The Pizza That Broke Me

Alternate titles for this post included:

The 2 Hour Pizza

The Pizza That Made Me Cry

and

I Hate Rolling Out Pizza Dough.

Let's just say that Wednesday night dinner didn't go so smoothly this week.

It all started around 6:00, when the hubby texted me that he was on his way home.

I took my pizza dough out of the fridge so it could sit for 20 minutes before being rolled out

and started roasting a head of garlic to be used in the white sauce.

About 30 minutes later I started to roll out the pizza dough.

Now, pizza dough can be a little tricky.  A little....annoying... to work with.

You'll roll it out and it'll shrink back in, taking your 12 inch pizza back to a 6 inch pizza.

When that happens, you need to let the dough rest about 5 minutes before rolling it out again.

So about 30 minutes later I finally had my dough rolled out to where I wanted it.

There it sat on my floured cutting board, waiting to be transferred to the pan.

I tore out a piece of parchment paper.

And it kept rolling back up on me.  Like 5 times before I finally got it to stay.

(Why don't they sell parchment paper sheets??)

Then I carefully lifted the dough off the cutting board and put it on the parchment.

But it kinda landed half on/half off the paper.

I tried to fix it, but the dough was sticking to the paper

and it just ended up a complete mess.

Ugh.  

So I took a deep breath, 

trying not to be annoyed that I just spent 45 minutes on this pizza dough

that now sat in a lump on my counter.

I thought I'd try rolling out the dough ON the parchment paper,

thereby eliminating the whole transferring issue.

But that just ended with a sheet of crinkled up paper

and that damn ball of pizza dough.

At this point, my short temper and pregnancy hormones took over.

I slammed the rolling pin down,

curled up in a ball on the couch,

and cried.

Yes, I cried over pizza dough.

My grand vision of starting dinner early so it would be ready shortly after my husband got home

had not-so-swiftly gone down the tubes.

By now, over an hour had gone by and we were no closer to dinner.

So my loving, caring, wonderful husband hugged me,

told me it would all be okay, and got up to tackle the pizza dough

while I gave myself a time-out and took a hot shower.

I came out of the shower to find a nicely rolled out pizza crust

topped with my white sauce and veggies,

and realized once again that I have the best husband ever.

And 30 minutes later we were eating dinner.

Now, if I haven't scared you away from making pizza with this story,

or if you're a master pizza dough roller-outer,

you may want to give this pizza a try because it turned out really well.

The white sauce was a nice touch, with a creamy garlicky flavor,

and lots of crunchy healthy veggies on top.

Veggie Pizza

1 ball pizza dough

1 cup ricotta

1 head of garlic

Olive oil

Salt & Pepper

about 8 oz mozzarella, sliced

veggies, such as carrots, broccoli, yellow squash, and onions

(but really you can use whatever you want)

1.  Cut the top off the head of garlic.  Put garlic into a glass baking dish and drizzle with olive oil, making sure it gets down between the cloves.  Cover with foil and bake at 350 for about 30 minutes.

2.  Meanwhile, roll out your pizza dough to the desired size.  Or cry and have your husband do it.

3.  When garlic is done, take out of the oven and scoop out the cloves into a bowl.  Then turn the oven up to 450.  Mash garlic together with the ricotta.  Season with salt & pepper.  I also drizzled some of the oil at the bottom of the baking dish into the sauce.

4.  Spread the white sauce over the pizza crust, leaving a 1 inch border.

5.  Top with veggies.  Then top with sliced mozzarella.  Sprinkle with salt & pepper.

6.  Bake at 450 for about 30 minutes, or until crust is golden brown and cheese is melted.

ENJOY!