Monday, September 24, 2007

Homemade Pizza and Roasted Banana Ice Cream

We had friends over last night to watch football. My team played miserably (Oh, Bears... when will we ever get a good QB?) but at least we had good food.

My husband's mom used to make homemade pizza when he was growing up, and his sister gave us the recipe. It's pretty easy since you just used frozen bread dough for the crust. I have heard about this famed pizza for many years, so I was a little nervous about measuring up... but my hubby thought it was great. Here's the recipe:

Linda's Homemade Pizza

2 frozen bread dough balls (I just used the Kroger brand)
Canned pizza sauce (I used the Walmart brand)
Toppings of your choice (I used red onions, red and green peppers, fresh sliced mushrooms, mozzarella, and oregano)

Place the frozen dough into a waterproof plastic bag and immerse in hot water until thawed. Lightly coat a 9x13 baking pan with cooking spray. Shape the dough to fit the pan, then let rise until the crust is about 1.5 inches high or so. Preheat the oven to whatever temperature the bread directions recommend. Bake the crust for about 15 minutes until the dough looks reasonably cooked. Remove the pan from the oven and increase the temperature to 400 degrees. Top the crust with pizza sauce and your chosen toppings and place back in the oven until it looks cooked, about 15-20 minutes. Voila! Homemade pizza.

I was just in a homemade mood yesterday. I also made fresh tomato salsa, and I had made roasted banana ice cream (again from The Perfect Scoop). I think if you like banana pudding, you would like this ice cream. We topped it with homemade fudge sauce - also a recipe handed down from his side of the family. In celebration of his gastronomic heritage, I will share that one too:

Auntie Frannie's Hot Fudge Sauce
2 squares unsweetened chocolate
1 stick butter
2 cups powdered sugar
5 oz evaporated milk
1 tsp vanilla

Melt chocolate in a double boiler. Mix all but vanilla together and heat until well blended. Add vanilla.

Oh so good. All good things start with a stick of butter.

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