Sunday, October 17, 2010

Pizza 4 Ways and How to Make Pizza Sauce, Mozzarella & Italian Sausage




Pizzas range from Chicago-style deep-dish to the authentic Italian Neapolitan thin-crusts. Depending on what part of the country you're from you can find every topping and style imaginable, including sauce on the bottom, on the top and no sauce at all. Without a doubt though, the best pizzas around, no matter the style, are the ones made by hand using only the freshest ingredients. Below I've included four of my favorite styles of pizzas. Of course I can't stop at just sharing recipes for making your own crusts, so I've also included how to make your own whole-milk mozzarella, red pizza sauce and sweet Italian sausage. 


Margherita Pizza With White Flour Crust
The first pizza recipe is a classic margherita with a light and slightly chewy crust. It's sure to be a crowd pleaser. Head out to your local farmer's market to get the freshest and most flavorful ingredients or better yet, head to your own backyard and grab them out of your garden! For the sauce of this pizza, we're only using fresh, crushed tomatoes. Try to find tomatoes that are sweet and full of tomato flavor. I'd argue that the standard Roma or Beef Steak tomatoes won't cut it for flavor, so do some tomato taste testing if you aren't familiar with the range of flavors tomatoes can have.

Whole-Wheat Crust Pizza Topped with Homemade Red Sauce, Mozzarella and Sweet Italian Sausage
Next, I included a recipe for a whole-wheat crust pizza. While a white-flour crust pizza is always enjoyable, it's lacking in the nutrients area and if you are anything like my family and me, pizza makes a fairly regular appearance in your home. The more nutritious the pizza can be the better. This pizza is made from scratch form the beginning to the end. Starting with the homemade crust and sauce, and ending with fresh homemade mozzarella and sweet Italian sausage. The whole-wheat crust is full of flavor with a soft texture and a bit of a crunch on the bottom. 

Sourdough Pizza Crust Topped With Mozzarella, Parmesan, Sweet Peppers and Artichoke Hearts
Every real food person needs to have a good sourdough crust recipe on hand – it's a good way to use up some of your wonderful sourdough starter. You can purchase starter online, or better yet start it yourself using equal portions, by weight, of water and flour. The more vitality your starter has the lighter your crust will be. You can also use white flour as a replacement for the whole wheat, if that's your preference. However, the whole wheat lends a nice flavor, especially with the mixture of cheeses and vegetables for the toppings. 

Zucchini Crust Pizza Topped With Red Sauce, Mozzarella, Prosciutto and Pine Nuts
Finally, if you don't want to sit down to a meal full of grains, the zucchini crust pizza is perfect for you. This recipe comes from Shannon and her website www.nourishingdays.com and incorporates suggestions from one of her commenters. While this is a pizza you'll be eating with a fork, it's filled with pizza flavor and is a great way to get some more vegetables into your kids!

Homemade Mozzarella
 At the end of this post you'll find a list of some of my tips for making your own pizzas at home. I hope you enjoy these recipes as much as my family and I enjoy making and eating them in our home! I'd love it if you would take a moment and vote for me for Project Food Blog, simply click HERE.

Thank you!!!




























































26 comments:

  1. Your next post should be 'how to make a picture of pizza look like it's about to melt off the page'. Fabulous. Particularly like the Italian sausage making idea and the different dough recipes. I'll be making these for sure. (plus my vote).

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  2. Unbelievable! Homemade crust, sauce, sausage and even cheese! You are an inspiration. Can't wait to try these.

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  3. Congrats on making it to round 5. That zucchini crust sounds amazing and I love that you made your own mozzarella! Love finding new blogs through PFB.

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  4. WOW! You made EVERYTHING from scratch! very impressive and deliciously done! you definitely have my vote!
    Leila @ My Barbarian Table

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  5. This is impressive. I can't believe you made everything from scratch. Those pizzas must really taste incredible because of your homemade ingredients. I definitely voted for you.

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  6. You really pulled out all the stops! Great job and delicious results. GREG

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  7. Therese, I don't see your blog on the listings on Food Buzz. You might want to check into it or maybe I just can't see it? I even tried using the "find" feature on my computer and typing in your blog name.

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  8. What delicious pizzas! I especially like the zucchini crust. That will be making an appearance in my house. Good luck!

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  9. I'm so impressed that you made mozzarella cheese! And the variety of pizzas all look delicious! Voted.

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  10. AMAZING job...I totally and completely love your entry!

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  11. Therese: wow! I am so blown away that you made your own mozzarella AND your own sausage. I love the idea of the zucchini crust too. Great job!!!

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  12. The Zucchini crust sounds really intriguing. And I LOVED the pictures of your other pizzas - definitely made my mouth water and wish I could eat cheese right now so that I could enjoy these fabulous recipes! Best of luck in your food blog journey - you are a real inspiration to me!

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  13. I am enjoying your ideas and just reading through all your recipes. Great ideas and very creative! Love it all.

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  14. Zucchini crust pizza? Sounds amazing! I'll definitely have to try it! voted

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  15. I love that you made your own sauce, cheese, and sausage! Awesome! You have a vote from me.

    For my entry, I made pizza for all the wrong times of day: some Deep Dish Pizza Cupfakes and Pizzas Benedict :) Come see if you'd like!

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  16. Impressive that you made everything from scratch! The photos and tips are extremely well done, great post. You got my vote and good luck!

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  17. Thank you all for the wonderful comments and thank you for taking the time to read my post. It was fun to do and I'm glad others can appreciate it too!

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  18. Very informative post! I like the "crustless" pizza idea too- your family must have been eating pizza for days LOL! Voted!

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  19. Thank you VegSpinz, yes your are very right about pizza for days. Of course my husband and son had no problem with that. Our freezer now has pizzas stacked up in it, waiting for one of those nights where you have no energy left to make any food, but still want something good to eat! I can say there are worse foods do be stuck left eating left overs. Pizza for lunch and dinner works for me! :-)

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  20. You are the winner. No doubt.
    Hearty congratulations.
    Wow!... That's an amazing effort.

    Love, Peace and much respect from Istanbul, Turkey. (A prospective Food Blogger, from the another part of the world.)

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  21. i'm with Todd! i could eat pizza every day. i'm excited to try some of these!

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  22. Wow! That was sure a lot of work! But no doubt a labor of love. I'm really liking the zucchini crust idea.
    LL

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  23. My friend from Turkey, Katie and Lori, thank you for the nice comments and for taking the time to read my post. I hope you do try the recipes and enjoy them. I still have tons of pizza stuff, so we might have to make it another pizza weekend again! :-D ...and my husband's smile just keeps getting bigger and bigger!

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  24. I love the clear and precise 'how to' instructions, complete with images. Brilliant!

    Looking forward to trying out the zucchini base pizza

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    1. Thank you! I hope you love the zucchini pizza!

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  25. Loved the various pizzas made by you. Thanks for the detailed sourdough tutorial and also for inspiring moments of faith.

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