Pizza Spaghetti Casserole

My husband loves this dish!

Pizza Spaghetti Casserole
1 jar marinara sauce (24 oz)
1 or 2 cans crushed tomatoes (depending on how much spaghetti you use.  If you use the full lb, you may want to use 2 cans crushed tomatoes)
12 oz- 1 lb. spaghetti
2 cups grated Mozzarella cheese
1 lb. sweet Italian sausage
1 8 oz. box mushrooms, sliced
About 1/4 cup parmesan cheese
4 oz. pepperoni slices
Other toppings of choice: sliced olives, green peppers, onions, tomatoes, spinach, etc.

Preheat  oven to 350.
Spray a 13x 9 pan.
Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil.  Break the spaghetti into 1/3rd and put them into the boiling water.  Cook until el dente.  Drain and put into the bottom of the 13 x 9 pan.
In a large skillet, put about 1 T. olive oil and add the sausage.  Cook until browned.  Put the sausage over the spaghetti, leaving the oil in the pan.
Put the mushrooms in the hot pan and saute for about 5 minutes.
Mix together the pasta sauce and tomatoes and put onto the spaghetti and sausage.  Use a fork to get the sauce down into the spaghetti.  Top with the cheeses, mushrooms, pepperoni, and other toppings of choice.
Bake until hot and bubbly and cheese is melted- about 20-30 minutes.

Pizza Roll-ups

These little pillow sandwiches are delicious and easy to make.  Serve them with a marinara sauce for dipping.

Pizza Roll-ups

1/2 pound ground beef
1 8 oz. can tomato sauce
about 1/2 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
1/2 teaspoon oregano
2 tubes refrigerated crescent rolls

In a large skillet, brown the beef, drain, then add the tomato sauce and oregano.
Separate the crescent dough into eight rectangles- four from each tube.  Press the seam in the middle of each one together with your fingers.  Along a long side of each rectangle put 1/8th of the beef mixture and a sprinkling of cheese.  Roll up like a jelly roll.  Cut each of the eight rolls into thirds.  Put each roll on a large baking sheet.  Bake at 375 for about 15 minutes.  They should be golden brown.  Serve with warmed marinara sauce.

Loaded Baked Potato Pizza

Loaded Baked Potato Pizza

This recipe won the "main dish dinner" category for the Pillsbury Bake-off.  It really does taste like a loaded baked potato. 
Loaded Baked Potato Pizza -- Serves: 6 servings
 Ingredients:
1 can (13.8 oz) Pillsbury(r) refrigerated classic pizza crust 
1 medium potato 
1 tablespoon Olive Oil 
1/4 teaspoon salt 
1/4 teaspoon pepper 
1 box (10 oz)  frozen broccoli and cheese sauce
2/3 cup sour cream 
1 tablespoon ranch dressing 
1 cup shredded Colby-Monterey Jack cheese blend or any shredded cheese
5 slices cooked bacon, coarsely chopped 
1 tomato, seeded, chopped 
2 or 3 green onions, chopped 
 Heat oven to 375 degrees F. Spray large, sided cookie sheet. Unroll pizza crust dough on cookie sheet; press dough into 13x9-inch rectangle. Bake 10 to 13 minutes or until crust is light golden brown. Remove from oven; set aside. Meanwhile, pierce potato with fork; place on microwavable paper towel in microwave oven. Microwave 4 to 5 minutes, or until tender. Let it stand for awhile.  When potato is cool enough to handle, peel potato and cut into 1/4-inch cubes. In small bowl, mix potato, oil, salt and pepper; set aside. Cook broccoli in microwave as directed on box. Empty from pouch into another small bowl to cool slightly; set aside. In another small bowl, mix sour cream and ranch dressing. Spread mixture over pizza crust to within 1/2-inch of edges of crust. Sprinkle 1/2 cup of the cheese evenly over sour cream mixture. Sprinkle with bacon. Spread broccoli mixture and potato mixture evenly over bacon. Sprinkle tomato, onions and remaining 1/2 cup cheese evenly over potato mixture. Bake 15 to 22 minutes longer or until crust is golden brown and cheese is melted. Let stand 5 minutes before cutting.

Pizza Rolls for School Lunches...or Dinner

This is one of my favorite recipes for school lunches. My daughter doesn't like sandwiches, so it makes preparing a lunch for school difficult. I am always looking for new ideas. This is one of my favorites because it is pizza, in a roll. I make a batch of 36 and freeze them in a couple of gallon zip lock bags. I pull out one or two in the morning, put them in a baggie and into their lunch boxes. By the time lunch rolls around they are defrosted and ready to eat. Super simple for those busy mornings.

A friend originally made these for us years ago and when I asked her for the recipe she said, "Just use your favorite bread recipe..." And I thought, "I don't have a favorite bread recipe. That is why I was asking." But I found this recipe that I love. It is delicious just as a roll as well. But, if you have a bread recipe you like, feel free to use it instead.

Lion House Crescent Rolls...turned Pizza Roll

2 T. yeast
2 c. warm water
1/3 c. sugar
1/3 c. shortening, butter or margarine
2 t. salt
2/3 c. nonfat dry milk
1 egg
5-6 c. flour
melted butter or margarine

Pizza Sauce
Mozzarella Cheese
Favorite toppings: pepperoni, Canadian bacon etc.

Mix yeast and water and let stand 5 min. Add sugar, shortening, salt, dry milk, egg and 2 c. of flour. Beat together until smooth. Gradually add remaining flour till soft dough is formed. Turn onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic. Place in greased bowl; cover and let rise till double in bulk. Punch down; divide into thirds. Roll out one third of dough into circle. Spread your favorite pizza sauce on dough. I find it is easiest if I don't put any in the very center. Here is a link to homemade pizza sauce that we like. Sprinkle with mozzarella cheese and put on your favorite toppings. My kids like pepperoni so I do 12 slices of pepperoni, one for each roll. Cut circle into 12 pie shaped pieces. Starting at wide end, roll up each piece into crescent. Place on greased baking sheet and point on bottom. Repeat with remainder of dough. Brush tops with melted butter or margarine. Let rise until doubled. Bake at 400 degrees for 11-12 minutes. (original recipe said 15 minutes, but I have found that is a little long with my oven)

Sara's Pizza Dough and Homemade Pizza Sauce

Until I tried this recipe, I was never a big fan of homemade pizza. This crust changed that for me. I use it every time I make homemade pizza. Enjoy!

Pizza Dough
1 cup warm water
2 T softened butter
1 T yeast
2 1/2 cups flour
1/3 cup sugar
1 t salt

Mix water, butter and yeast and let it sit for about 5 minutes. Add sugar salt and flour. Mix and knead for 2 minutes. Roll into a ball and let it rise for 20 minutes. During this time I usually make my pizza sauce (see below) and prepare my toppings. Roll out dough, top with sauce, cheese and any toppings of your choice. Bake at 425 for 15-20 minutes, until crust is golden. Our family usually makes several small pizzas (each kid likes to make their own, and I've found that 15 minutes is too long for the smaller pizzas, so I start checking ours at 10 minutes.

When we had 2 children my husband went back to university full-time to get his MBA. During this time the budget was extra tight and I had a whole bunch of tomato sauce in my cupboard that I figured I could be doing more with. I asked around and a friend gave me this recipe for pizza sauce. It is super inexpensive, flavorful and easy to make.

Pizza Sauce

1 can tomato sauce
1 tsp. minced garlic
1 1/2 tsp. oregano
1 tsp. basil
1 tsp. parsley
1 tsp. onion powder or minced onion
1/2 tsp. pepper (NO SALT--the tomato sauce is salty enough)

Simply mix all ingredients and spread on your crust. The "recipe" I was given was very vague as to the amounts of each spice. So, add more or less of each, according to your taste. I find that this isn't quite enough to cover all the little pizzas we make with the dough recipe (above), so you could double it and save/freeze the remainder for the next time.

Best Pizza Sauce and Breadsticks Ever

Happy Valentine's Day! Turn your breadsticks into hearts for the ones you love!


My friend had us over for dinner a couple weeks ago and we had the most amazing homemade pizza, breadsticks, and dipping sauce I'd ever had homemade before. I asked her where she got her recipe--ourbestbites.com. I came home and started searching the site to find the recipes. It took me a while to find the recipes (they have a great organized site by category and type of food) so I wanted to post all three recipes I used in the same post for ease in the future. Here are the recipes with a couple of changes I did when I made it. Enjoy!

Garlic Bread Seasoning

1/2 c. powdered Parmesan cheese
2 tsp. salt
2 Tbsp. garlic powder
2 tsp. oregano
2 tsp. basil
2 tsp. marjoram
2 tsp. parsley

Mix ingredients in a small bowl. Seal in an air-tight container in the refrigerator until ready to use.



Pizza Sauce

Ingredients:

1 6-oz. can tomato paste
6 oz. water (just use the empty tomato paste can)
3 Tbsp. garlic bread seasoning (the stuff you just made in the recipe prior)
1 Tbsp. sugar
3/4 tsp. onion powder

Instructions:

Empty tomato paste into a bowl and add a third of the water at a time, whisking together until well blended. Add the other ingredients, stir to combine, and allow to stand until ready to use. It covers two average-sized pizza. You can freeze the remainder if you only do one pizza or just use it for dipping. If you do put in in the fridge or freezer in between servings slowly reheat it in the microwave at a lower cook power setting--30 seconds at a time--stirring in between. The reason for this is that the cheese in it could melt at a higher/prolonged power. This stuff is great for dipping with the breadsticks.



Breadsticks/Pizza Dough

1 1/2 c. warm (105-115 degrees) water
1 Tbsp. sugar
1 Tbsp. yeast
1/2 tsp. salt
3-4 1/2 c. flour

In a large bowl (the bowl of your mixer, if you have one), combine water, sugar, and yeast. Let stand for 5-10 minutes or until yeast is bubbly.

Add salt and stir. Add 1 1/2 c. flour and mix well. Gradually add more flour--about 3 cups give or take--until dough starts to pull away from the sides of the bowl and it barely sticks to your finger.

Spray a glass or metal bowl with cooking spray and place dough in the bowl. Cover and allow to rise for 45 minutes or until doubled.

To form the breadsticks:

Punch the dough down, remove from bowl and place on a lightly-floured surface. Spray a baking sheet with cooking spray. Roll into a rectangle and cut into 12 strips with a pizza cutter.

Roll out each piece of dough into a long snake and then drape the middle of the long rope over your forefinger and twist the two strings of dough around each other until you reach the bottom of the ropes with your other hand. Place on baking sheet and repeat with remaining 11 pieces of dough. Try to space them evenly. I ended up using two cookie sheets and baked them separately.

I also made cinnamon breadsticks and formed them into hearts after rolling them into a rope. Form your breadsticks however you desire. Or spread your dough out on a pan to make a pizza.

Cover pan with a light cloth or sprayed plastic wrap and allow dough to rise for another 30 minutes. A method I use on occasion to help them rise quicker is to heat my oven to 150 or 160 degrees and turn off the oven, then put the cookie sheet in to rise in there.

When there’s about 15 minutes to go, preheat your oven to 375. When done rising, bake for 10-12 minutes or until barely golden. Or if your breadsticks are rising in the oven, take off the cloth or plastic wrap, then leaven them in there while it's heating up. Once it gets to temperature, set the timer for a minute or two less than the baking time. When they're done, rub some butter on top of the breadsticks (I like to fold the paper on the butter down a bit and rub the stick of butter on top of each stick) and sprinkle with garlic bread seasoning. Or sprinkle with cinnamon sugar--those were good too.

Empty the Fridge Pizza

I am a really good meal planner. It's one of my talents. I plan my meals for the whole month and I cook, cook, cook. Just yesterday my husband opened the fridge, saw all the leftovers and begged, "Please can we have leftovers tomorrow?" But, every once in a while, just every so often, I find myself wondering what we're going to eat for dinner. That happened a few weeks ago. I opened the fridge to see what we had, and 30 minutes later, we had this pizza. I kid you not. It truly was "empty the fridge pizza." I had two cans of crescent rolls that I opened and spread in a sided baking sheet. I had a jar of pesto, which I brushed all over the crust. I had mushrooms, the end of a box of grape tomatoes from costco, some leftover grilled chicken, and some leftover Canadian Bacon from when I made McMuffin Sandwiches. And I had a bag of mozzarella cheese. Oh, and a can of olives. So, I started chopping and spreading and ended up with some delicious pizza in no time flat. I was very proud of myself and felt very "Chopped-ish." Here's the recipe, in case you want to actually plan to make it:

2 cans crescent rolls

Jar of Pesto

Mozzarella Cheese

Meats and Veggies as desired: Mushrooms, Tomatoes (both of these are essential to me for good pizza), Onions (I like to saute the onion with garlic before putting them on- even caramalize them, if I have time), Olives, cooked chiken, bacon, ham, etc. and whatever else you can think of.

Bake at the time and temperature listed on the crescent roll can. Easy, fast, and yummy. Even the leftovers were good.