate medium mixing bowl. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and allow to rise at warm room temperature until roughly doubled in volume.

4. 1 hour before baking, adjust oven rack with pizza stone to middle position and preheat oven to 500°F. Turn single dough ball out onto lightly flour surface. Gently press out dough into rough 8-inch circle, leaving outer 1-inch higher than the rest. Gently stretch dough by draping over knuckles into a 12 to 14-inch circle about 1/4-inch thick. Transfer to sheet pan or pizza peel/stone.

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Nothing to say about this crust except, yes, it’s perfect. I cut the salt to just one teaspoon, but otherwise followed it exactly. It definitely had a funky taste without enough salt, so maybe try 2t salt if you’re going for a lower-sodium adaptation. Otherwise, just keep it at the 3t from the original recipe.

Perfect for all your favorite pizzas.

thin crust spinach and feta pizza

Dough

1 1/2 to 2 teaspoons instant yeast*
2 teaspoons sugar
1 1/4 teaspoons salt
1 tablespoon Baker’s Special Dry Milk or nonfat dry milk
3 1/2 cups King Arthur Italian-Style Flour
3/4 cup to 3/4 cup + 2 tablespoons lukewarm water*
2 tablespoons olive oil
*Use the greater amount of yeast if you plan on baking the pizza right away; the lesser amount if you’ll refrigerate the dough first.
**Use the lesser amount of water in summer or humid conditions; the greater amount in winter or under drier conditions.

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1) In a medium-sized mixing bowl (or in a bread machine set on the dough/manual cycle), combine all of the ingredients to make a very soft dough. Knead for 5 to 7 minutes (or allow the dough to go through the bread machine’s dough cycle); the dough will gradually become smooth and cohesive, though it’ll remain quite sticky.

2) To bake pizza immediately, divide the dough in half, and let each half rest, covered, for about 15 minutes, while you preheat your oven to 450°F. To bake pizza later, transfer the dough to a lightly greased bowl. Cover the bowl, and let the dough rise for 1 hour, then refrigerate it for up to 3 days.

3) While the dough is resting or rising (or just before you’re ready to bake pizza), start preheating the oven to 450°F, and prepare your toppings.

4) For spinach and feta pizza, thaw the frozen spinach, and squeeze it in your hands (or a paper towel, or a dish towel) until it’s very dry.

5) Heat the olive oil, and sauté the spinach, salt, and garlic for a couple of minutes, just until hot and well combined.

6) Divide the dough in half. You’ll be working with one piece of dough at a time. To make two pizzas now, set one half aside, lightly covered, while you work with the first piece. To make one pizza now, one later, return half the dough to the refrigerator, covered; use it within a day or two.

7) Lightly grease two sheets of parchment paper, waxed paper, or (last choice) plastic wrap. Lightly grease one or two large rectangular pans (half sheet pans work well), and drizzle with olive oil.

8) Sandwich the dough between the two pieces of paper, greased sides touching the dough. Roll the dough super-thin; the low protein in Italian-style flour will allow you to do this pretty easily. If the dough fights back, walk away for 10 minutes, then return and roll some more.

9) Peel the paper off one side of the crust. Place the crust, paper side up, on the prepared pan. Peel off the remaining paper.

10) Top the crust with half the spinach and half the feta. Spray lightly with olive oil spray, if you have it; this will help the feta brown a bit.

11) Bake the pizza on a lower rack of the oven for 5 minutes, to brown the bottom crust. Then move it to a middle or upper-middle rack, and continue to bake for 10 to 15 minutes, or until the top of the crust is golden and the feta is beginning to brown.

12) Remove the pizza from the oven, and transfer it to a rack immediately, so the crust stays crisp. Serve hot.

13) Repeat with the remaining half of the dough. Or return to the refrigerator, along with the remaining topping ingredients, and bake later.

Yield: 2 large thin-crust pizzas, about 8 to 10 servings total.

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adapted from here

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This old-school recipe turned out great. I topped the dough with just a little melty cheese (mozarella or monterey jack would be great, but all I had was cheddar and that was fine) and a lot of crumbled feta. I sauteed fresh greens (not just spinach, but a blend with arugala – use whatever you have) with olive oil and a pinch of nutmeg and salt, and squeezed it before putting it on the pizza so it wouldn’t make the crust soggy. Then I added bits of kalamata olives and pickled Greek peppers, and a little oregano from the garden.

The crust came out perfectly crispy. Remember to roll it thin! It’s a great looking pizza. The recipe is really specific, but it works. I recommend this highly if you have dry powdered milk in your pantry!

cauliflower crust calzone (gluten-free)

makes three medium size calzones (feeds 3)

Crust

1 small head cauliflower, cut into small florets (should yield about 3 cups once processed)
½ cup / 1.7 oz / 50 gr mozzarella cheese, shredded
1 free range egg, lightly beaten
½ teaspoon fine grain sea salt
½ teaspoon oregano
¼ teaspoon ground black pepper

Filling

6 tablespoons thick tomato sauce
½ cup / 1.7 oz / 50 gr mozzarella cheese
pinch of salt

Directions

Preheat oven to 450°F (220°C) and place a rack in the middle. Grease baking sheet.
Steam and rice cauliflower.
Place the cauliflower rice in a tea towel and twist it to squeeze out as much moisture as you can (I squeezed out more than 1 cup of liquid). This is very important. The cauliflower rice needs to be dry. Otherwise you’ll end up with a mushy dough, not a crusty one.
Transfer the cauliflower rice to a mixing bowl and add egg, mozzarella, oregano, sea salt and pepper. Mix well.
Using your hands, press the mixture onto the baking sheet and shape into three discs (diameter should be about 5 inches).
Place in the oven and bake for 10 (no more no less, 10 minutes).
Remove from the oven and, working quickly, top the half of each disc with tomato sauce and mozzarella. Using a large spatula carefully lift the half of the disc without filling and fold it over the other part.
Use your fingers to push the edges of each calzone together and seal in the filling.
Bake in the oven for an additional 12 minutes.
Serve hot!

Nutrition facts

One cauliflower crust calzone yields 161 calories, 8.3 grams of fat, 8 grams of carbs and 11 grams of protein.

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recipe and nutritional facts from the iron you

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I made three big pizzas with the “dough,” and wasn’t impressed with the chewy crust that tended to stick to the cookie sheets. Weird consistency, time-consuming cleanup, and overall a lot of work for not a lot of results. I tasted a cauliflower crust pizza last year that impressed me, so I’m not sure what I did wrong. Any ideas?

vegan nolio pizza (lemon cream sauce with caramelized onions)

mix up a batch of your favorite pizza dough. (i like making pretzel dough as pizza dough. stick some olive oil in there for a more pizza-y dough.) (also, yes, it totally works gluten-free; use a combination of gf flours like rice, buckwheat, oat, teff, besan, and a starch like potato or corn.)

in a food processor or blender, whip up a raw sauce with a clove or two of fresh garlic, a few handfuls of cashews that have been soaking in water (or unsoaked if you like a chunkier consistency to your sauces), half a can of coconut milk (more if sauce is super-thick), a pinch of water, juice from half a fresh lemon, a generous amount of ground black pepper, and some smoky salt.

fry up a large onion, sliced thin, until translucent. add your favorite veggies. (we used broccoli and mushrooms, because that’s what we had, but i’ve really enjoyed just onions and raw fresh spinach in the past.)

top pizzas with sauce and veggies and bake at the highest setting on your oven (probably 500F) until crust browns on the bottom.

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it’s wonderful. caramelized onions and cream sauce is one of my favorite combinations (can you tell i’m schwabisch?) and this pizza has been one of my favorites for years. served it to a room full of (mostly) non-vegans, and this pizza got eaten faster than the traditional tomato-sauce-and-cheese pizza. if you love this pizza, try zweibelkuchen, a rich, creamy, onion pie.

gluten-free thin crust pizza dough

she spent four years tweaking her recipe!

wow!

gf friend comes to visit in three days; we’ll let you know how it turns out!

pretzel pizza

you heard right.
jeremy and i came up with this.
it’s one of my new favorite things.

recipe:
make a batch of soft pretzel dough. (1 t/package yeast dissolved in 1 1/2c water with 1 T sugar. add 3 3/4 to 4 cups all-purpose flour & knead 8ish minutes.)

smooth it into a pizza crust.

top with any sauce or toppings – jeremy made a tomato cream sauce with summer squash, roasted garlic, and fried onions. we topped it with swiss cheese.

egg wash the crust and sprinkle with coarse salt.

edit 2019: tried this again. it’s fine, but too dense for pizza crust. definitely 100% prefer the texture of new york style pizza crust.

rye pizza with roasted red peppers, garlic, and indian-spiced mustard green tomato sauce

rye crust:

Dissolve the yeast (2 packages or 4 Tbs fresh yeast) in 1/2 cup of warm water and stir in the light brown sugar. Set this mixture aside and let it stand for at least 5 minutes.

Meanwhile, sift 2c rye flour and 2 cups white flour into a large mixing bowl with the salt. Make a depression in the center of the flour and add 3 tablespoons of the oil and 1 cup of warm water. Add the yeast mixture, mixing the dough with your hands. Place flour on the kneading surface and lift the dough onto it. Knead for 8 to 10 minutes.

Place the dough in a clean bowl that has been brushed with oil. Brush the top of the dough with oil. Put a clean cloth over the bowl and put it in a warm, draft-free place for 1 1/2 hours.

to top the dough, i tore a few big mustard green leaves into pieces and added them to tomato puree seasoned with cumin, coriander, fresh parsley, and pepper and simmered for five minutes. i topped both pizzas with this sauce, added roasted red peppers and garlic, and topped one pizza with fresh mushrooms and the other with swiss cheese.

i baked them at 500 until the crusts were browned.

 

i thought they were decent, but my housemates LOVED it.