Meat-Free Friday: Fridge Leftovers = Pizza

Vegetarian Pizza

During our engagement the then-fiance often told me I had until we got married to work on my cooking. (Did the man starve? No. But he liked to pick and tell me that once we were married there'd be no excuses for burnt lasagna or undercooked baked potatoes.) Now that we're married, my deadline has been extended and I have until the one-year mark. Oh, you know the Kenny Chesney lyrics, "Eatin' burnt suppers the whole first year and askin' for seconds, to keep her from tearin' up ... "

Well, our anniversary is quickly approaching and I'm starting to realize I don't really need to step it up in the kitchen, but I may need to work on my grocery shopping skills. This is the second Friday in a row that we've planned to eat pizza but failed to go shopping beforehand to actually make sure we had ingredients for pizza. Oy. 

Last Friday the husband and I scrounged around for pizza toppings and found peppers, onions, mushrooms and I can't even remember what else. Dinner wasn't too shabby last Friday night. 

Last Friday's Pizza Dinner

And tonight's dinner wasn't that bad, either, but we didn't have nearly as many toppings. We found some onions, red chili peppers and fresh basil, and we had to top our pies with sharp English cheddar - the other cheese we had counted on turned out to be all moldy.


Luckily one aspect of dinner that we had been counting on was a success: the dough. I made dough last week and froze half of it as an experiment. I'd never tried to freeze dough before but have always wanted to. How convenient would it be to pull out frozen homemade dough before work and come home to dinner practically ready and waiting on the counter? Well, now I know. I always have flour, yeast and sugar in the house. So long as we can find some random vegetables and random cheese we should be good.

Thin-Crust Pizza Dough

From Food.com

1 cup warm water
a sprinkle of sugar (about 1/2 teaspoon or so)
1 (1/4 ounce) package active dry yeast
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
Italian seasonings
1/2-1 tablespoon olive oil
cornmeal, for sprinkling


Mix the sugar into the water. Sprinkle the yeast on top and allow to rest for 10 minutes or until foamy. 


Pour the water/yeast mixture into a large bowl. Stir in the flours, salt, seasonings and olive oil.


Remove the dough to a lightly floured surface and knead until you have a moderately stiff yet smooth and elastic dough. Cover and let rest for 20-30 minutes.


Divide the dough in half.


Lightly grease a pizza pan with cooking spray. Spread half of the dough onto the pizza pan and allow to rise another 20 minutes or so. (The longer it rests the larger it'll get!)


Top your pizza with whatever you'd like and bake at 450 degrees F for 10 minutes or until brown and done to your liking. 


For the second half of dough, that you'd like to freeze, rub lightly with olive oil and place in a Ziploc bag. Squeeze all of the air out and freeze. Remove the dough from the freezer the night before or morning before you'd like to make it. Bake as you baked the fresh dough.


Enjoy!