Double Crust Stuffed Pizza

It was a tough decision on what to make for dinner tonight. After my first official blog yesterday, I just couldn't decide what to follow it up with. My husband is very enthusiastic about the blog, since he will reaping the rewards from all the cooking.
So, decisions, decisions... pizza or stuffed peppers? Or, a dessert? No desserts yet. Let's do pizza.

INGREDIENTS:

Pizza Dough: I buy it at the grocery store, but if you want to make it yourself, the recipe is at the bottom of this blog.

1 (15 ounce) can crushed tomatoes
2T brown sugar
1 tsp. garlic powder
2 tsp. olive oil
2 tsp. granulated sugar
1/2tsp. dried basil leaves
1 tsp. salt

3-4C shredded mozzarella or any combination of pizza cheese, divided
12oz bulk Italian sausage
6oz sliced pepperoni
1/2 green bell pepper
1/2 red bell pepper
1/2 medium onion
1/4C Parmesan cheese

Lightly oil a large bowl

place the dough in the bowl and turn to coat with oil

Cover with a light, damp cloth and let rise in a warm place until doubled in volume, about one hour.
In the meantime, you can prepare the rest of the ingredients. Don't do like I've done and sit down and play video games thinking you've got an hour to kill. That will put you very far behind.

Combine crushed tomatoes, brown sugar, garlic powder, olive oil, granulated sugar, basil and salt in a saucepan.

Cover pan, and simmer over low heat about 30 minutes.
Here is where you can now prep your peppers and onions.

Preheat oven to 450°F. Deflate the dough and turn it out onto a lightly floured surface. Cut the dough into 2 equal pieces.

Roll one piece into a rectangle that will fit an ungreased 13x9 inch baking pan so that it hangs over the edges.

This is not an easy task because the dough doesn't stick to the edges of the pan. Just gently stretch the dough, being careful not to rip it.

Sprinkle the dough with 1 to 1-1/2C. shredded cheese. It's all about how much cheese you like.

Shape sausage into a rectangle that will fit into the pan on top of the cheese. The easiest way to do this is to spray a piece of aluminum foil with non-stick spray and shape the sausage on the foil.

Then you can just invert the foil onto the cheese in the pan and slowly peel back foil.

Now layer the pepperoni, peppers and onions

then remaining cheese on top of the sausage patty.
Oops... forgot to take that picture, oh well...

Roll out remaining dough to a 13x9 rectangle. Moisten the edges of the bottom dough layer and place just rolled out dough on top of cheese. Pinch and seal both layers of dough together, turning in any excess dough to form the crust.

Spread sauce evenly on the top crust within the side edges of the rolled crust. Sprinkle sauce with Parmesan cheese. Here you can also brush on some garlic butter to the crust edge using 1T melted butter and 1/4 tsp. garlic powder.

and bake in the preheated oven for 15 minutes. Remove from oven and cover edges of crust with aluminum foil.

Return pizza to oven and bake for another 25 minutes.

Let rest 15 minutes before slicing and serving.

So if you'd like to make your own dough, here is a recipe.

PIZZA DOUGH:
1 1/2tsp. granulated sugar
1c. warm water (100°F)
1 1/2 tsp active dry yeast
1T olive oil
1/2 tsp salt
2c. all-purpose flour

Combine the white sugar and the warm water in a large bowl or in the work bowl of a stand mixer. Sprinkle the yeast over the warm sugar water and let stand for 5 minutes until the yeast softens and begins to form a creamy foam. Stip in 1T olive oil into the yeast mixture.

Stir 1/2 tsp salt into the flour. Mix half of the flour mixture into the yeast water and stir until no dry spots remain. Stir in remaining flour, 1/2C. at a time, mixing well after each addition. When the dough has pulled together, turn it out onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic, about 8 minutes (or mix with dough hook in stand mixer).

Keep in mind I buy my dough already made so I don't know how this turns out. Drop me a line if you tried it and let me know.

Thank you for reading. Have a great day!