J's Pizza

While I do most of the cooking, J is pretty good about stepping up when I am clearly bored with the task. His go to dish is homemade pizza and it is absolutely delicious. Over the years, I have made some alterations to his original recipe to make it healthier but he is still leader of the pizza parade. Sometimes we get a bit elaborate and use the left over dough and tomato puree to make bread sticks with a marinara dipping sauce. Looking at everything that I have typed, it may seem like this is a lot of work but I promise it really is not. Most of the time will be you waiting while your delicious meal cooks in the oven.

Pizza Dough Ingredients (makes enough for 14.5" pizza stone and approx. 10 bread sticks):
1 cup water
2 Tbs olive oil
2/3 cup milk
2 Tbs sugar
1 tsp salt
1 tsp lemon juice
4 1/2 cups flour
2 tsp yeast
Cornmeal

Pizza Dough Recipe:
1. Add ingredients (water through yeast) in the order listed into a bread machine and use dough function
2. Scatter cornmeal on your stone or cookie sheet to keep the pizza from sticking
3. When bread machine is done, take about 2/3 of the dough and spread it on your stone or cookie sheet
4. Reserve the rest of the dough for bread sticks




Pizza Ingredients (feel free to add your own toppings!):
1/2 28 oz can of tomato sauce or puree (I use Cento Tomato Puree because the only ingredient is ripe tomatoes)
Spices: salt, pepper, garlic powder, crushed red pepper, dried basil, dried oregano
Grated mozzarella cheese
1 diced green bell pepper
1 diced yellow onion
Pepperoni (optional, can also use cooked/crumbled/drained italian sausage)
Banana peppers (optional, J says canned mushrooms are great but I say ew)

I love my french canisters - bridal shower gift, courtesy of Melinda 

Pizza Instructions:
1. Pour tomato puree into a mixing bowl and add the spices to your liking
2. Cover prepared pizza dough with sauce, leaving about half an inch or so for the crust

3. Bake at 350 until the dough is cooked but not yet brown
4. Remove pizza from oven and be careful not to burn yourself (experience)
5. Add cheese, to your liking, and then pepperoni
6. Layer the vegetable toppings
7. Put pizza back in oven for another 10 minutes, or until the cheese is melted, vegetables are crisping and the crust is a bit brown

And now for your side dish of homemade bread sticks and marinara dipping sauce 

Bread Sticks Ingredients:
1/3 of dough
Cornmeal
2 Tbs butter
Garlic Powder

Bread Sticks Recipe:
1. Spread cornmeal on your stone or cookie sheet
2. Spread out remaining dough on top of the cornmeal in a rectangular/oval shape
3. Scatter cornmeal on top of dough
4. Add little pats of butter across the dough so it will melt while cooking
5. Add garlic powder on top of the dough, to taste (we use a lot because we love garlic)
6. Bake at 350 for about 20 minutes, or until the top is golden brown

Marinara Dipping Sauce Ingredients:
1/2 28 oz can of tomato puree (or whatever you have left over from your pizza)
Splash of red wine (optional)
1 clove of garlic, chopped
1 Tbs olive oil
Crushed red pepper
Spices: black pepper, dried basil, dried oregano

Marinara Dipping Sauce Instructions:
1. Heat olive oil in a pan
2. Add garlic and cook until soft
3. Add crushed red pepper, to taste, cook for about 1 minute
4. Add tomato puree and wine, cook for 5-10 minutes (can vary time based on schedule)
5. Add spices and cook for 3 minutes


Congratulations! You made it through the forever long monologue of pizza with the Rosmarins! If you are in need of a pizza stone, you should definitely check out the Emile Henry Pizza Stone. It is dishwasher safe, you don't have to preheat the stone, and it can be used in both the oven and on the grill! The black version was given to me as a wedding gift and I love it. I love it so much, I told Melinda she needed one. She found hers at the Williams Sonoma outlet, but if you are not as fortunate to live as close to an outlet as she does you should definitely order it from Amazon for the free two day shipping (Amazon Prime!). Also, the final pizza picture is not the same pizza you see in the other pictures; we had an incident. Somehow J flipped the stone with the dough and sauce vertically onto the oven door. We decided to make our bread sticks while waiting on a new batch of dough so we could try again.