Homemade Frozen Pizza
Healthier and cheaper than buying "health" food frozen pizza at your grocery. Take a weekend afternoon to make it up, and you’ll end up with six frozen emergency (translation: "I gotta have pizza, NOW!") meals for later! :) Ingredients
Place flour in a large bowl. Add 2 tablespoons olive oil to the yeast mixture and stir it into the flour until a dough is formed. Knead it right in the bowl, adding additional flour as needed, until the dough is smooth and elastic (this will probably take 10 minutes or so); scrape down the bowl as needed to incorporate all material - poke the dough with your finger - if it springs back, it is ready. Pour 1 teaspoon olive oil on dough and turn it to coat the whole dough ball. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap; place it in a warm, draft-free place until the dough has doubled in size (probably 1 to 2 hours). Pre-heat the oven to 500 °F. Lightly oil a baking sheet (or sheets, depending how many pizza rounds you made) and sprinkle with corn meal over oil (if you use non-stick sheets, you can skip the oil). Punch down the risen dough, divide it into six pieces (or more or less, according to your own preferences). Shape each piece into a pizza round (a rolling pin helps here). Poke each round with a fork in several places (if you skip this step, you'll end up with pita breads instead of pizza crust - if this does happen, just stab each pizza crust and then press down on it to deflate it - you need to do this before it cools, but be careful - steam will come out of the stab holes). Bake each round for 5 minutes at 500°F. Cool briefly, and lightly brush each round with olive oil (this will help avoid moisture absorption in crust while it is frozen). Spread sauce on each pizza, and sprinkle with seasonings; add cheese and toppings to each pizza. Place pizza on plate(s) or pan(s) with wax paper between the pizza and the plate - place in freezer until solidly frozen (at least two or three hours; once frozen, remove from freezer and vacuum seal as individual pizzas. if you don't have a vacuum sealer, place frozen pizzas in freezer bags to store (but seriously, vacuum sealers are awesome and will greatly extend the shelf life of your frozen foods!). When you're ready to eat one of your personal pizzas, take a pizza out of the freezer. Place the pizza on a baking sheet (or a pizza stone, if you have one) and put it on the middle rack in a cold oven and set the oven at 400°F. Check at 22-24 minutes and remove when crust is golden brown and cheese is bubbly. Cool on a wire rack for 2-3 minutes before cutting into wedges and serving. Number of Servings: 6 |