Crispy Pizza Sticks

Crispy cheesy bread sticks with garlic and salami dipped in marinara sauce.  A great finger food for gameday or a snack any day.

I came up with this recipe on the fly when I was home alone so it only makes one serving...maybe two if you aren't too hungry.  I had one pizza dough leftover from making Spinach Artichoke Pizzas (I'll post about it soon) and wanted an easy, crunchy snack.  Have I mentioned that crunchy/crispy is my favorite (food) texture? Does anyone else have a favorite texture or am I just weird like that?  Anyway, I made these pizza sticks crunchy by baking the crust twice.

Do you have a favorite food texture? Mine's crunchy  [Tweet this]

I prefer to bake most things in my toaster oven and love that it's big enough to fit a frozen pizza.  When you bake frozen pizzas it always says to bake it directly on the rack for a crispier crust.  You can't bake dough directly on the rack though so I spread the dough on a baking sheet and baked it until it was light golden brown and sturdy enough to re-bake (with toppings) directly on the rack.  This worked great for a crispy crunchy pizza snack. And if you don't care if the crust is crispy just bake it all only once in the pan.

Crispy Pizza Sticks are perfect #snack for the #toasteroven  [Tweet this]

Crispy Pizza Sticks

Cook time:  20 minutes
Servings:  1-2 (use more dough and a bigger pan to serve more people)

Ingredients:

200g pizza dough, at room temperature (store-bought or your favorite recipe)
Butter
Garlic powder
Mozzarella
Salami (optional)
Easy Marinara Sauce

Spread pizza dough into an 8-inch pizza pan (I used an 8x8 inch square baking sheet which is close enough).  The dough should be about 1/4 inch thin.

Bake the dough (I used my toaster oven) at 450 for about 10-15 minutes until golden brown.  If you have a pizza stone you can skip these first two steps, proceed with the rest of the instructions, and bake the pizza directly on the stone...or if you don't care if the crust is crispy, just skip this first bake, top the dough as below, and bake in the pan.

Allow the baked dough (crust) to cool slightly and remove from pan (you can even do this ahead of time and freeze the pizza crust for later use--just thaw before continuing).

Spread the crust all over with butter, sprinkle on garlic powder (garlic butter made with roasted garlic would be even better if you have it), and as much cheese as you like.  Then top with salami.

Place the crust back in the oven, directly on the rack, and bake at 450F for about 10 minutes more or until cheese is melted and browned around the edges.

Remove from oven, let cool slightly and cut into sticks.

Serve Pizza Sticks with Easy Marinara Sauce for dipping.

Enjoy.

If you love pizza check out these recipes:

Focaccia Pizza       -

Meatball Calzones     -

Cheese Steak Stromboli

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Easy Marinara Sauce

A quick and simple marinara sauce made with tomato paste and spices.  Great for pizzas and dipping.

I make this marinara sauce often.  It's so simple and delicious and can be whipped up in no time.  I never buy store bought marinara sauce because this is so easy and I usually have all the ingredients on hand (it's also probably cheaper than store bought).  This will be your new favorite marinara sauce soon too.

Easy Marinara Sauce will be your new favorite  [Tweet this]

Tomato paste is the main ingredient in this sauce.  I always have tomato paste in my pantry.  It's useful in so many recipes and has great tomato flavor.  All that's needed for this recipe is a well-stocked spice cabinet (just common spices), tomato paste, and water.

I always have tomatopaste in my pantry  [Tweet this]

Easy Marinara Sauce

Prep time:  under 10 minutes
Servings:  4

Ingredients:

1 6oz can tomato paste
6-12 oz water
1-2 Tbsp garlic powder
1 Tbsp onion powder
1 Tbsp dried basil
1 tsp oregano
salt and pepper to taste
parmesan (optional)
red pepper flakes (optional)

Empty the can of tomato paste into a small bowl.  Add the water (I refill the tomato paste can as a measurement) a little at a time, stirring until the sauce is the consistency you desire.

Add spices and stir well until combined (you may want to add a little more water).  Taste and adjust seasoning as required.

The sauce is ready to use immediately but tastes best once it has set a while for the flavors to meld.

Makes about 2 cups of marinara sauce (about 4 servings).  Use as a pizza sauce or as a dip for bread sticks, mozzarella sticks, garlic bread, calzones or stromboli, whatever you like.

Enjoy.

For more tomato paste recipes check out:

Simple Pasta Sauce   -

Homemade Bloody Mary Mix

Meatball Calzones    -

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Sun-dried Tomato Spread

A zesty two-ingredient spread made with pureed sun-dried tomatoes and olive oil.  A great appetizer for a party, a gameday snack, or anytime.

Wow.  Sun-dried tomatoes are so rich in flavor.  They add an extra pop of flavor to anything they are added to.  I often just much them right out of the jar.  I love keeping a jar of these little beauties in the fridge for easy addition to pastas, pizzas, and antipasti.  Sun-dried Tomato Spread is simple (just a puree of sun-dried tomatoes and olive oil), packed with lycopene, versatile, and delicious.

Add rich flavor w/ Sundried Tomato Spread  [Tweet this]

This spread is so easy and quick to prepare and it's so delicious it will impress everyone.  It's perfect for a fancy dinner party or even a simple gameday snack.  I also love that it is healthy (packed with fiber and lycopene) in kind of a sneaky way.  Sundried tomatoes are just so delicious you don't even consider their nutrition, but it's there.

Snack healthy w/o realizing it w/ Sundried Tomato Spread  [Tweet this]

Sun-dried Tomato Spread

Prep time: under 10 minutes

Ingredients:

Sundried tomatoes in Italian seasoned oil
Olive oil
Fresh basil (optional)
Parmesan (optional)

This is super simple.

In the bowl of a food processor, fitted with the chopping blade,  add about 20-30 sundried tomatoes.

Turn the processor on and let chop/puree until the tomatoes are finely chopped.  Add optional ingredients (if using) and continue to chop.

Add oil 1 tablespoon at a time while processing until spread is to your desired consistency.  You may not need any extra oil if you use oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes ...if it looks dry add some oil (remember it's easy to add more oil but you can't really take it away so err on the less oil side).

The spread is ready to serve immediately.  Serve with your favorite bread, meats, and cheese.  It's great on sandwiches or paninis and as a pizza sauce too.

Refrigerate any leftover spread.  I've kept it for up to a week...it would probably last longer (maybe not as long if you add fresh basil), but I always eat it all right away.

Enjoy.

For more dips and spreads check out:

Bacon Jam          -

Quick & Easy Guacamole

Hummus          -

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Focaccia Pizza

An Italian flat bread made with a wet dough, shaped into a pizza, and topped with tapenade, sun-dried tomatoes, and feta cheese (or toppings of your choosing).

Focaccia is a simple bread that requires no real kneading.  This wet dough is mixed vigorously and then stretched and folded with long rest periods.  Then, it is dimpled with herb oil until the desired thick/thinness and baked.  It is a long process like most yeast bread, but there is very little active time.  Focaccia is a very tender bread with crisp edges and makes a great pizza dough.  I opted for pizza-style focaccia which is basic focaccia topped with a few pizza toppings.  I chose tapenade and sun-dried tomatoes, both of which are packed in oil, so I didn't add much extra oil.

Focaccia #bread is really quite simple & delicious it just takes time.  [Tweet this]

For pizza style focaccia, there are some guidelines for when to add the toppings. There are pre-proof toppings, pre-bake toppings, and during bake toppings. The pre-proof toppings are marinated sun-dried tomatoes, olives, nuts, peppers, and roasted garlic.  These are toppings that need to be surrounded by the dough so they don't burn during baking or fall off.  Most soft cheeses and cured/cooked meats are pre-bake toppings while most shredded or grated cheeses are best to add during baking so they don't burn.  I used sun-dried tomatoes, coarsely chopped tapenade, and feta.  2 pre-proof and 1 pre-bake respectively.  Following these simple guidelines results in delicious focaccia pizza.

Just a few simple guidelines for delicious Focaccia Pizza.  [Tweet this]

Focaccia Pizza

Modified slightly from Peter Reinhart's The Bread Baker's Apprentice

Total time:  5 hours (active time:  about 30 minutes off and on)
     Mixing time: 5-10 minutes
     Stretch and fold:  90 minutes
     First rise:  1 hour
     Second rise: 2 hour
     Bake time:  20 minutes

Makes:  1-12 inch pizza (500 grams)

Ingredients:

3 grams active dry yeast
190 grams water
267 grams bread flour
6 grams salt
36 grams olive oil
Oil packed sun-dried tomatoes, sliced
Coarse chopped tapenade or olives
Feta

To the bowl of a stand mixer (or large bowl), add the water and a spoonful of the flour.  Stir to incorporate and sprinkle on the yeast (since this recipe doesn't use sugar the little bit of flour gives the yeast something on which to feed).  Cover with a towel and let sit for 15 minutes until mixture becomes bubbly.

To this, add the rest of the flour, salt, and oil.  Mix with the paddle attachment, on low speed, (or by hand) until  a wet sticky ball forms.  Switch to the dough hook and stir for 5-7 minutes on medium speed (or use your hand/a metal spoon, repeatedly dipped in water to prevent sticking, like a dough hook and quickly stir and mix the dough) until the dough becomes a smooth mass that clears the sides of the bowl but sticks to the bottom.  You may need to add extra flour to reach this consistency.

Spread/spray some oil on your work surface (to keep dough from sticking) and turn out dough using a spatula or bowl scraper.  Oil your hands too and pat the dough into a rough rectangle.  Let the dough rest for five minutes.  Then, using an oiled bench scraper to help lift the dough, begin to stretch it gently from both ends until about twice its length.  Fold the ends back over themselves letter-style until the dough is roughly the same size and shape it started. Sprinkle a little flour on top of the dough and cover with plastic wrap.  Let rest for 30 minutes and repeat the stretch and fold method twice more.
**alternatively to using the oiled surface for the stretch and fold method you can use a bed of flour and floured hands to prevent sticking see this method in my Focaccia (sourdough).  I found that I like using oil more because it's less messy (and olive oil is great for your hands so feel free to rub it in).  You don't need to use too much I started with about a teaspoon on my work bench and spread it out with my hands to about the size of a baking pan then rubbed oil into my hands as needed.**

After the final stretch and fold, sprinkle the dough with flour, cover it with plastic wrap, and let the dough rise on the counter for 1 hour.  The dough should noticeably swell but not necessarily double in size.  Using oiled hands form the dough into a rough ball and place on a parchment-lined sheet pan (I used a 12x14 inch pan if using a smaller pan you may need to divide the dough into 2 pieces). You can also place the dough in a zipper bag and refrigerate overnight or up to 3 days if you prefer (the refrigerated dough needs 3 hours to come to temperature once removed from the fridge).

Sprinkle the dough with a little flour and gently dimple the dough with your fingertips until it flattens out into a disk about 8 or 9 inches in diameter.  Cover with plastic wrap and let rest for 15 minutes.  Then, uncover the dough and spread with sun-dried tomatoes and tapenade along with some of their oil.  Dimple the toppings and oil into the dough spreading the dough to about 12 inches in diameter.  Cover the dough again and let rise for 2 hours or until 1 1/2 times it's original size.

Preheat the oven to 450.

Uncover the dough, sprinkle with feta and bake for about 20 minutes, rotating halfway through, until the dough turns a light golden brown.  If you are using any during bake toppings add them before the final five minutes of baking.

Transfer the focaccia to a cooling rack and let cool for 10 minutes before slicing and serving.

Enjoy.

For more focaccia and pizza recipes check out:

Focaccia

Meatball Calzones

Cheese Steak Stromboli

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Meatball Calzones

Hot gooey cheese and meatballs folded inside a soft and chewy pizza crust. 

I love pizza.  I love making homemade pizza too, but my oven sucks.  I live in an apartment so I don't have my dream oven and gradually my current oven has become worse and worse.  It still works for many things and breads and pizzas turn out okay if I bake them on an AirBake pan, but I can't use my baking stone anymore :(  The problem is that breads burn on the bottom before they start to brown on top.  The way I've dealt with this is just baking breads and pizzas on one of my AirBake cookie sheets in the center of the oven. It works and I still enjoy my baked products, but they just don't get the same crisp/crunchy-ness as when I use the stone.

Now that I've complained....let's get to calzones. I like to think of calzones as individual pizzas folded in half.  Some people say that there should be no sauce inside the calzone, but I say, "do whatever you want".  Personally I put a little inside but kept most for dipping.  As for my pizza sauce, I make an easy marinara out of tomato paste.  It's easy and inexpensive.  I always keep tomato paste stocked in my pantry (it's great for so many things. Have you seen my Homemade Bloody Mary Mix or my Simple Pasta Sauce?).

Easy Marinara Sauce

1 6oz can tomato paste
1-2 cups water
1 Tbsp garlic powder
1 Tbsp dried minced onions
1 Tbsp dried basil
1 tsp dried oregano
Crushed red pepper flakes (optional)
Parmesan (optional)

Mix the tomato paste with water until it is the consistency you like.  Stir in the herbs and spices and let sit for about 1 hour.  You may need to add more water to get it to the right consistency.  Taste and adjust seasoning.  Just microwave to heat or enjoy cold or at room temperature.  Once again, do what you like it's pizza there shouldn't be so many rules.

Meatball Calzones

Ingredients:

16 oz (1 lb or 453g--I usually round up to 500g) pizza dough
15-20 pre-cooked Italian meatballs, split in half (Check out my Slow Cooker Meatballs)
Mozzarella, shredded
Easy Marinara Sauce

Start with your favorite pizza dough.  After mixing and kneading allow to rise for 1 1/2 hours or until doubled in bulk.  Separate into 4 roughly equal pieces and roll into balls.  Cover and let rest for 10 minutes.

Using one ball of dough at a time, roll/press into about a 6-9in circle (like a pizza).

Spread a spoon-full of marinara onto half of the circle.  Top with 1/4 of the meatballs and a hand-full of cheese then fold the other half over (you will have to pull and stretch) and seal the seam by pinching and folding.

Place the calzone on a baking sheet and cover while you make the rest.

Bake at 425F for about 15-20 minutes until golden brown.  Brush hot calzones with garlic butter for extra deliciousness.  Serve with extra marinara for dipping.

Enjoy.

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Cheese Steak Stromboli

Shredded beef, peppers and onion rolled in a pizza dough with cheese and baked until crisp.

When I had leftover shredded beef from Slow Cooker Roast Beef Sandwiches I immediately thought steak pizza.  My idea was to add peppers and onions and provolone as well as mozzarella cheese to make it like a Philly cheese steak.  Pizzas can be a little more difficult to transfer into a hot oven (at least for me) so I decided to roll these pizzas like a burrito and make Stromboli.  This was a great idea.  A 6oz, thin crust, pizza dough makes a personal sized Stromboli that is quite filling.  I didn't serve these with marinara sauce, but if you want to go ahead.  I used a pizza dough recipe from The Bread Baker's Apprentice but you can use any recipe you like or even Italian bread dough (eventually I will post a pizza dough recipe).

Ingredients:

1 medium onion, chopped
1 bell pepper, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
2 cups shredded (cooked) beef
1 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
provolone
mozzerella
6-6 oz pizza doughs, at room temperature

Sautee onion, pepper, and garlic together until peppers and onions are soft.  Add the shredded beef and Worcestershire sauce and mix thoroughly.  Allow mixture to cool completely (you don't want to put hot toppings on the pizza dough, it makes it difficult to roll up).

Preheat oven to 500F with a baking stone on the lowest rack

 Press or roll out the pizza dough, one at a time, until it is about 10 inches in diameter.  Top the dough with about 1/2 cup of meat mixture and then some cheese, (use as much as you are comfortable rolling). Then roll the dough like a burrito.  Fold 2 opposite sides in and then roll the entire dough, as tightly as you can, into a log shape.  Pinch the seam together so that it is well sealed.  Slit a couple of air holes in the top.

Slide the Stromboli onto the baking stone and lower the oven to 450F.  Bake for about 15 minutes until browned and crispy.  Keep an eye on the stromboli they may cook faster or slower depending on your oven, and the cheese will probably bubble out a bit, I don't know how to prevent this but there is usually still plenty of cheese inside.  Let cool for about 10 minutes before cutting and serving.

Makes 4-6 stromboli (I only made two and refrigerated the rest of the ingredients for the next night).  Serve with marinara if you like, or any dipping sauce you like, but they are great alone.  Enjoy.

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