With all the pretty peppers and beautiful basil in our CSA box, pizza is a must! We thought the sausage definitely rounded out this pizza (no pun intended!). Usually, we cook a whole package of sausage at breakfast time, even though our family of four won’t eat the whole package. Its just easier to cook it all at once, then heat up the leftovers for breakfast tomorrow. Or – crumble it up for your pizza!
I have included my yeast dough recipe below. It’s pretty simple and turns out nice and crispy. But if you’re not ready to tackle a pizza dough, give yourself a break and buy a pre-made crust. Do what works for you.
This is what we did, but you know how to mix it up, so make your pizza how you like it!
Dough
- 1.5 cups all purpose flour/bread flour
- 1/2 TBSP sugar
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 package yeast (2 tsps)
- 2 TBSPS olive oil
- 1/2 cup warm water
First, mix the dry ingredients. Dissolve the yeast in warm water, then add the oil and water/yeast mixture to the dry ingredients and stir. Knead the dough for 5-8 minutes, then cover it loosely and let it rise for 30 minutes. Grease a baking sheet and sprinkle it with cornmeal. When the dough has risen, stretch and pat it into a pan. I use a large cookie sheet, and mine are never perfect squares or circles! We also pulled out a small bit of dough to make a kid pizza for our picky eaters (more ideas for that below). Once your dough is pressed nicely, cover it loosely again, and let rise for 30 minutes. Bake the dough at 375 for 22 minutes or until it begins to brown (a small kid pizza will only need 10 minutes).
Toppings
- olive oil
- minced garlic
- jar of tomato sauce
- 2 small eggplants
- 2 small tomatoes
- 3 peppers
- 2 cups crumbled sausage
- fresh basil
- 3-4 cups shredded mozzarella
While your crust is rising and baking, prepare the toppings. Cut the skin off the eggplant and slice it thinly. Chop the tomato and bell peppers. Cook the sausage, if you haven’t already, and crumble it up. Tear the basil into small pieces.
When the crust is out of the oven, beginning topping. First drizzle with olive oil and minced garlic, then spread the tomato sauce, top with chopped vegetables and sausage and basil, and finally with cheese.
Bake the pizza at 375 for 20 minutes or until cheese is melted. Serve hot!
Optional “Sneaky” Veggie Sauce
I don’t know about your kids, but mine will only eat cheese pizza. We made a small pizza with just cheese just for them – but we wanted to sneak in some of those fresh veggies, too! We put one of the chopped tomatoes and eggplants in our blender with a bit of olive oil and pureed them until it made a fine paste. Then we stirred that into our tomato sauce. The kids were none the wiser and enjoyed their cheese pizza, just the same.
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