Pizza Dough Breadsticks

So a while ago we somehow ended up with absolutely nothing that we could have for lunch. We were busy working and cleaning and hadn't planned on doing groceries until the next day. We did have food but it consisted of mostly frozen meat, cereal and a couple of apples. There was no cheese, bread, deli meat or pasta. No potatoes for a quick batch of fries. What we did have was baking supplies, a bit of butter, garlic, a teeny bit of Italian seasoning and about a tablespoon of Parmesan stuck to the bottom of the tub.

We were pretty hungry (and also busy) so I didn't take any photos of the process and as you can see we already ate a bunch of what was there on the pan! These were easy to make, not much work at all, just a bit of waiting so we had some apples with almond butter while we waited and cleaned.

Just start by mixing up a batch of pizza dough. No need to let it sit and rise before you work with it this time though. I did mine 2 different ways. Jon wanted breadsticks and I wanted garlic bread so I cut the dough into 2 pieces, I half I flattened into a pie plate, the other half I rolled into sticks. Then I covered them with a clean tea towel and let them sit to rise for about 45 minutes or so.
When the time was up I turned my oven on to 400 and made my garlic butter. I just finely chopped a large garlic clove and microwaved it in about 2 tablespoons of butter. I brushed a bit over the breadsticks and then cut some grooves into the loaf of garlic bread and poured the rest over the top. Then everything got a sprinkle of Italian seasoning, Parmesan and sea salt. I popped them into the oven for about 20 minutes, the garlic bread needed an additional 5 due to the thickness.

These were sooo good even though we didn't have anything to use for a dipping sauce. We ate all of the garlic bread right away since it was so moist and garlicky, the breadsticks went with chili that we had for dinner.

I can't wait to try making these again, I'll probably just use a half batch of dough to do the garlic bread and add some cheddar on top to make garlic cheese bread.

We made pizza

don't be hatin'.

Thin crust. Pizza 1 - Roast chicken breast, red onion, orange tomato, ceasar dressing. Pizza 2 - Ham, red onion, orange pepper.
The dough was frozen since May 29th and that actually made it easier to work with.It stretched thinner than ever before and the chicken one got a bit too crispy.
There were no survivors.

30 Day Challenge- Day 15

Very busy cleaning day today so there was no recipe post. A bunch of stupid people set downtown Vancouver on fire tonight because their team lost. Embarrassing.

Today I did all of this:

• Emptied, wiped out and reorganized the fridge and freezer
• Cleaned and organized the kitchen cupboards and drawers
• Swept the floor
• Scrubbed Alice's baby tub so we can Craigslist it
• Cooked and picked apart a chicken breast for dinners this week
• Thinned my basil and pinched off the flowers, it got pureed with garlic and put into cubes in the freezer so it can easily be added into sauces
• Made a pizza roll
• I have no-knead bread on the counter, it gets to sit for at least 12 hours so we'll see how that turns out
• Put away dishes
• Alice is teething or having a growth spurt or something and wants to eat every single hour so that takes a lot of time and energy

Jon managed to:

• Watch Alice and take her to the park to play so I could get the cupboards done
• Wash dishes
• Helped with dinner
• Got a bit of work done
• Cleaned up the toys scattered everywhere

We also got the meal plan done up for about half of July so far, we'll finish it up tomorrow probably. We need to get groceries tomorrow and family is coming over so it's looking like another busy day.
 Some photos:
Pizza Roll (its a rolled up pizza) sauce on the side. It didn't rise nicely like last time but still tasted great.

The start of a "No Knead Bread" - recipe here

Thin crust pizza

[post by Holly]
Now it's time to make your pizzas using your homemade dough (see previous post).

The crust
Start heating your oven to 400 degrees.
Take your freshly prepared or thawed dough and plop it down on a lightly floured table. Get a bit of flour on both sides, you basically want to get rid of any spots that are gooey and will stick to your fingers or the table. I have no idea how to properly spread out pizza dough so I just gently pull and pat as I spread the dough and pinch together any holes that happen to form when it gets too thin in areas.
When I have each piece nearly as big as I want them I transfer them to the pans I'm using and start pulling the edges until I've filled the whole pan and left a little ridge for the crust. The crust should be pretty thin, I can usually see the pan through mine.

I don't pre-bake my crust, I just add all toppings and bake.

Toppings
On one of my pizzas I used half a can of pizza sauce, some ranch dressing, leftover chicken breast, red onion, fresh basil from my window, some chopped tomato that went mushy and would otherwise be thrown away and mozzarella. I pretty much just use leftovers on my pizza.

The other pizza had half a can of pizza sauce, hot genoa salami, red onion, a little bit of green pepper left from stirfry, cheddar and mozzarella.You can put almost anything you want on them.

Oven time
Pop them in the preheated oven at 400* for about 15 minutes, a bit longer if you like your toppings crispy or if you've put wet toppings like tomato or pineapple on.
Slice into 8.
We usually eat 6 pieces each (too much!) and have an extra 4 for lunch another day. [btw, leftover pizza is 325* for 7 minutes]

The pictures below should fill in the blanks. If there is anything you're unsure of please leave a comment.

Cheap and easy pizza dough

[post by Holly]
I couldn't believe how quick and easy it was to make my own pizza dough. This stuff is really easy to work with and freezes perfectly. My recipe makes 4 thin crust pizzas. You can also use it to make panzerottis or bread sticks. We made a giant pizza roll with it the other day to use up some deli meat that we had.

If you don't have a stand mixer you're going to have to do this with a wooden/plastic spoon and a big bowl and then knead by hand but it's not too difficult to work with, it's not as thick as bread dough.