Pizza Night: Margherita Pizza and White Pizza

Pin It Now! Who doesn't love pizza?  I'm a pizza fanatic.  I could probably live on pizza and sushi alone, no joke.  It's hard to decide what I like best - hot fresh pizza from the oven, or cold leftover pizza the next day.  I'm pretty sure there's a law somewhere that says you have to bite the tip off of a slice of cold pizza before reheating it in the oven.

We've attempted homemade pizzas in the past, and for some reason the dough always fights me to the point of wanting to stomp my feet like a child and throw the dough and rolling pin through the window.  Do you have any tricks for getting the dough to roll out without constantly springing back?  Sweet Marina from Yummy Mummy gave me great advice: let the dough come to room temperature.  Marina is a homemade pizza pro (have you seen her pizzas??  Go.  Now.  Stop reading my boring post and go check out her amazing pizza recipes.)  The dough rolled out with ease once it was at room temp.  Thank you, Marina, for saving my sanity!

And my windows.

We decided to make two pizzas: one classic margherita (with a little twist - feta!) and the other a white pizza with garlic cream sauce in place of the tomato sauce.  They were both delicious and extremely simple to put together.  For the white pizza toppings we went with artichoke hearts and bell pepper slices.  Have fun with your combinations.  What are your favorite pizza toppings?

Margherita Pizza
1 prepared pizza dough*
marinara sauce
shredded mozzarella
crumbled feta
tomato slices
fresh basil leaves

White Pizza
1 prepared pizza dough*
garlic cream sauce (recipe below)
shredded mozzarella
toppings of your choice

*Many grocery stores have prepared pizza dough available in the refrigerated sections.  We get ours from a small pizzeria down the street.

Preheat your oven to as hot as it will go.  For us this is 550 degrees.  You want your oven screamin' hot to get a crispy crust.

As I mentioned, the dough rolls out without incident at room temperature.  Save yourself from frustration and set the dough out about 30 minutes prior.  Simply roll out the dough and top with sauce, cheese and toppings!  Bake for approx 8 minutes (depending on thickness, of course).

Garlic cream sauce for white pizza
16 oz. heavy cream
3 cloves garlic, minced
salt & pepper
1/4 c shredded parmesan cheese

In a saucepan, bring the cream to a simmer, stirring often to prevent scorching.  Add in garlic, salt and pepper to taste.  Continue to simmer on low, stirring often, for approx 5 minutes.  Turn off the heat and toss in the parmesan cheese, stirring to combine.  Let the sauce sit while you roll out the dough and prepare your toppings.  Assemble and bake pizza as you would a tomato based pizza.  The leftovers of both sauces make a fabulous pasta sauce.  We combined them to make a sort of "vodka sauce" and made baked spaghetti.

Buon appetito!

Best of both worlds