Pizza Night!

Pizza. It's a food of love as one of the Food Network celebrity chefs would say. Good old fashioned comfort food. And tonight, it's home made! I got the idea from my friend Mike who said he was making pizza with his wife, so thanks Mike.

I stopped in to Trader Joe's on my way home from work to pick up all the fixin's. I bought a bag of ready made pizza dough ($.99) from the refrigerated case, a block of Manchego cheese ($5.19), a package of pepperoni ($2.69), a package of grilled chicken strips ($5.69), and a jar of Trader Giotti's Pizza Sauce ($1.89). I already had Pecorino Romano cheese at home as well as dried oregano and crushed red pepper. This was going to be some good pizza and all for $16.45, about the priced you'd pay for one pizza at a fancy pizza place.

One package of dough is enough for two good sized thin crust pizzas. I removed the dough from the bag - make sure you flour your hands or the dough will stick to them - and placed it on my floured Boos board. Using my pastry scraper I divided the dough in half and began to work each half into a flat shape for the pizza. If the dough is cold, as mine was, it will need to rest and warm up before you'll be able to really stretch the dough. When cold, the dough will be very elastic and won't retain it's stretched shape very well.

Once the dough has rested for about ten minutes, I stretched it out using my knuckles underneath the dough. If you use your finger tips, you're likely to tear the dough or poke a finger through. So I stretched out my dough and placed it on our pizza peel that I dusted with cornmeal; the cornmeal will help the pizza slide off the peel and onto the pizza stone in the oven. I then spread a good coating of Trader Giotti's Pizza Sauce on the dough. J wanted to help make the pizza so she spread about a cup of shredded Manchego cheese, half a cup of grated Pecorino Romano, a healthy dose of dried oregano, crushed red pepper and freshly ground black pepper. Doesn't this pizza look great already?!

Next, J added some sliced pepperoni and pieces of grilled chicken,

and into a 450 degree oven for twelve minutes. Wow this pizza looks great!

While pizza number one (above) was in the oven, I worked on pizza number two. I used the same cheese and spice blend, but made this pizza half pepperoni and half grilled chicken, just to mix things up.

Yummy pizza on a cold Friday night. It doesn't get much better than this!