August 23, 2009

Meatball Pizza

JimmyJames70 Says I'm on Twitter quite a bit and the other day I tweeted that I was making meatball pizza for dinner. Well, one of my fellow Tweet Peeps said he wanted the recipe for how to make meatball pizza. He then went on to say he thought it would make a great blog entry on The Goozex Report, cause you know, gamers have to eat too.

How many times have you been in a gaming session that's lasted more than a few hours only to realize you haven't eaten yet? It's happened to me more than once. Sure, you can always raid the fridge and come away with some string cheese or grab a bag of chips from the pantry. But sometimes, when you're really starving, that just ain't gonna cut it. Another option is to call for take out, but that can take a really long time, can be expensive--and this might just be my opinion--but the quality of delivery pizza is going straight down hill. Still yet another option is digging a frozen pizza out of the freezer, and I have to admit, a DiGiornio pizza beats delivery every time. But every once in awhile I want a homemade pizza, so that I can control the quality of the ingredients and the toppings on the pizza.

This meatball pizza recipe is super easy, pretty quick, and tastes damn good.

Ingredients:
  • Pizza dough - I don't have the time or the patience to make my own dough so I buy Pillsbury pizza dough or Trader Joe's whole wheat dough
  • Pizza sauce - Any pizza sauce will do but I prefer Ragu
  • Cheese - I use a blend of cheeses, including parmesan, mozzarella, and cheddar
  • Oregano - dried will do just fine
  • Basil - I use fresh basil that I grow on the deck, but dried from the store will work just fine
  • Pepper
  • Extra Virgin Olive Oil
  • Meatballs - I do make my own meatballs, but not for this pizza. I recommend Aidell's meatballs, they come in several flavors, so choose your favorite. I happen to use sweet teriyaki, but I bet the chipotle meatballs would taste great as well.

I think that's it.

First, preheat your oven according to the package. I think it's 400 or 450 degrees.

Then, spray your oven pan with some kind of non-stick spray like Pam.

Roll your pizza dough out on the pan and stretch it to the corners without tearing it. This takes some practice, but n00bs shouldn't get discouraged if it rips.

At this point, I like to drizzle the Extra Virgin Olive Oil onto the dough and spread it around. Then I add the sauce and spread that around. On top of that comes the grated parmesan cheese (save the mozzarella and the cheddar for later), pepper, oregano, and basil.

Pop that into the oven for about 10 minutes.

While that's cooking, slice the meatballs into thin pieces. You don't want them too thick or they won't heat all the way through.

After 10 minutes, take the pizza out, arrange your meatballs on the partially cooked crust, and then layer the cheese. Don’t go overboard with the cheese as tempting as that might be, just put enough on for one layer.

Put that bad boy back in the oven for seven minutes and you got yourself a meatball pizza that rivals any delivery.

You can thank me for this recipe in the comments.

Digg!

JimmyJames70