Every week we’ll post a recipe that we both made. This week’s recipe was Deep-Dish Pepperoni Pizza. Printable recipe can be found at the bottom of this post.  The original recipe came from a cookbook Nance found somewhere (hopefully she’ll provide the info on that).

Robyn’s Take:

This week’s recipe is one that Nance found in an old cookbook, scanned in, and sent to me for approval. I didn’t even have to check with Fred on this one – I had no doubt that he’d want to give it a try, because he’s a pizza lover. The ingredients:

A packet of yeast, olive oil, sugar (I don’t know why it looks like so much sugar, it’s only 1 teaspoon!), salt, all-purpose and whole wheat flours, mozzarella cheese, and pepperoni. The original recipe called for tomato sauce, Italian seasoning and garlic powder, so you could make your own pizza sauce. I had a jar of Pizza Quick sauce in the cupboard, though, so that’s what I used. If I’d had a jar of Shirley’s Pizza Sauce, I’d have used that, but I was all out. SAD FACE.

In a medium bowl, combine the yeast and warm water and let it sit ’til the yeast is foamy. I wandered off for about five minutes.

Mix the oil, sugar and salt into the yeast; then add both flours and then either stir ’til a soft dough forms or until you’re tired of stirring, whichever comes first.

Dump the whole shebang out onto a lightly floured surface.

Knead 10 times, at which point you should have a cohesive dough. Put it in a greased bowl, turning to grease the top of the dough.

Cover with a damp cloth and then put in a warm place for 20 minutes or until the dough rises to double in size. Then punch the dough down so that it deflates. If you’re very lucky, the dough might make a farty sound for you, so you can giggle like a 12 year old boy.

(My dough didn’t fart. HMPH.)

The directions said to use a 9-inch cake pan for this – I don’t have a 9-inch cake pan (well, at least not a round one), so I used a pie plate instead. Press the dough in the bottom and up the sides.

Bake until lightly golden brown, 8 – 10 minutes.

Sprinkle 1/2 cup mozzarella on the baked dough. Then, if you’re using a prepared pizza sauce, dump that in. If you’re not, then mix your tomato sauce, Italian seasoning and garlic powder together and dump it in.

Top that with half your pepperoni, sprinkle with a cup of cheese, top THAT with the rest of your pepperoni, and then sprinkle the rest of your mozzarella on top.

Bake it!

Let it cool for a few minutes, and then eat it!

The verdict? It was DAMN good. Fred’s not usually a fan of deep dish pizza (he prefers thin crust), but he liked it a lot, and suggested that we have it again in the future, very soon. Next time I make it, I’ll use more toppings (mushroom, onion, maybe some green peppers for Fred). Two thumbs up to the deep dish pizza – Nance picked another winner! I have no cat, kitten, dog, or chicken pics for you this week because I’m a slacker, so let’s take a look back at one of my favorite pictures – Chef Tony who, after spending a month at Petsmart, finally got his silly self adopted last Thursday. ABOUT DAMN TIME.

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Nance’s Take:

Source: Giordanos.com I have never had a stuffed crust pizza. Last year Cheyenne (my son’s fiance) and I were going to ride a train to Chicago to try Giordano’s stuffed crust pizza.  The trip was postponed, but I still had pizza-on-the-brain when I saw this recipe.

I used my handy-dandy yeast measuring spoon for this recipe.  I bought it a while back because I buy my yeast in bulk.  The spoon is equivalent to the amount in one standard yeast envelope.

Please don’t mind the huge copyright mark – I have no idea what I was doing and I wasn’t going back to fix it. Meanwhile this is an action shot of olive oil.  I’m sure you’re impressed.

I didn’t get a picture of the proofed yeast, but you can sorta see it around the flour mound.  When it get’s bubbly like that it’s proofed (which in normal language means it’s ready to be used).  The bowl that I’m using is spectacular. They’re KitchenAid Mixing Bowls and they have a handle on the side (of course I didn’t get a picture of it) that makes it easy to use.  It also has a special texture on the inside that allows the bowl to be easily scraped clean.  I got mine at Marshall’s on clearance thinking they would be okay for cake mixes and now I use them for everything.

I was horrified to see this because OHHELLNO.  This is when I took the spoon out and went all in WITH MY HANDS.  I absolutely hate to have my hands in any kind of food like this, but sometimes they are the best tools and you have no choice.

Don’t ask.  Just know that I kneaded that bitch while trying to take a photograph. And yes, I do have a tripod.  I just don’t use it.

I don’t grease the bowl for pizza dough.  I put oil in the bottom of the bowl…

And rub my pizza dough in it and then flip it over and do the same.  The pizza dough is covered, but the bowl is not.   What the hell do I know about making pizza?   Just do it any old way you want to do it.  I’m not the boss of you.

I went ahead and used the sauce that the recipe called for and we all thought it was really good.

You can tell that Rick wasn’t here by the looks of my dough.  Had he been in the kitchen this shit would have been pretty.  I cannot make a pretty anything when it comes to cooking.  Hell, I’m doing good to make edible.

My dough is pre-baked per the recipe and I put the cheese on the bottom.  Did I mention that I doubled this recipe? We were ALL home and hungry.  I was a little nervous about the amount of sauce it called for, but I was determined to stick to the recipe.

Ready to go into the oven.

This is what came out of the oven.  The one on the right has onions, peppers and ground beef.  The one on the left was made from the recipe.

If you have ever made a lasagna, you know that you should let it set for a few minutes after it comes out of the oven. The same thing applies here, but everyone was hungry and I didn’t wait.  Can you say Regret?

Jesus H.  This is what happens when people cannot wait.

This is me trying to get the rest of the filling out for the one slice that we just had to cut immediately.  For shits and giggles go ahead and scroll back up to the first picture and compare.

This is the slice that had the hamburger, onions, and peppers in it.  The pizza was pretty good, but I don’t know if I’ll go through all that hassle to make it again (probably not).  I will, however, be using the sauce recipe because we all really liked it. I believe this is a sorry substitute for a real deep-dish pizza from Chicago so I think I’m just going to wait until I can try the real thing.