Sunday, February 8, 2009

one recipe, so many possibilities

100_2305 Pizza dough is the best when it comes to stretching your food dollar and its a lot of fun too!  With just this one whole wheat pizza dough recipe, which I first featured here, when we made calzones, we made 5 pizzas this time around!  Making your own pizza is great too because you can put pretty much any kind of topping you want on there and experiment with other ingredients or leftovers that you need to get rid of.

For 4 of the pizzas we used:

  • pasta sauce from TJ’s
  • sautéed in a pan until golden – 3 chicken sausage links, 2 small cartons of crimini mushrooms, 8 oz of chopped spinach (about half a bag), 2 shredded carrots, garlic powder, and italian seasoning.
  • Couple of handfuls of mozzarella cheese and sprinkling of Parmesan

For the last pizza we used:

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Leftover lentil daal from this recipe as the sauce

Shredded mozzarella and a sprinkling of garam masala

 

This last one may sound weird, but it tasted really good!  Any variation of pizza is only limited by your imagination and the ingredients you have on hand.  I did have some canned pumpkin in the fridge, but decided I might try that one next time. 

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Chris is brave when it comes to throwing the pizza dough in the air.  I’m too scared I’m going to drop it!

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Another great thing about pizza is that we had a little leftover from the filling, so I decided to put it into an omelet the next morning.  If you don’t have an omelet pan like this one, it is really the best pan ever!!  For those of us (uh . em . . me), who haven’t really mastered the art of big omelets with just a regular pan, this is the best invention.  It was actually my step dad’s pan first and for the longest time when I would come home to visit I wanted to secretly steal it, but he would always say I was crazy!  Then one visit he said it was all mine and I was so excited.  All you do is . . . 

  • Whisk 3-4 eggs and season with your favorite spices
  • Pour it evenly into each side of the pan sprayed with pam
  • Top each side with your favorite omelet fillings and some cheese
  • Let it get nice and set, flip the pan to close, then flip one more time
  • Voila! you have a big fluffy omelet that comes out perfect every time!  It is quite big, so Chris and I split it.

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This was a hearty breakfast with the good quality protein and kept me feeling full till lunch time!

 

What are your favorite pizza toppings?

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

i love the authentic dough-in-the-air method!
and i'm also a fan of all your details about how to use the leftovers -- i love seeing good food go to good use :-)

kristen :) said...

thanks for your comment! We love leftovers and trying to find different ways to use them to stretch the ever dwindling food dollar these days!

-kristen

Anonymous said...

wow all of those pizzas look so good!
i love broccoli on my pizza :)

Dena said...

I just came across your blog and love it! I usually make my pizzas with pesto sauce, spinach and tomatoes, but I'm always looking for new and interesting ideas. All of your toppings sound great!

kristen :) said...

Thanks for your comment Dena! I LOVE pesto on my pizza too, yum! I think I could probably eat pesto on anything.

-kristen