TGIF, because it’s Pizza Night

When I think of Fridays, I think…pizza, orrrr maybe that’s just my small large obsession with the dish. Darrin and I had an evening of shopping for my office furniture :), and thought we’d take a hand at homemade pizza for dinner. I’m a pretty big fan of Trader Joe’s, and always glance at their refrigerated pizza dough… but hadn’t dared to try, until tonight 😉

If you’re going to splurge on “unhealthy food” (everything in moderation). I believe you should cook with fresh, wholesome, unprocessed ingredients, and enjoy every last morsel. Rather than cook with artificial, bland ingredients and then you’re unsatisfied and go back for more, and more.

Well, tonight we tried. My pizza=delicious, but functional failure. Oops. I’ll explain later.

Trader Joe’s pizza dough comes in three varieties, plain, whole-wheat, and garlic & herb. We tried the plain dough tonight, how crazy are we?

Directions: Gently remove dough from bag and place on lightly floured work surface. Let dough rest for 20 minutes, then, for best results, stretch with hand or roll out with rolling pin to 12-inch diameter. Top with your favorite toppings and bake in a preheated 450 degrees oven or BBQ grill for 8-10 minutes, or until cheese begins to boil and the bottom of crust is golden brown. Use a hot pizza stone or lightly oiled pan for optimum results.

We bought our pizza toppings, sauce, and cheese from TJ’s too. We used pizza sauce, a fresh mozzarella sliced log and shredded mozzarella (we like cheese, okay!), canned garlic mushrooms, pepperoni, fresh red pepper, red onion, tomatoes, fresh basil, and dried oregano.

Fresh toppings!

Yes, we made two pizzas. 1. Because anyone who knows Darrin, knows how large his appetite is and 2. Darrin doesn’t like mushrooms AT ALL, so he doesn’t want my “shrooms” touching his pizza.

Spread the tomato sauce on the dough, then cheese it up!

Put on your toppings. Load up on veggies for added fiber.

Into the oven they go.

So… this is where my pizza didn’t quite corporate. Darrin put my pizza on a pizza stone and his on a traditional baking sheet. Well, mine was completely stuck to the pizza stone. No exaggeration, it wasn’t coming off. We had to throw the pizza stone away.

We ended up scraping a lot of my pizza off the top of the stone, and I ate it out of a bowl. It sure was tasty, just not the neat slices I had imagined.

Darrin’s pizza worked out well.

Next time I’ll oil the pizza stone, to prevent my epic cooking faux pas.

Pizza and a glass of red wine=perfection.