Pat's Delicious Semi-Homemade Italian Pizza
photo by Bone Man
- Ready In:
- 30mins
- Ingredients:
- 11
- Yields:
-
1 large pizza
- Serves:
- 4
ingredients
- 368.54 g pizza dough mix (2 packages)
- 113.39 g pepperoni, sliced thin (I use Hormel brand)
- 226.79 g pizza sauce (I use Dei Fratelli brand)
- 113.39 g mozzarella cheese, shredded
- 113.39 g monterey jack cheese, shredded
- 56.69 g fresh parmesan cheese, grated (optional)
- 12 black olives, canned, pitted, sliced (optional)
- 4.92 ml extra virgin olive oil
- 236.59 ml tap water, hot
- 4.92 ml dried sweet basil leaves
- cooking spray
directions
- Pour the two packets of pizza dough mix into a large mixing bowl. Add the water and mix with a fork until a ball forms. Ignore the package directions and do the following: cover with a damp towel and set in a warm place for 15 minutes, allowing the dough to rise a bit.
- Preheat the oven to 450-degrees F.
- After the dough his risen, spray a 16-inch (or 18-inch) pizza pan with the cooking spray (I use an olive oil spray) and place the dough ball in the center. Wash your hands and rub the 1 teaspoon of olive oil on them -- work the pizza dough out toward the edges. TAKE YOUR TIME! When this is accomplished, place the pizza dough in the preheated oven for 8-9 minutes until there is some VERY SLIGHT BROWNING here and there on the dough. Remove it from the oven and allow it to cool for 3-4 minutes so you can work the sauce on to it without burning your hands.
- Once you have the sauce on the pizza, sprinkle on the sliced olives and any other toppings you wish, (such as cooked sausage, banana peppers, etc., but NOT the pepperoni). Then, cover the pizza evenly with the cheeses. Cover the pizza with the pepperoni slices and sprinkle the basil all over the pizza.
- Return the pizza to the 450-degree F. oven, on the rack just below the center, for about 10 more minutes, until you just get some slight browning on the cheese. Remove from the oven and slice with a pizza cutter. Wait 2 minutes before plating up the pizza.
- NOTE: This makes a super covered dish if you get the pizza ready for the final baking and then do the final baking on-site. Cut it into 2-inch squares for this. I like to take 2 or 3 pizzas along for this as you'll see that it disappears much faster then the entree dish!
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RECIPE SUBMITTED BY
<p>I am a retired State Park Resort Manager/Ranger. <br /><br />Anyway, as to my years in the State Park System (retired now), I was responsible for 4 restaurants/dining rooms on my park and my boss at Central Headquarters said I should spend less time in my kitchens and more time tending to my park budget. I spent 25 years in those kitchens and worked with some really great chefs over those years, (and some really awful ones too!) <br /><br />I spent THOUSANDS of hours on every inch of that park and adjacent state forest (60,000 acres) and sometimes I miss it. But mostly I miss being in that big beautiful resort lodge kitchen. I miss my little marina restaurant down on the Ohio River too. I served the best Reuben Sandwich (my own recipe -- posted on 'Zaar as The Shawnee Marina Reuben Sandwich) in both the State of Ohio and the Commonwealth of Kentucky down there and sold it for $2.95. Best deal on the river! <br /><br />They (friends and neighbors) call my kitchen The Ospidillo Cafe. Don't ask me why because it takes about a case of beer, time-wise, to explain the name. Anyway, it's a small galley kitchen with a Mexican motif (until my wife catches me gone for a week or so), and it's a very BUSY kitchen as well. We cook at all hours of the day and night. You are as likely to see one of my neighbors munching down over here as you are my wife or daughter. I do a lot of recipe experimentation and development. It has become a really fun post-retirement hobby -- and, yes, I wash my own dishes. <br /><br />Also, I'm the Cincinnati Chili Emperor around here, or so they say. (Check out my Ospidillo Cafe Cincinnati Chili recipe). SKYLINE CHILI is one of my four favorite chilis, and the others include: Gold Star Chili, Empress Chili and, my VERY favorite, Dixie. All in and around Cincinnati. Great stuff for cheap and I make it at home too. <br /><br />I also collect menus and keep them in my kitchen -- I have about a hundred or so. People go through them and when they see something that they want, I make it the next day. That presents some real challenges! <br /><br />http://www.dnr.state.oh.us/parks/parks/shawnee.htm</p>