Pizza! Pizza!..and MiniMichettes!

In a previous post I wrote about making pizza dough from scratch; yes, it is time consuming and takes a bit of upper arm strength to mix the dough but oh, so worth it!  However, one doesn't always have the time or the ingredients or the inclination to start the project, so in comes ready made dough!
Our local supermarket has ready made pizza dough in two forms: a packaged rolled out dough or dough in a bag ready to shape.  We opt for the bag ready to shape and for this blog, we bought three.

First a sausage pizza.  We cooked up a few links of (hot) Italian sausage and breaking into little

Sausage Pizza for lunch!

bits (yes, you must remove the casing from the sausage links).  Let the cooked crumbled sausage cool.  Shred your mozzarella (8oz for 1 pizza) and jack cheese (4oz for 1 pizza).  The jack cheese  melts beautifully with the mozzarella. Open the jar of spaghetti sauce and have some grated parmesan cheese available and you're ready to make pizza!
Here are some basics for beginners:
We use a pizza stone for our pizzas, but in a pinch you can use a jelly roll pan (we had to improvise once while visiting family that wanted home made pizza but didn't have a pizza stone). Turn the oven to 425-500 degrees.  Flouring your work surface, place the dough on the counter and begin to stretch out the dough with your hands eventually using the rolling pin.  Roll the dough into a rounded/square shape to fit your pizza peel (or to the size of your jelly roll pan).  Sprinkle seasoned/Italian style bread crumbs to your pizza peel and place your dough on it; the bread crumbs help the dough glide off the peel and onto your pizza stone.  (If using a jelly roll pan, lightly grease the cookie sheet and just place the rolled out dough onto it; no need fro brad crumbs.)
Add your spaghetti sauce (we use jar sauce, our preference is Muir or Newmans marinara or basil) - not too much as one jar can easily cover 2-3 pizzas!  With the back of a tablespoon, gently spread the sauce on the dough.  Give the peel a little gentle shake to make sure it is gliding on the bread crumbs.  Now add your grated cheese (about 2 tablespoons) and sprinkle on the mozzarella and jack cheese.  Give another little gently shake to the peel.  Now add the sausage; another little shake and into the oven and off the peel.  (If you're using the jelly roll pan, just follow the instruction without the gentle shake!)  Check on the pizza in 10-12 minutes to see if the back is cooking faster than the front, if so, rotate the pizza.  The pizza will have a firm enough crust that you can turn it on the stone. (Rotate the jelly roll pan if the back is getting more done that the front.)  Pizza should be done in about 15-18 minutes.  Slide onto pizza pan, let cool a little and serve it up!

For a white pizza:  Same oven setting.  Pizza stone or jelly roll pan.
4 oz mozzarella shredded, 8 oz ricotta cheese, 2-3 heaping tablespoons parmesan cheese, 1 egg, Salt & Pepper to taste = mix well together in a bowl.
Sprinkle bread crumbs on the pizza peel.  Place stretched out dough on peel or jelly roll pan.

Needed to stand guard a little sooner!

Prick the dough several times with a fork and brush entirely with olive oil.  Glide pizza dough onto the stone (or place jelly roll pan in the oven).  Bake until lightly golden brown. Remove from oven.  Spread the ricotta/mozzarella mixture on the pizza.  Return to oven and bake a few minutes (5-8 minutes).  Turn oven to broil.  Now, slide the pizza onto a pizza pan and move the it under the broiler - stand guard!  Remove pizza as soon as you seen the some golden bits of cheese!  (If using a jelly roll pan, just move the pan from oven to broiler and watch carefully!)  Remove, cool and serve!  For a special treat, drizzle a little truffle oil on the pizza!

Mini Michettes - what a surprise these are!  First discovered in Antibes, France these little stuffed bites are so easy to make!  We've stuffed them with cooked (crumbled) sausage & swiss cheese, and most recently with just the swiss cheese.

These are stuffed with Swiss cheese

Have your filling ready: could be sausage and mozzarella, swiss cheese, swiss cheese and (cooked) spinach, chorizo or pepperoni with parmesan  (Cheeses are shredded, not more than 4 oz needed, sausage one link, spinach handful cooked down.)
Set oven to 425 degrees
Roll out your dough, on parchment paper, into a rectangle - as best you can - with the widest edge in front of you.  Carefully sprinkle your filling/stuffing along the wide bottom edge of the dough.
Gently roll from the bottom, making sure it's even as possible.  When you have rolled it completely, get your sharpest knife and cut the roll into 1+ inch pieces (mine are usually 1 1/2 inches).
Now, take each piece and stand on it's side so you can see the roll/pinwheel). Glide the parchment paper with "side standing" pieces onto the peel - or onto cookie sheet.  Place in oven to bake about 15 minutes or until golden.   Remove from oven and serve at room temp or slightly warm.  I will freeze my batch and take out one or two per person to serve with a meal instead of bread!

As you may know by now, I am a great believer in baking or cooking in volume and freezing for an extra meal or two later on.  When my husband makes pizza, it's usually two or three at a time.  We freeze the slices and have them for lunches or, sometimes after a big lunch, for dinner.  As for the mini michettes, we have one each with our pasta dinner - always nice to have a little bread to "mop up" the sauce/gravy!  The added flavor of the filling is a treat.

Note:  When we first discovered these in Antibes, the fillings were more than a dozen:  mushrooms with cheese, goat cheese, tuna, spinach & cheese, cheese (and there very several varieties), chorizo, and more.  We recently tried to use pepperoni but it is too hard despite having been cut into tiny cubes.  Maybe shredded would have worked, but too much trouble for the uncertainty.  Found the swiss was easiest and tastiest to work with, but am sure if we tried with mozzarella and parmesan it would be a hit - especially if brushed with a bit of melted butter with minced garlic before baking! Mmmmm.....
So, what will you try?