#115 One night, five different vegetable pizzas

 

Once you learn how to make your own pizza dough from scratch, the possibilities are endless. For very little cost, you can make any pizza that you want, even five different ones in one night! It's very quick and easy to do, even for a new baker like me.  Pizza dough keeps well in the fridge,  we had some uncooked dough that was a few days old so I decided  to experiment with different vegetables on mini pizza crusts,  the best tasting one will be made into a large pizza on the next pizza night. So I gathered all the vegetables that I had in the fridge, spinach, cherry tomatoes, arugula, onions, garlic, mushrooms and bell peppers. I also had some fresh and shredded mozarella cheese from the previous weekend, so I cut it into small slices and then joyfully worked on the dough- flattening and forming it is our favorite portion in the whole pizza making.

For our pizza dough, we used this recipe

FOR THE PIZZA SAUCE:

Ingredients:

8 ounces organic tomato sauce
24 pieces of sugar plum tomatoes (or cherry tomatoes)
4 pieces of large fresh basil leaves
6 pieces of fresh oregano leaves
1 small onion
1 small garlic clove
2 pieces of mint
1 tablespoon water
3 pieces of brown mushrooms
salt and pepper to taste

Directions: 

1. In a food processor, blend sauce recipes until smooth, best if made in advance and chilled for 1 hour.

 

Pizza #1:

Pizza dough, pizza sauce, fresh mozzarella cheese. Sprinkled with fresh baby spinach leaves and fresh basil before serving.

Pizza #2:

Pizza dough, pizza sauce, fresh mozzarella cheese, fresh halved cherry tomatoes. Sprinkled with fresh basil on top before serving.

Pizza #3:

Pizza dough, pizza sauce, fresh mozzarella cheese, red onions, sliced olives and marinated artichokes.

Pizza #4:

Pizza dough, pizza sauce, fresh mozzarella cheese, sautéed garlic, red bell peppers, then topped with sliced fresh basil.

Pizza #5:

Pizza dough, pizza sauce, fresh mozzarella cheese, sautéed garlic, sautéed mushrooms in olive oil seasoned with salt and pepper, olives, artichokes, then topped with sliced fresh basil and arugula  before serving.

So, which one won? Hmm.. I love all of the above! While it is simpler to just mix all the vegetables  in one big crust, this was fun to make and eat. The smallest pizza in the group was big enough to divide into 3 slices, so it was really fun to have small sizes of 5 different kinds of vegetable pizza. All five won, so there will soon be another mini pizza night, I'll make it exactly like this but will most probably add more mini crusts topped with grilled meats and pineapples. :)