Recipe: Pizza Crust and Roasted Red Pepper and Alfredo Sauce

A while ago I posted a recipe for BBQ Chicken Pizza with Roasted Red Pepper Sauce where I also mentioned that I'd eventually post my pizza crust recipe.  Well, here it is.

I got this recipe from some college room mates that I had.  They were sisters and they made all kinds of things from scratch that I never would have thought someone would make from scratch, like tapioca pudding.

I've made this pizza dough a lot and have learned a lot about how to make it easier.  It also makes good bread sticks.

Ingredients:
1 cup warm water
3 Tbsp sugar
1 Tbsp yeast
3 Tbsp melted butter
1 tsp salt
1 tsp Italian seasoning
2 Tbsp dry milk powder
3 cups flour

Step One (First Image below): Combine the warm water, sugar, and yeast. To make sure the water is warm enough to activate the yeast but not so warm that it kills the yeast, make sure it is warm to touch but not so hot that you can't touch it for more than a few seconds.

Step Two (Second and Third Images Above): Combine the melted butter, salt, Italian seasoning, and dry milk powder.

Step Three (Fourth Image Above): Combine the yeasty water with the butter mix.

Step Four (Fifth Image Above): Add most of the flour until the dough is barely firm but not sticky.

Step Five (First and Second Images Below): Let the dough rise in a warm place, knead occasionally and just before rolling.

Step Six (Third Image Above): Set dough on well floured surface.  Flour the top of the dough ball and the rolling pin.

Step Seven (Fourth Image Above): Roll dough until it is the right size for your pizza pan.

Step Eight (First and Second Image Below): Place the rolled dough on to the pizza pan. Fold over the extra dough.

Step Nine (Third Image Above): Bake the dough without toppings at 350 for about 10 - 15 minutes.  If you are planning on having heavy toppings, bake closer to 15 minutes.  If you are putting just a few toppings on, closer to 10 minutes is probably fine.

Step Ten: When the dough is done baking, add toppings and bake again until cheese is melted.

This time around when I made pizza dough I made a pizza with Roasted Red Pepper and Alfredo Sauce.  I simply pureed a jar of roasted red peppers and mixed with some Alfredo sauce.  I usually also add a good chunk of Parmesan into the sauce but I ran out after about a tablespoon.

I then added some garlic chicken and mozzarella cheese to make a delicious pizza.

Recipe: BBQ Chicken Pizza With Roasted Red Pepper Sauce

Once upon a time (just a few months ago, really) I had some extra roasted red peppers laying around.  I'd blended some up and added them to some pesto for a pasta sauce which, by the way, was pretty darn good.  Then I saw something on Pinterest.  I just went to look for the pin so I could link to it but it looks like I didn't pin it to one of my boards.  Anyway, the pin I saw was for some calzones with roasted red peppers.  I didn't want to make calzones but I thought that I could make a pizza sauce with my leftover roasted red pepper.  And that is exactly what I did.  CJ and I liked it so much that I did it again today.

This is what I used:

• A pizza crust.  I made my own mostly whole wheat crust.  One of these days I'll get around to putting the recipe and directions for that on the blog.  One day.
• BBQ Sauce.
• Roasted red peppers.  These can usually be found near pickles in grocery stores.
• Feta cheese.
• Mozzarella cheese.
• BBQ chicken.  I just diced up some chicken and cooked it on the stove with some bbq sauce but leftover grilled bbq chicken or shredded bbq chicken would work well too.  If you are looking for a vegetarian pizza, you could leave off the chicken entirely and this pizza would still be good.

This is what I did:

1. Cook the crust without any toppings for about 5 minutes at 350 ish.  It isn't always necessary to do this but I've made a lot of pizza in my day and cooking the crust for just a few minutes before adding toppings really helps make the pizza just a little better.  I think it prevents too many juices from the toppings seeping into the crust, which helps the crust cook more evenly and thoroughly, especially if there are a lot of toppings.

2. Blend up the roasted red peppers until smooth.  If you like your pizza sauce on the runny side, even blend in the juices from the jar.

3. Add bbq sauce to blended peppers.  I actually added about twice as much as is in the picture above.  If you want more of a bbq flavor add more bbq sauce.  If you don't want much bbq flavor, only add a little.

4.  Add toppings.  The order probably doesn't matter too much but I did sauce (which I would assume would usually go on the bottom), mozzarella cheese, bbq chicken, feta cheese.

5. Bake somewhere between 350 and 375 for 10 to 15 minutes.

6. Eat.