Spruce up that frozen pizza!

[poodlesrule]

Before you grab that frozen pizza from the freezer to eat tonight, take a few minutes to spruce it up.
These simple additions will make it more satisfying.

- cut-up olives
- extra cheese
- chopped up garlic, or onion/shallot
- thin slices of bell pepper
- other?

[Spudman***]

This is a must! Frozen pizza is seriously lacking.

I make my own from scratch, but my daughter likes these small frozen ones. I tried one of hers the other day and had to gag it down. It was awful. The cheese was like marshmallow and the crust must have had a cup of sugar in it and don't even get me started on the ketchup type sauce. Yuck!

The other I like to add to my pizza is some sliced Greek pepperoncinis. Gives it a little snap without overpowering everything else.

[poodlesrule]

This is a must! Frozen pizza is seriously lacking.

I make my own from scratch...

Ah, do share!
- dough made in a processor, or dough cycle in bread machine?
- use a pizza stone?

[Tig***]

If you happen to have a Kroger's store, try their store brand self rising crust pizza. These are seriously good tasting!
Otherwise, try a big brand self rising crust. Much better then the old throw-away-the-pizza-and-eat-the-cardboard variety.

P.S. I love the stone pan from Pampered Chef for all baking.

[Spudman***]

Pizza Dough

1 packet active dry yeast
1/2 tablespoon sugar

Mix those two into an insulated mug and add 4-5 ounces of warm water. Wait 10-15 minutes for the yeast to rise.

In a bowl combine (for thick crust) 1 1/2 cups unbleached flour with 1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour. Add yeast and water after yeast risen. Fold into flour until flour is dough like (add warm water if needed). Leave in a ball in the bowl and cover with a dish towel and leave somewhere warm to rise for 20 minutes. Roll out with rolling pin until it is the size you want. Put some olive oil on the pan you'll be cooking the pizza on before putting the dough on it. Make sure to coat the pan everywhere the dough will touch. Optionally sprinkle corn meal on the oiled pan for a different texture crust.


During the rise time you can chop all your ingredients and prepare your sauce.

Mine is: 2 - 6 oz cans tomato paste, warm water, at least 1 tablespoon of crushed oregano (I use fluffy Mexican oregano, not ground, and grind it between my palms as I add it to sauce), some black pepper, sea salt, 1 teaspoon dried basil, 2-3 large crushed garlic cloves, dash of crushed red pepper. Add warm water until paste is the consistency of the sauce that you want.

The picture below is my secret weapon. They are discontinued so look at yard sales and thrift stores to find the Mirro Electric Pizza Baker
20 minutes to perfect pizza every time.

[SuperSwede]

I prefer the local pizza place

[otaypanky***]

The pizza available at Costco is amazingly good. And I'm picky about food. Well, I'll eat most anything as fast as a starving dog would, but I still know what's good and what's not and appreciate the difference

[ZMAN]

I used to work at a Pizzeria, when I was going to college. We had our choice of toppings, and could just about have anything you wanted on it.
The boss and I would sit down on a Monday night and just have a Cheese and Sauce pizza right out of the oven. It was exceptional. Now I go for Pepperoni. My wife likes more toppings so we do chop up Olives. Mushrooms, green peppers, red onion, Pepperoncinis, and sometimes just regular hot peppers diced.
We used to buy premade pizza dough and make our own, but now with the sales on the forzen ones it doesn't pay. I have found one that I really like and it is not bad. You get two 12 inch pies for 6 bucks, on sale. In fact we had some last night. Dellisio is the brand up here in Canada

[Pickngrin]

+1 on Costco pizza (the stuff from the concession). Very tasty sauce. As far as frozen pizza goes, my wife and I have really taken to Red Baron brand four cheese pizza (I don't do red --or gray--meat). It's not the real deal, but it's pretty tasty. And we do like to spruce it up sometimes with mushrooms or something to that effect.

[deeaa*]

I kinda like those - I dunno if you have 'em - smallish non-frozen ready pizzas that are the size of a 10" woofer about.
They taste nothing like pizza, but if you eat a ham one cold, it's kinda like eating a good and different ham sandwich.

In one school I worked for 2 years, I calculated I ate almost 1500 of those over the year. I saved money and time by not eating anything else for lunch - those pizzas were like dollar a apiece whereas lunch would have meant at least a fiver and 30 minutes.

Anyway, IF you heat one up, they MUST be improved...usually I put in some lean ham in thin strips, cheese and of course sweet pickled cucumber slices. Yum! Sometimes also peperoni or salami.

These type of pizzas are also known as, very freely translated 'Nauseapancakes' i.e. etolettus, and Mud Flaps (as in car mudflaps):

[deeaa*]

BTW in the U.S. I only ate Pizza a few times, and they all seemed kinda more like Pizza Hut kinda stuff, not like pizzas I'm used to in Europe, quite strange to me. Even the toppings were weird, sausage strips and meatballs for instance, but mostly the difference was that they were somewhat thicker, different, thicker and fattier cheese and much more toppings usually. Pizzas I usually eat are just 2 toppings and super thin & large.