Pizza and Wings, yes please!

Pizza chain X sells more than 11 million slices of pizza on SuperBowl Sunday, their biggest sales day, followed by Halloween, New Year's and Thanksgiving Eve (facts courtesy their website).  Yep, it's quick, convenient, hot and simple, but you can do it at home, with cleaner ingredients, make an event for the family out of it, and it's SO much better!!  When you have the ability to choose ALL the ingredients, pizza is not that bad!

Our kids don't just ask for pizza, they ask for homemade pizza bar...they LOVE to "decorate" their pizzas and usually try more combos this way!  We love this meal because when it's warm, we do it all on the grill, when it's cold we move it all inside and bake it in the oven!  I like to make a topping bar, offer up every possible option!  Lay it all out there and then tie each on of them a personal pizza to decorate! Our kids actually love mushrooms, kalamata olives, feta cheese and even spinach!  Anything is good on a pizza! Cruise the veggie aisle!  Beef, broccoli and blue cheese! Zucchini, sundried tomato and smoked gouda!  Shrimp, spinach, cilantro and feta! The trick is to max out the toppings and use a little less cheese!

Note: For the kids, they each get a piece of parchments paper with their crust on it, then decorate it, and we bake them all at once!  Just seems easier!

Invest in a great pizza pan!  It makes a huge difference on the crust!  Check out my recommendations!  It took my husband burning up several of my oven rated pans before I found the awesome grill rated one from Williams Sonoma, which I got for him on sale for Father's Day!  Keep an eye out for sales, because I only payed $10 for ours!  And make sure to get HIGH heat rated oven-mits too if you are grilling them, because that kind of heat will melt the standard ones!  We use 2 pans, so we can turn them out quickly!

The Crust.  If you have a pizza place you love, they will usually sell you a dough ball or 2.  Most places these days have a good gluten free crust you can buy like that.  If not, Harris Teeter has a great whole wheat fresh dough, available in the deli.  If you prefer to make yours, King Arthur Flour offers quite a few GREAT crust recipes, several gluten free options.  Just buy good flour, they make good flour, unbleached organic, even white wheat.  I like this crust because it's so simple.   But really, my favorite, and the one I always go back to, probably because it actually has wine IN IT, and uses honey as the feeder for the yeast, is Mario Batali's Basic Recipe.  It fabulous and easy.  I always make it in my mixer using the dough hook and you barely need to do anything by hand!  I love this dough, but it also brings back memories of my food travels with my husband, before we were married.  We ate at one of Batali's Bistros and had his White Clam Pizza - life changing!  It taught me that you can really put anything on pizza!  Try it out, I love goat cheese, beets, bacon and spinach on mine!

For the pizza...

Pick your crust and bring it to room temperature before beginning!

Sauces, there are a wide variety.  

Most of the time we use a basic organic pasta sauce as our red base, always have basil pesto, sometimes I crush up some garlic and leave it to marinade in a 1/2 cup of olive oil for the day and use that.  If I am craving a white base, I will mix garlic olive oil with a bit of ricotta and fresh parsley.

Toppings are endless, our standard ones are:

Uncured Turkey Pepperoni

Roasted Red Peppers
Artichoke Hearts

Uncured Bacon

Sauteed Mushrooms

Kalamata Olives

Spinach

Sauteed Onion

Sundried Tomatoes

Roma Tomatoes
Beets
Shrimp
Chicken Sausage

Goat Cheese

Feta Cheese

Blue Cheese

Mozarella Cheese

Havarti Cheese

Parmesan Cheese

Preheat oven to 425F.  Get all your toppings ready and easily accessible ahead of time!  Flour your dough area and roll out all the dough first.  Place dough on lightly greased pan.  Top with a layer of sauce, then a light layer of cheese.  "Decorate" with your choice of toppings.  If you are wanting greens, I always put spinach and herbs on top with a light layer of cheese so that the greens don't dry out during cooking!  Or you can put them right on top of the cheese base, just don't sandwich too much spinach in the middle or it can get flaky!  Always finish with a layer of cheese on top, it doesn't take a ton!  Place in the oven and bake for 20 minutes or until crust is crusty on the bottom and all these cheese is melted. 

If we are grilling, we put a quick grill on ALL the crusts first.  About 5 minutes on medium/hi - don't forget to grease your pans every time! Then we bring all the crusts in and put them on cooling racks, ready for sauce!  From there, sauce, cheese, toppings, then back on the grill only for a couple of minutes, or broil in the oven for 3-5 minutes.

Always, put dough on the pan before saucing or decorating!  Pizzas full of yummy toppings are tough to move before they get baked!

Ready the topping bar...

Dust your surface with flour and roll out dough to about 1/4" thickness, transfer to a pan BEFORE adding sauce or toppings.

Use a great pan and don't forget to spray it first!

Transfer dough...

Add sauce and cheese...

"Decorate" your pizza...

Waiting patiently for oven space...

Done...

For the Wings...

I use my same recipe for Grilled Chicken Wings 

Instead of grilling:

Preheat oven to 425F.  Using tongs, remove wings from marinade and place into a non-stick pan.  Cover tightly with foil.  Place into oven and cook for 30 minutes or until they reach 165F.   For  a crispy wing, finish on broil for 3-4 minutes!!! Serve.

Serve with Honey Mustard Dip Sauce

Wings, Roast covered for 30 minutes.  For a crispy wing, finish for 3-4 minutes on broil!