Veggie Ranch Pizza

BEST OF THE TASTY CHEAPSKATE

 Somehow I missed posting yesterday. I think it's called: my-kids-were-off-school-for-a-week-and-I-lost-track-of-days-and-things-like-that. Anyway, I suddenly remembered today that I do, in fact, have a food blog and it is, in fact, Tuesday, not Monday. Le sigh.

So I'm rewarding you with my very favorite pizza recipe of all time. It can be started and finished in 40 minutes, even with a homemade dough. And it's comparable to a $5 pizza in price (it can be cheaper or more expensive depending on how many and what toppings you heap on there).

Instead of using a traditional marinara sauce, it uses a mayo ranch sauce that I personally feel goes with whatever vegetables (and meats) you want to heap onto this thing.

Truthfully, once you've got that magical ranch sauce going, you can put almost anything on this and it is divine. Originally, when we began making this we always used chicken. Then we branched out into other meats.

My favorite meats with this pizza: Pepperoni, bacon (oh bacon), chicken, sausage (we've even used polska kielbasa and it was amazing, like the love child of sausage and pepperoni). Or any combination thereof.

My favorite veggies: Olives, spinach, artichokes, thinly sliced (or grated) zucchini, mushrooms, grated carrots, green onions, regular onions (sliced VERY thin).

Favorite cheese: Mozzarella obviously, but on this pizza, it can be delicious combined with cheddar or Parmesan.

Favorite dough: My very favorite is this 2-minute dough. But I don't always have the foresight to make it ahead of time. For a quick dinner-hour dough, try this one.



One more note: Instead of the broccoli listed below, you can use broccoli and cauliflower or just cauliflower. It will be chopped until it is very small--almost crumb-like.

Okay, let's make this thing.

Veggie Ranch Pizza
Makes one jelly roll pan of pizza (yes, that's what we use) or two medium-sized round pizzas
Prep time: 20 minutes
Cook time: 15 minutes-ish
Cost: $5.80
dough: .40, mayo: .40, ranch powder: $1.00 (slightly more expensive if you buy individual packets; we buy the powder), meat: 1.00, broccoli: .50, veggies: .50, cheese: 2.00

Two-minute dough or Right-before-dinner Dough

2/3 C mayonnaise
1 packet Ranch powder (or 3 Tbsp)
1 SMALL head of broccoli (or 1/2 of a large one) chopped into smithereens (which is totally a cooking term; but seriously, you want it chopped until it's crumb-like
1/2 C Meat of your choice (about 1/2 C of chicken or bacon, or a bunch of pepperoni)
1/2-1 C Vegetables of your choice (about 1/2-1 C total)
8-12 oz. (or about 2 C) Mozzarella cheese, or a combination of mozzarella/cheddar/Parmesan

Make you dough. While it rests, combine mayonnaise with Ranch powder.

Spread your dough on a well-greased pan. I love to use olive oil to grease my pans for pizza. And if the dough gets sticky, you can add a little olive oil to your hands to make spreading easy.

Spread the Ranch/mayo on the dough.

Sprinkle the finely-chopped broccoli.

Add vegetables and meat.

Add cheese.

Bake at 400 degrees for about 15 minutes or until the edges of the cheese are beginning to brown just a bit.