Let's make Pizza!

As requested, I am going to write down 7 dinners for Erin, my cooking-challenged but very talented in other areas friend who lives in London. I taught Erin how to make a complete dinner one night last summer and she was a great student; she took notes of everything I did in her little notebook!

Ok, dinner #2 for you Erin. Last night was frittata, tonight - Pizza! I will say this up front - I don't make my own dough. I keep a few pizza shells in the freezer (I use the individual ones) so that I can pull them out and make dinner in minutes. I know that dough is very easy to make, but it was 8:30 and I was hungry.

Dinner is served!

Here is how I make pizza. Erin, this literally takes minutes to make and you can make it with whatever is in your fridge (see a theme here? I like to shop once week and then make dinners with what is on hand. This is a learned skill -my mom taught me how to do this - thanks mom!

1. Start with your pizza shells on a baking sheet. I then spread a very thin layer of olive oil over the pizza shells because I don't like tomato sauce on my pizza, but use tomato sauce if you like it. I then sprinkle on dried oregano and a pinch of hot pepper flakes.

2. Time to add toppings! Tonight I used: capocollo, red onion slices, zucchini slices, fresh spinach leaves and chopped green olives. Yum - I love olives. I arranged my toppings on my pizza shells and then added cheese. I had left over cheese from my frittata, so I used that, but I usually use mozzarella. Other toppings that I have used on pizza are: broccoli, sliced cooked potatoes, tomatoes, ham, caramelized white onions, etc. Everything goes here!

3. The trick is to take the pizza off of the baking sheet (which you only use to assemble it) and to bake it straight on the rack at about 400 degrees until the cheese is starting to turn brown.

You can make this the day before and keep the pizza unbaked in the fridge, ready to pop into the oven when you get home and are starving.

Enjoy!

E