Pizza night

My sister Jenna is super cool and was recently accepted to a graduate program at Columbia University in my dream city of New York, New York. Since I'm going to cry and miss her (and be jealous) when she leaves in a short month, we had a pizza/movie night to bond and stuff. 

We watched ye olde Wolverine movie, not that new fancy one that came out last year, and we commented on his hair throughout the movie. Have you ever noticed those luscious wings he's got goin on? Now you will.

Since I'm scared of making pizza without a pizza stone, we made this braided pizza thing instead of real pizza:

Which was a good life choice. It was nearly the perfect dinner, with its only flaw being the fact that our apartment was roasting hot for the rest of the evening, which prevented us from making brownies afterward. I had to eat ice cream instead, which was just such a bummer.

What was really magical about this recipe, though, was that it marked the first time in my life that I have downright enjoyed pepperoni. I think there's something to be said for the higher bread-to-meat ratio in this twisted pizza form. However, it doesn't eliminate the pepperoni flavor, because Joseph (who loves pepperoni enough to want it on burritos) liked this meal as well. Best of both worlds!

Side dish recommendation for this: roasted veggies. I roasted some cauliflower and green pepper earlier in the day and then we just microwaved them at dinner time. A green salad would also be nice, I suppose.

So how'd we make it? I mostly followed this idea as my recipe, but I made my own pizza dough and sauce. I hate grocery shopping enough that making things from scratch is easier than running to the store for convenience items, and bonus: it's also usually tastier/cheaper. Here's how it all went down!

METHOD

1) Make pizza dough. Make pizza sauce while dough rests for 10 minutes.
2) Preheat your oven to 400 degrees (and start blasting your air conditioner).
3) Roll out pizza dough onto a greased cookie sheet. Smear pizza sauce down the center of the dough vertically. Pile that sauce with shredded mozzarella, but save some of your total cheese supply for later. Arrange your pizza toppings atop that cheese. Add the rest of your cheese atop them toppings.
4) Cut diagonal strips as shown here (picture from original inspiration recipe). Fold strips around your pizza innards, alternating to get it to look braided. We didn't really make a science out of this, and it still looked good, so do what floats your boat.
5) Brush some olive oil all over the top. You don't need a ton, though. Then sprinkle garlic salt, Parmesan cheese, and those magical Italian herbs and spices all over the top of your masterpiece.
6) Bake for about 20 minutes.

Yields 4 servings.

RECIPES AND DETAILS

Pizza dough:
1 1/4 cup warm water
1 tablespoon yeast
2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
3-4 cups flour (I only used 3)

Dissolve yeast in warm water. Add sugar, salt and 3 cups flour. Mix it up. If it needs more flour, add some. Knead in the mixer for about 3 minutes (double if doing it by hand). Let it rest for 10 minutes. Done.


Pizza sauce:
1 can (8 oz) tomato sauce
dried basil
dried oregano
garlic powder
paprika
any other Italian spice you want

Mix everything together in a bowl. If you want amounts for those spices, I'd estimate that we added about 1/2 tablespoon each of basil and oregano, and then maybe half of that for the garlic powder, and not very much paprika? The paprika was just there because we were looking to this recipe for ideas, but I don't really know what the paprika added in the end, so take it or leave it. Done.


Other stuff you'll need:
shredded mozzarella (about 2 cups)
pizza toppings! 
olive oil
garlic salt
Parmesan cheese
this shaker (optional, I guess, but don't skip it.) (so...not optional)




Cost: $7.32 unless your pepperoni is on sale (about $1.80 per serving)
Prep time: 45 minutes
Yum factor: 10