Homemade Hearty Canadian/Italian Deluxe Pizza
As a self-taught culinary amateur chef, I can truly appreciate the work and love that goes into a restaurant prepared, dish like a pizza, but I also love the challenge of not just duplicating that same recipe at home, but also altering it to make it my own recipe. This is my version of a Homemade, Deluxe Pizza.
This recipe can be prepared either for those who love meat or those who are Vegitarian. For the Vegitarian lovers of Pizza simply leave out the meat toppings and add your favorites like eggplant, or olives, or whatever. If you happen to be a Seafood lover, you could try substituting scallops and shrimp, even a little crabmeat works.
Required Ingredients:
1 Package store-bought fresh pizza dough (plain or whole wheat)
1 Tin of Pizza sauce or paste
1 ball of fresh Mozzerella cheese (cut in half and slice) 1 bag each of grated Mozzerella and Romano Cheese
Pizza Toppings:
1/2 pound each fresh sliced Pepperoni & Salami, or one bag each of pre-packaged
12-15 fresh large whole Mushrooms (roughly sliced)
2 or 3 average sized tomatoes (sliced)
8 slices of Bacon (cut in four)
1 medium onion (thick sliced for onion rings)
1/2 Sweet Red and Green Pepper (sliced or diced to your taste)
1 tin of Anchovies
Dried Hot Pepper Flakes (if desired, but not required)
2 or 3 leaves of fresh Oregano and Basil (rough-sliced)
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Toppings Preparations:
Get out your largest skillet and get it heated up to a medium heat, with 2-3 tablespoons of Extra Virgin Olive Oil. You want to lightly Saute the mushrooms and the green and red peppers, just to tenderize them up a little to bring alive their flavors only a minute or two at the most. Separate mushrooms into one dish and the peppers into another.
Put your bacon into the skillet to render out some of the fat, but do not crisp up.
Saute your onion rings until soft and translucent or until they start to brown up, depending on your taste. That’s the hard work done.
Preparing the Pizza for the oven:
Pre-heat Oven to 450 degrees F.
Get your Pizza Dough and quarter it, and ready your pizza bake pan lightly rub it with some oil and dust it with some flour.
Usually there is enough dough to make 4 large size pizzas. (dough can be frozen for later usage.)
On a flour dusted surface, roll out a quarter of the dough, rounding it as you go until it is the size of your bake pan and place it on the pan. Here’s a little trick I learned. Use a fork and prick your dough several times to allow for even cooking from the bottom.
Once your dough is on the pan, brush on, a little of your olive oil and then spoon spread your pizza sauce all over the dough covering it completely with a good coating of sauce.
Get your slices of mozzerella cheese and lay them evenly over the sauce to cover it. Now get the rest of your toppings, starting with your pepperoni, salami, mushrooms and tomatoes, scattering them all over the pizza. Don’t forget your bacon,sauted peppers, onions, Anchovies, Oregano, and Basil.
Sprinkle on your grated mixture of mozzerella and Romano and lastly if desired sprinkle a few flakes of the dried hot peppers.
Pop it in the oven at 450 degrees F, for about 30 minutes, when 20 minutes cooking time has elapsed, spin the tray so that the front goes to the back for even cooking. When the edge of your crust is a golden brown it’s done.
Remove from oven, let stand for 1 or 2 minutes for all of the flavours to marry together and serve Hot. Just before serving, lightly drizzle a tiny bit of Extra Virgin Olive Oil over top.
The Kids will love you for this tasty, nutritional, hearty food and so will your friends.