Pan Pizza Pie

All righty, after all the lead up, it's here.

The Pan Pizza Pie

I don't make this sucker often, but I'm considering changing that stance because it's easier than I remember (when I do it in the right order) and it's REALLY good.

So, we take 3 pizza crust pouches (this time I went with Chef Boyardee). I put 2 together for the bottom crust and 1 for the top. Start the oven preheating to 450. I make them according to the instructions, except I add a good dose of oregano / Italian seasoning and some garlic powder. Mix those up, cover their respective bowls so they can rise up a bit, and then I work on the toppings / filling.

For today's, I went with sausage and pepperoni. I belive it was some Jimmy Dean sage sausage, use whichever brand / flavor floats your boat. I didn't toss any pepperoni (Hormel in the resealable pouch) in with it like I did last time (no reason, just laziness more than anything). I also tossed a bit of the oregano / Italian seasoning on the sausage as it cooked. Once it was done, drained it, then tossed it back in the skillet and put a little of the sauce I was using (Prego Meat Sauce) in there to flavor it a little more.

At this point, I roll out the bottom dough until it will fit in the cast iron skillet (not the same one I used for the sausage) with some of it coming out of the top. Once it's in there, I poke some holes in it with a fork (to avoid bubbles) and then dust the bottom with some Parmesan  and mozzarella cheeses. Next is a layer of sauce (amount to taste). Next is a layer of pepperoni. Next is the saucy sausage.

I forgot to get pics before this stage, shows you how out of practice I am. Then I added some more sauce (this thing is a TON of bread, so you will want to add more sauce than you would normally add for a pizza). Next is a good layer of mozzarella and little bit of Parmesan cheeses.

Again, this part can vary by taste. I probably should've gone a bit more cheese, but I'm still relearning this recipe. After you've cheesed it, then you get the top crust, roll it to where it'll fit on top, but not over hang too much. And then you roll the edges together.

I then brushed it with some olive oil, instead of doing an egg wash as you would for a normal pie.

BUT, since it is more pie than traditional pizza, I usually cut some vents into the top crust.

A smiley face for all the readers.

Next we go into the oven. I let it go at 450 for about 10 minutes, then knock it down to 375 for another 30 minutes or so. This is what it looks like when it's ready...

I brushed a little more olive oil around the edges. If you're really into cheese, you could toss some on top of it at this point, then throw it back in the oven for a few more minutes (knocking it back up to the 450ish range) to brown it to your liking. I'd recommend letting it sit for a little bit when you take it out of the oven, gives the insides time to solidify a bit. If you try to cut it as soon as it comes out, it'll ooze everywhere. To each their own. I took this one to work today, and after the 45 minute trip (had it in a Pyrex stay warm pouch), here's what 2 slices look like:

The crust has a good Italian herb-y flavor, the cheese was a bit understated, but tasted good. The sauce was very prevalent and tasty. A great cold rainy day treat. 

A Taste of Things to Come

Ohmahgawd, I'm fat

On Wednesday, Shawn and I didn't care for what was in the cafeteria, so he suggested ordering pizza for lunch. His Dad, Mike wasn't too keen on his sandwich, so he liked that idea. So, I went with the old standby in this situation, the $10 pizza box from Pizza Hut:

Now, I usually end up getting this from a different PH location, as I usually order this for game night. But, I must say, even though they were about 5 minutes late, it was still nice and hot when it got here. Plus it was in the middle of lunch rush, so I wasn't too upset. The pizza was really good, the cheese sticks were just barely good. They had some cheese on them, but not a lot and it had been done longer than the pizza had, so they tried to cover up the fact by dousing it in their herbed parmesan mix. The cinnamon sticks were outstanding.

On the way home, I felt like a burger, so I stopped off at Sonic:

I went with the usual Super Sonic (only ketchup, which they put cheese on, so she had to take it back and fix it) and tater tots. It was good (once it was fixed) and seemed a lot bigger than usual. I managed to eat all the sandwich and tots, and felt around the same size as Jabba the Hutt afterwards. The coke was a really good mix between the syrup and carbonated water.

Pizza

Sunday afternoon after church, I stopped in at the local Brick Oven Pizza. I went with the usual Pulled Pork BBQ:

It was outstanding. Tons of cheese, the bbq sauce was nice and sweet, and the pork was tender and flavorful.

I don't remember what I had for dinner that night, and I didn't get a pic of it. It was either chicken tenders and tater tots or fried rice. I'm leaning towards the chicken and tots.

Salad and Pizza

On Tuesday, I went with a salad for lunch:

It's got mixed salad greens, some spinach, romaine lettuce, ham, chicken chunks, bacon bits, and italian dressing on / in it. It was good, although I probably would've like a little bit more dressing, but that's my fault for not doing a better job on it.

For dinner, Jesse, Jody and I went with the Pizza Hut $10 box, plus an additional pizza, as we were all fairly hungry. So hungry in fact that I forgot to get a pic till we were almost done eating:

As (is becoming usual with this item and particular delivery location) the sticks were nice and gooey, as was the stick pizza. The standard pizza was cooked and topped well, and the cinnamon sticks were great. Nothing was over cooked, and there was a good amount of all the various toppings and cheese.

Saturday's Buon Cibo

On Saturday, I met up with a bunch of my friends for a big night of gaming. We started it off by hitting up a local restaurant called Buon Cibo. They mainly do sandwiches, smaller pizzas, and some salads and soup. I went with a pretty traditional sausage and pepperoni pizza:

The pizza was very good. A nice cheese to topping ratio. The pepperoni was just the right amount of spiciness for me, and the sausage had a really good flavor and texture. The crust was nicely seasoned and not too crunchy.

Saturday The 14th

On Saturday the 14th, I went in to work to make up some missed time. So, for lunch, we (so did the coworkers) walked to the cafeteria. They had pork tenderloin that looked aight, so I partook of it:

The pork was very tender, and still fairly juicy. Their flavoring, however, didn't really penetrate it, which is normal for them. The gravy on the potatoes was just ok, I figured it'd be pretty stout with flavor. The potatoes were just ok.

For dinner that night, we hit the Brick Oven in Hernando. This is pretty much my favorite local pizza place. I usually either get the "Bubba's Choice" which is their meat lover's, or their Pulled Pork BBQ. I went with the bbq this time:

It comes with bbq sauce instead of pizza sauce, then the bbq pork, then they douse it with cheese. This is just the standard order of it (in 10" size), I didn't request extra cheese. The pizza was outstanding, great flavor, a ton of cheese, and a tasty (albeit) thin crust.

Pizza Night

Tuesday was another crap day at the cafeteria, so I went pretty big for dinner. And it was slightly odd for me. I usually prefer pan pizzas, the more crust the better. But I had a hankering for a thin crust pizza, and since that almost never happens, I decided to jump on it.

I went with Pizza Hut's thin crust with beef and Italian sausage, and some cheese sticks. And as I was uber hungry, you can see I forgot to take a pic when it first got there.

The pizza was pretty good, less cheese on it than I had hoped for, but the cheese sticks pretty much made up for that. All in all it was good, and I felt I got my money's worth.

Ethnic Thursday

I was fairly hungry on Thursday after only having one meal on Wednesday. And I was actually having a Chinese craving, so I got lucky at the cafeteria that day. One of the exhibition stations was doing chicken fried rice and egg rolls:

Being hungry, I grabbed 2 egg rolls (and they were a bit skinnier than usual) and some fried rice. The egg rolls were not as good as usual, but they were still good. The fried rice was tasty.

For dinner that night, Jesse and I went with a $10 box from Pizza Hut. As you can tell, I forgot to grab a before pic, so here's what it looked like when we were done:

It had a thing of cheese sticks, a breadstick pan pizza that had sausage, pepperoni and extra cheese and some cinnamon sticks. It was all GREAT. It got there while everything was still hot and gooey (hence the forgetting of the pic).

Friday Junk Food

On Friday, I went to see Brave for an extended lunch break (I highly recommend seeing the movie, even more so for Mothers and Daughters). At the theater, I went with my usual corn dog and frozen coke combo. No pic this time. It was a very well cooked corn dog, the bottom of it didn't come apart as I scooted it up the stick to continue eating it, which usually happens. And the mustard packets seemed to have a lot more mustard in them than usual this time, almost had too much for the corn dog.

After the movie, went back to work and worked a little bit late. Met up with the gang for a dinner of Papa John's, which I forgot to take a pic of. David and I split a large pepperoni pizza. It was good, nice amount of meat, the cheese was plentiful, and not too much sauce.

Trifecta

On Thursday, I had a trifecta of sorts. I hit up food from 3 different ethnicities. For lunch, I went with the cafeteria's wonderful country fried steak, mashed potatoes with gravy and one of their egg rolls:

The steak was good as usual, the potatoes were pretty good, the gravy outstanding and the egg roll was deliciously meat filled as usual.

For dinner that night, Jody, Jesse and I hit up the Pizza Hut's box meal, which was a "medium pan pizza" (in actuality their bread sticks with sauce, cheese and toppings, which I LOVE) cheese sticks and cinnamon sticks. We went with a meat lover's for the pizza. It got delivered in a timely manner (unlike the last time) and as a result, was nice and warm and appropriately gooey. Unfortunately, I didn't think to get a pic of it, so here's a tiny pic of the generic item from Pizza Hut's website:

Friday Food

For lunch, I had the leftover pork chop and corn from Wednesday night:

The pork chop was plenty juicy, as I kept it stored in the excess from the baking, and reheated it in that same juice. The corn was fine too.

For dinner, I had a Red Baron Meat Trio pan pizza. As far as higher end frozen pizzas go, this one is my favorite.

They have some kind of seasoning they use with the cheese and the crust has a great flavor, thickness and texture. The toppings are usually plentiful and always tasty.

Pizza

Monday was another long day at work. I went with a Garibaldi's pizza for a late lunch. The usual, a meat lover's:

This was 10" of tasty. Perfectly cooked, topping portions were great and plenty of cheese and sauce. This was all I ate today, it was that filling.

Carnivore Day

Today was a meat day. I decided to finally try the cafeteria's wrap table out, and had them create me a custom wrap. It was going to be basically a club, minus the veggies, but they were out of bacon. So it was a ham and turkey wrap. They offered to toss it on the panini press, and hating cold food, I said "Please do." 

Unfortunately, I was apparently the first person to get a wrap on the press that day, and it wasn't greased up very well, so it tore the wrap pretty well. I told the lady not to worry about it, it was still perfectly edible. The ham was very sweet, or maybe it was the turkey, I don't remember which off hand now. The homemade chips were very bland. I'll just get a bag of regular chips next time.

For dinner, Jody decided to get some Garibaldi's delivered and I joined in on that. I went with my usual from them, the 10" meat lover's:

It took forever to get delivered, but it was tasty all the same.

Saturday Night MPC run

On Saturday night, I met the gang at the local MPC, or Memphis Pizza Cafe. While I love me some pizza, MPC is not my first choice for the food, but my friend Greg LOVES this place like I love mashed potatoes and gravy, so I don't complain too much. I dislike it because the pizza is usually largely flavorless to me, and there's never a lot of toppings. And I mean ALL toppings, from sauce to cheese to meats. They do thin crust pizza with what seems like just enough sauce to turn it slightly orange, and then a layer of cheese so thing that my sausage toppings usually almost fall off the piece as I'm trying to eat it.

I usually go with either a couple of slices of sausage and some other meat (pepperoni this time) or a calzone with sausage and some other meat in it. This visit's slices were some of the best I've had there, so it wasn't too bad. I had intended on following it up with some dessert on the way home, but managed to talk my self out of it, somehow.

And yes, I once again forgot to get a picture.

Thursday!

For lunch today, I went with the Salisbury steak, mashed potatoes and a roll from the cafeteria. The steak was a bit tougher than I feel Salisbury should be, it was more like a hamburger steak, IMO. Still, was tasty, esp with the gravy they make.

For dinner, my buddy Jesse and I got some pizza from Papa John's. He went with a pepperoni and chicken and an all the meats. Both were tasty.

New York Style Pizza

When it comes to pizza, most people fall into 2 categories: Thin or Thick crust. I'm pretty firmly into the latter category. I love lots of tasty thick crust and a ton of flavorful mozzarella cheese. But occasionally, I like a nice bit of New York style thin crust pizza. As I was watching Bones the other night, Booth brought such a pie to Bones for dinner as she was working late in her office. It put the taste for that into my brain. So, yesterday for a late lunch / early dinner, my friend Jesse and I ventured to Johnny Brusco's New York Style Pizza to so I could quench that craving. There used to be one of these just around the corner from his place, which I ate at fairly regularly (usually a Stromboli, mmmm) but it's been closed now for a few years. But there is one on Germantown, not too far from where I work. I ordered a medium (12") with sausage and pepperoni. As usual, I forgot to get a pic of it when it was first brought to the table, but as I didn't eat the whole thing, here's what it looked like in its box back at the house:

Was it as good as I was hoping it'd be? No, but most things you have a craving like that for aren't. It was good though, as you can see I did eat half of it. And I will probably finish it off for dinner tonight.

Frozen Pizza

There are pretty much 2 brands of frozen pizza that I partake in. 1. Totino's 2. Red Baron's Pan Pizza 

Tonight's dinner was the latter. I go with the meat trio, which I'm going to guess isn't much of a surprise for you readers by this point.

I love the seasoning they use on this thing. The cheese is very good and just the right amount. The meat toppings are plentiful and tasty and the crust has an almost buttery taste. It also gets crisp on the bottom, but still has a nice somewhat chewy interior. All in all, this is my favorite frozen pizza. Plus, it's size makes it plenty large for 2 people, unlike the Totino's.

Winner, Winner, Pizza Dinner!

Last night, on C's Plate:

PAPA JOHN's!

Nope, it wasn't really all that impressive, but it was tasty and it did get delivered to game night in a decent amount of time, unlike last week's over an hour time of Pizza Hut's order. We got a "Meats!" from Papa, and it was good. This pic doesn't really do it justice, but here it is anyway:

After the game night, 3 of us (Jody, Grynner and myself) made our way to the local IHOP. I had every intention of getting a short stack of pancakes, BUT, they had an addition to their menu. 7 combos for $7 bucks. One of these combos was "Hash Brown Crusted Chicken and Biscuit". This was one of their chicken breast fillets crusted in hashbrown like potatoes, deep fried and then served with 2 eggs (your choice) a biscuit cut in half and a bowl of gravy. How in the name of breakfast could I pass this up? I couldn't. So I ordered it, and a pancake (which the waitress forgot, probably saving my life).

I forgot to take a picture of the food.

BLOGGER FAIL.

So, I've done the next best thing, for you, my dear readers, no, friends. I asked the Google to find me a picture, and I now share with you the fruits of Google's love for us:

Imagine that, but with scrambled eggs, and then the eggs and the biscuits drowned in gravy, instead of a little dollop on the biscuits. The stuff not on the plate are some of the other combos and not relevant to this topic.

It was pretty good, the chicken was nice and salty, almost too salty actually. I salt McDonald's fries, so if I say something is salty, you can take my word for it. The eggs were REALLY well done and the gravy magnificently complimented them, and the biscuits were a little over buttered, but pretty good.

I should probably add that as tasty as this stuff was to eat, it's still sitting in my gut at the time of me typing this wondrous tale. And even though we were done eating around 1, and continued hanging out and talking to around 2, this stuff is still here. I'm hoping I'll be able to eat dinner tonight, so I can give you fine readers another post today.

Garibaldi's!

Here in Memphis, we have a handful of locally owned Italian places that make great pizza. One of them is Garibaldi's. This is their small (10") meat lover's pizza and it is consistently one of the best thin crust pizzas I've eaten.