The Pizza Debacle

BearFace and I started making our own pizza a couple years ago.  (Well, let me clarify.  We mostly made our own pizza...I'm too lazy to attempt my own dough, so store-bought refrigerated pizza dough it was).  The whole adventure was rather disastrous.  Neither of us had ever made pizza before, and the internet had not yet been invented, so we really had no clue what we were doing.  The results were often floury, chewy, and stuck to the baking pan.  Of course we always ate it, but probably didn't enjoy it.  Some of the later models improved, but not drastically.

That was until the great discovery. One of my CookingLight magazines from a few months ago had a pizza recipe that detailed how to properly make a pizza, and we haven't looked back since.  I have to say, tonight's pizza was my best yet!

Sausage and Broccoli White Pizza

1 pound refrigerated or frozen (defrosted) pizza dough
6-8 cloves garlic, minced
Olive oil
1/2 cup PepperJack cheese shredded
1 cup mozzarella cheese shredded
1/4 cup ricotta
3 turkey sausage links (leftover from our lentil soup)
1/2 cup frozen (defrosted) broccoli, stems removed and chopped

1. Place non-stick baking pan in oven and preheat to 500 degrees.
2. While pan and oven are heating, remove casings from sausage and crumble into pan on medium heat.  Cook 5-10 minutes, or until just cooked through.  Set aside.  
3. Defrost broccoli and set aside.
4. On a lightly floured surface, roll out pizza dough with rolling pin to a 13 inch circle (you can shape it into a rectangle if you don't have a circular pan).  Poke holes liberally in dough with a fork.
5. Once oven is preheated, transfer dough to pan and drizzle with olive oil.
6. Spread minced garlic over dough, and top with mozzarella and PepperJack.
7. Drop spoonfuls of ricotta on top of other cheeses, then add chopped broccoli.
8. Bake for 9 minutes, then add sausage, and continue to bake for another 3 minutes. 

I wanted to snap a picture of the whole pizza, but BearFace had it sliced

and on his plate before I could get to it.  They call him BEARFace for a reason!