Garlic Bread Sticks

If my little one could have pizza and garlic sticks every day, she would.  Whenever we ask her what she wants, that's her answer, followed by the cutest smile and a "please please please please please."  Fridays during Lent we are abstaining from meat, so veggie pizza is always an easy fix for a Friday night dinner.

The dough recipe that I use can be found here (from a previous post): Quick Pizza Dough.  I let the dough rise a little longer, probably 20-30 minutes.  This gives me enough dough to make two round pizzas.  One dough I use for my pizza and the other one I use for the bread sticks.

On a side note, this is such an easy recipe to get little hands involved.  My daughter helped me mix the dough, roll the dough, put on the toppings of the pizza and brush the bread sticks.  Her hands were really the ones that made our dinner tonight!

Ingredients: 
half of my dough recipe (see above)
2 tbsp melted butter
1 tbsp olive oil
2 cloves garlic, finely minced
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp Italian seasoning
salt and pepper to taste
1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
1/4 cup grated mozzarella

Directions: 
1. Roll out the dough into a circle.  Grease the pizza pan with butter and spread the dough into the pan.
2. Combine the butter, olive oil and garlic into a small bowl.
3.  Sprinkle the dough with salt and pepper to season.  Using a pastry brush, spread the garlic mixture over the dough, covering it entirely.  Sprinkle with Italian seasoning.
4. Top with your cheeses.
5. Bake in a preheated 500F oven for approximately 10 minutes.
6. Remove from oven, let sit for a minute or so then cut into strips and serve (with your favourite marinara or dipping sauce if you like!).

Notes:  We normally just sprinkle Parmesan on our bread sticks because we don't like them as cheesy.  If you are baking the bread sticks with your pizza, then you will have to adjust some of your settings.   Normally I bake my pizza at 425F, so I place the garlic sticks in the top rack to cook at the same time.  I normally bake the pizza first and then start on the bread sticks.  If you do the same thing, the breadsticks will probably be in the oven for about 10 minutes.  After you take out the pizza, place the breadsticks in the bottom rack and raise the temperature to 450F.  Bake it for another 5-10 minutes, until it is golden brown.

We left this one in a little too long, so it was a bit dark and on the crunchy side, but still tasted delicious!

Vegetarian Pizza Dinner

Today was the day that our groceries were running on empty and I found myself tweaking recipes left, right and centre!

I had a very busy cooking weekend - puff pancakes on Saturday morning, roasted chicken and potatoes Saturday dinner.  Then I used the leftover chicken bones to make chicken broth in the slow-cooker overnight.  Sunday morning I was in the process of making banana pancakes when I realized that I no longer had any eggs so I had to do some substitutions, and made a pretty good vegan pancake instead.  And for dinner tonight I was making the pizza dough when I realized that I didn't have any pizza sauce - so another substitution was made.  Overall, it still turned out to be a great weekend with great food!

Pizza Dough & Pizza Recipe

This dough comes together really quickly - great for those nights when you don't know what to make for dinner!

Dough Ingredients:
2-1/4 tsp active dry yeast (one package)
1 tsp white sugar
1 cup warm water
2-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tbsp olive oil
1/2 tsp oregano  **the next three seasonings are totally optional; they just add flavour to the dough**
1/2 tsp basil
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1tsp salt

Directions:

1. In a large bowl, dissolve yeast and sugar in warm water.  Let stand until creamy, about 10 minutes.

2. Mix oregano, basil and garlic powder with olive oil in a small bowl.  Stir flour, salt and oil mixture into the yeast-water.  Use your hands to knead the dough until smooth, about 5-10 minutes. Let rest for 5 minutes. (At this point I would start getting your ingredients together for the pizza.  If it rests longer than 5 minutes, not a problem - you will just have more dough like I did and have more pizza!)

3. Turn dough onto a lightly floured surface and pat or roll into your pan shape.  Typically this would fit a 12" round pizza pan.  Because my dough rested for at least 15 minutes, I was able to stretch my dough out to an extra-large rectangular pizza tray.  It didn't quite reach both ends, it was maybe shy about 1", but it didn't change anything.

4. To prepare the pan: Butter it generously - this will give you a golden crust.  I also lightly dust it with cornmeal as it gives it a nice crunch and texture, and also helps prevent the dough from sticking. (Which won't be a problem if you've buttered the heck out of your pan!)  Stretch out your dough to the shape of your pan.  Preheat your oven to 425F around this point in your cooking.

5. Always pour some olive oil over the dough and spread it around before putting on your toppings.  Because this dough has seasoning already in the dough, you don't have to add any to the pizza, but it doesn't hurt it if you do.  I would take a smashed clove of garlic and spread it over the dough just before you pour the olive oil and then sprinkle the dough with oregano, basil, etc.

6. Next you add your sauce.  If you're out of sauce, take a can of tomato paste, pour in a couple of tbsp of water and a few sprinkles of seasoning (ie: basil, oregano, garlic powder, etc.) and mix it.  This will then out the paste and make a quick sauce whenever you need it.  Spread the sauce however thick or thin you like it.  Then add your toppings.  Tonight it was red peppers, thinly sliced onions and thinly sliced garlic.  Then add your cheese - as much or as little as you like.  I always pour a little bit more olive oil over top and then pop it into your preheated oven.

7.  It will take about 20-25 minutes to cook.  You'll know it's ready when the crust is golden brown (underneath too!) and it doesn't stick, and the cheese is all melted and delicious.  Take it out of the oven, let it cool for about 5 minutes before you cut into it.  And there ya have it - a quick and easy, but very yummy pizza dinner!

How much was leftover after the three of us got our hands on it.