Homemade Pizza That's Faster Then Take Out!

Sometimes when you're to tired to cook but you have some great leftovers, Homemade Pizza might be your answer. I have created many favorite recipes in a very short time of home pizza making. I have also made my own dough and to me it tasted a little to bread doughy rather then pizza doughy. I have bought "Trader Joes" homemade pizza dough for $1.30, I would not call it my favorite pizza dough, sometimes it is just very convenient and to good of a deal to pass up. I will say that "Trader Joes" herb pizza dough is my favorite of the three as long as long as you roll it paper thin and put it on a screaming hot pizza stone, one of the tricks that make a big difference if your using a yeast type of dough. It amazes me how long it took me to get my very own pizza stone, I gave many for gifts, Pizza is one of my most favorite foods and who wants to plunk down $20-$30 for great pizza every time the craving hits....Not me.
So I was wondering, why are pizza stones $25 to $50 to me that was crazy, for a slab of smooth cement? So I went to one of my favorite stores, that is not a food store "Home Depot" and I walked down the tile isle to look at the big 18" floor tiles without coating on them. I could care less how pretty it looked because after a few pizza's your stone looks like a burnt mess anyhow. Sure enough for less then $3.00 I own my first pizza stone. If you do this you better make sure what kind of stone you're buying because I'm sure the coated ones are not good for you, then again the plastic we drink our $1.50 water from is also not good for us. So I took my new stone home, washed it in hot soapy water then put it in a cold oven and heated the oven to about 350 for one hour, I would not say smell was good. Then I let the stone cool over night and I turned the oven on again to 450 and cooked it for another hour, with nothing on it still. The next day I cooked it at 550 the highest my oven will go and cooked it for another hour. After it started to cool I rubbed olive oil with a paper towel all over it then wiped it off with a new paper towel and then baked some chocolate chips cookies on it for my first test run. My cookies were perfect and they cooked fast, I wiped the stone and was ready to make a pizza. My first pizza was America's favorite, pepperoni but my next pizza was so loaded that the center was mush, which I then had to finish cooking it in a frying pan by the slice. So like anything, with practice I honed my pizza skills and I would love to share some of my pizza ideas that I have made up, recreated and perfected. If you have a pizza that you really love to make and eat, please post it so that we can all share the love of pizza together. Thank you for cooking, Ms Foodie

The Quicky 3 Veg Pizza w/Tapenad Sauce

1 zucchini sliced thin
4 small tomatoes sliced medium (1/4 inch)
1 Handful of dehydrated sliced mushroom medley**
EVOO (extra virgin olive oil)
1 clove of garlic paste or minced
1 cup of Gouda cheese (not smoked)
1/4 Parm/Reggiono cheese
3 Tbsp Black olive tapenad
1 whole sheet of Lavash bread (middle eastern flat bread)

Preheat Oven to 550
Do not oil the pizza stone

Place down your lavash
Mix olive tapanade with 1Tbsp of EVOO and garlic
Spread thin across the lavash
Spread around the slices of zucchini
Drizzle a little EVOO over the zucchini's
Spread the Gouda all over
Toss the mushrooms across
Place fresh tomato's all around
Sprinkle Parm/Reggiono on top
Bake for 7-10 min. the edges will look med/dark crispy brown
Cut into 4 squares and eat hot
Mangia'

Serves 2

** reconstitude in warm/hot water, ring out the extra water after 10 min. You can save the water for a risoto, sauce or soup but if it will be more then 3 days freeze it.
The mushroom medley I like is Shiitake, oyster and porcini

Tips:
If you do not have a pizza peel then you can either make it right on the stone which is screaming hot and hard on the back also you better have everything ready to go and work super fast or get a piece of thin plywood put aluminum over it at use corn meal to roll the pizza off, as long as your pizza is not bigger then the piece of plywood (watch out for splinters).

If your pizza dough does not slide around when you first place it down, DO NOT build your pizza because the toppings only make it heavier and it really won't slide.

The oven must be preheated to your highest setting in order to crisp the whole underneath of your pizza and cook the toppings.