Dinner #7 - Pizza!

Pizza is one of my favorite food groups. I used to work at Domino's Pizza back in my senior year of high school and freshman year of college. There wasn't a single step, from taking the order to delivering the final product, that I couldn't do. My wife and I used to order pizza every weekend, but with the quality of the various chains going down, the best around in our area for the last eight months has been the $5 "hot & ready" products. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it leaves customization options as nonexistent, and we haven't ordered pizza in a few weeks because of this limitation. So, I decided to make pizza!

I've made pizza before, using my father-in-law's fantastic dough recipe, but I also wanted to make it without much preparation and decided to go with a pre-made crust. I also picked up a jar of pizza sauce, a bag of pizza cheese (a mix of various Italian cheeses), and some pepperonis. I also browned some ground beef with a little Worcestershire sauce, black pepper, onion powder, garlic powdered, and fresh cut mushrooms.

Once the meat was ready to go, I place two pizza crusts on baking sheets, spread a layer of sauce across each, added a thin layer of cheese, and loaded them up with the toppings. The first pizza would be considered "double pepperoni" while the second was the beef and mushroom mixture. A final layer of cheese and both were slid into the oven for 15 minutes at 450 degrees.

Both came out really well, and although the crust wasn't the same as the family recipe, it held up in flavor.