Oh baby
What better way to start off a blog than with a recipe for homemade pizza? To be totally honest, the pizza isn’t 100% homemade – a great trick I have is to order raw dough from a local bakery. It’s as fresh as it would be if made at home, but it saves so much time. And, yeast is complicated, so why bother? Efficiency, people!
Here are two recipes. The first is with a tomato sauce & cheese, aka Margherita. I use a simple marinara sauce that’s also good for spaghetti (look how multi-functional Italian food is, just one more reason why it’s the best). The second is with a few fresh products, and the end result is am-ah-zing. Trust me. Alright, now to the recipes:
PIZZA 1: Margherita
Marinara Sauce – for two large pizzas
Ingredients
- Pizza Dough
- 1 can of whole peeled tomatoes (not pre-crushed, not cubed!) eg San Marzano
- 1/2 onion, finely chopped
- 1/4 cup Olive oil
- 1/3 cup red wine (leftover wine is perfect, if you have leftovers that is)
- 0.5 – 1 tsp chili flakes
- 1 – 1.5 tsp salt
- 1/4 cup chopped fresh basil
- Mozzarella Cheese
For the Sauce
- Crush the canned tomatoes with a blender/food processor, until no chunks are left.
- On medium heat, add the olive oil to a large skillet. Once the olive oil is heated, add chili flakes, and let cook for about 30 seconds to flavour the oil.
- Add the chopped onions, and sauté until golden
- Add wine. Stir wine and onions until most of the wine has evaporated, about 3 minutes.
- Add crushed tomatoes and salt. Stir occasionally. Once brought to a boil, lower the heat and let cook for about 15 minutes. The longer it cooks, the thicker it will be as the liquid evaporates.
- When you are ready to put on pizza dough, add fresh basil to the sauce.
For the Pizza
Since it’s summer, we decided to barbecue our pizza. It’s a super fast way to cook it, and you feel very skilled cooking pizza instead of hotdogs for a day. Okay, so to do it:
- When your dough is rolled out, brush the top with olive oil.
- Add to hot BBQ, and let cook, about 2 minutes.
- Once the bottom side is lightly browned, remove from heat.
- Use a ladle to add a thin layer of marinara sauce to the cooked side, about one spoonful.
- Next, add whichever toppings you like! Here, I used fresh mozzarella and sliced it, but you can even use shredded from the store.
- Place back on the barbecue, and close lid. Cook for about 3 minutes, until the underside is well cooked.
Up close & personal
PIZZA #2: SO FRESH & SO CLEAN
Okay, this is barely a recipe, so I’ll call it a recipette. Sounds pretty fancy, no? Well it’s not, it’s so simple! Still, it turns out amazing. I actually liked this one better than the margherita (don’t tell anyone).
Ingredients
- Pizza Dough
- 1/2 cup fresh raw arugula
- 5 slices prosciutto
- 2 tsp balsamic vinegar
For the Pizza
- Add rolled-out pizza dough to barbecue, and cook 2 minutes, until bottom is golden brown.
- Flip, and brush olive oil on pizza. Cook about 2-3 minutes.
- Remove from heat, and immediately add prosciutto slices to the top of the pizza. Add arugula.
- Finally, drizzle the balsamic on top.
So fresh & simple. Please ignore the piece I teared off in bottom right corner, thx
That’s it! Since you’re skipping the step of letting dough rise, it’s a very quick and easy process.
Trop Délicieux 