Food: Pizza, Pizza, Homemade Pizza

All Rights reserved Najeema Iman (I AM Curly Locks)

I was inspired today after watching ABC's The Chew, to use what I had in my pantry and refrigerator to make a whole meal under $1 per portion.  It's One Dollar Wednesday , but honestly part of the reason for my frugal meal today stems from me exhausting my bi-monthly grocery budget and only having $20 bucks for meals this week. Top Chef Richard Blais' One Dollar Wednesday option was English Muffin Pizza.  I had English Muffins in the freezer, but I wasn't really feeling it, so I went a different route. We made a meatless thin crust pizza with fresh spinach, tomatoes, mozzarella, Kraft Mexican Cheddar Jack Cheese, and a semi homemade red pizza sauce.

I found a wonderful  thin crust recipe on thekitchn.com and it is fairly simple to make.  It makes two 10 inch pizza's or 8 personal size pizzas. 

Here is what you need....

All rights reserved Najeema Iman(I AM Curly Locks)

• 3/4 cups (6 ounces) lukewarm water
• 1 teaspoon active-dry or instant yeast
• 2 cups (10 ounces) unbleached all-purpose flour(I substituted 1/2 a cup of all purpose flour with whole wheat flour to give some extra flavor)
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• mixing bowl
• parchment paper (optional)

Directions:

1.  Combine water and yeast in mixing bowl. Stir until dissolved.
2. Add flour and salt. Combine to soggy dough is formed.
3. Turn Dough out on clean floured surface. 
4.  Knead dough for about 5 minutes, until smooth and elastic. (Note: if dough is still sticky add more flour, 1 tablespoon at a time.)
5. Let dough rise for about an hour and half, or until doubled in size. 
6. When dough is done rising cut into two pieces or eight smaller pieces for personal size pizzas.
7. Place dough on parchment paper and flatten into a disc using hands or floured rolling pin. (I used wax paper since I didn't have parchment paper.)
8. Place dough on the wrong side of your pizza pan.
9. Preheat oven to 500 degrees, or highest setting.
10. Add sauce and topping.
11. Heat for approximately 5 minutes. 
12. Lift off the pizza pan with metal spatula.
13. Enjoy. 

(Note: This dough can be refrigerated for up to 3 days.  I am sure that it can be frozen for later as well but I am not sure for how long.)

For the Pizza sauce I adapted a recipe that I found on Allrecipes.com .  It was a great base recipe, but was to bland for my taste buds so I added a little curlitude to it.  Here is what you need...

All Rights Reserved Najeema Iman(I AM Curly Locks)

• 2 cups of Prego Traditional Spaghetti Sauce
• 1(6 ounce) can of Hunts Tomato Paste
• 1 1/2 tablespoons of Oregano
• 1 tablespoon of McCormick Italian Seasoning
• 3 1/2  teaspoons of garlic powder
• 1 teaspoon of ground paprika

Directions: Mix spaghetti sauce and tomato paste together till well blended, then add spices. 



(Note: The pizza sauce recipe makes enough sauce for about 4 pizzas so you may want to cut it in half or freeze some for later.)


The three year old kept it simple and added mozzarella, fresh spinach, freshly diced tomatoes, then another layer of Cheddar Jack cheese. Oh and don't forget a few shakes of Alexander's Parmesan Bread Dipping Seasoning. The hubs is quite a meat eater, so he picked up some turkey pepperoni before he came home.  I will definitely be using both of  these recipes again. It was affordable and fast.  

To see more of my recipe inspirations follow my Yummy board on Pintrest.
Najeema Iman, I AM Curly Locks 

*All photos are courtesy of Justin McMahan Photography