Tomato Pie (and Pizza, too)

It's a Philly thing. I've seen Tomato Pie listed on pizzeria menus (and sitting on bakery shelves) since we moved to the Philadelphia area 22 years ago. But until this summer, I'd never tasted it.

Erin at Mrs. Mackerelsnapper, OP made sure I had a chance to try Tomato Pie at the Catholic Writers Guild Conference this summer, where she served slices of it along with previews of her upcoming novel, Don't You Forget About Me, which is a murder mystery that actually made me cry. Erin likes Tomato Pie so much that she named her blog after it--and it's a key element in that novel as well.

In my household, the divide between Pizza and Tomato Pie follows gender lines. Because I'm essentially lazy, but I wanted to have my Tomato Pie while the guys ate their pizza, I figured out how to make both--with just one recipe--in the oven at the same time, with a little help from Slice. I took their recipe and ran with it, modifying the crust for the bread machine and changing up the sauce a bit. It might not be exactly authentic, but then again, I've had the Real Thing exactly once.

TOMATO PIE (and PIZZA, too)
This recipe makes one 9-inch square tomato pie PLUS one 16-inch round thin-crust pizza.

For the crust:
11 ounces water
2 ounces extra-virgin olive oil
2 tsp salt
3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3 TBL vital gluten
1 scant TBL active dry yeast

Place ingredients in the pan of your automatic bread machine in the order recommended by the manufacturer. Use the DOUGH cycle.

For the sauce:
2 TBL extra-virgin olive oil
2 TBL butter
4 garlic cloves, shredded on a microplane
1 TBL dried oregano
1 1/2 tsp dried basil
1 tsp crushed red pepper
1 can (28 ounces) tomato puree
1 small onion, peeled (leave the onion whole)
1 TBL sugar
1 tsp kosher salt

In a heavy saucepan (6-cup or larger), heat the olive oil and butter over medium heat until butter melts. Add garlic, oregano, basil and red pepper and cook 2 minutes until fragrant. Add remaining ingredients. Simmer uncovered, stirring frequently, for at least an hour until the sauce cooks down.

Note:  There will be leftover sauce. Freeze it for the next time, or use it to make french-bread pizza, English-muffin pizza or bagel pizza.

I started the sauce right after getting the bread machine set up. The longer the sauce cooks, the better it will taste.

When the bread machine is done, sprinkle your table with flour and dump the dough on the table. Knead a couple of times, then allow to rest 10 minutes.

Prepare a 16-inch round pizza pan and a 9-inch square cake pan by brushing with olive oil. Place one oven rack fairly close to the bottom and the other one about 2/3 of the way up to the top. Preheat the oven to 450.

Separate about 1/3 of the dough and set aside. This will be for the square pan.

Using a rolling pin, form the larger portion of dough into a circle. When it is almost as large as your pizza pan, roll it partially over the rolling pin, then transfer it to the pizza pan. Use your hands to press it closer to the edge and to form a higher crust at the edges.

Place the smaller portion of dough into the square pan and use your hands to get it all the way into the edges and corners. Form a higher crust at the edges of the pan.

Spread a thin layer of sauce on the round pizza and a thicker coating on the square one.

When the oven has preheated, place the square pan on the higher rack in the oven. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until edges are crispy and golden-brown.

Sprinkle any pizza toppings you like on the round pizza. Bake at least 15 minutes on the lower rack, watching carefully (don't let the cheese burn!)

After removing pizzas from oven, allow Tomato Pie to cool slightly, then add a dusting of Parmesano-Reggiano or Romano cheese. Serve at room temperature (it tastes great hot, too, if you can't wait...ask me how I know!)

Tomato Pie would be great for lunchboxes, as it doesn't require reheating.

Secret Recipe Club: Taco Pizza

It's the March Madness Edition of the Secret Recipe Club!  In this group, each member is secretly assigned the recipe blog of another member.  The recipe is then prepared and taste-tested, photographed for cyber-posterity and posted.  It's fun to try new recipes, and I'm lucky to have a family that's generally good-natured about such experiments.

Of course, if I left the choosing to the kids, they'd pick cookies every time.  While cookies are fun, I like finding new main-dish recipes too.  So even though my assigned blog for March is really heavy on cookies, I focused on the non-dessert offerings at Sweetie Pettiti.  But that doesn't mean I didn't find a "fun" recipe!

Susie worked hard to duplicate her childhood favorite, Happy Joe's Taco Pizza.  She had to find a recipe that lived up to her high nostalgic expectations.  I had no such expectations, since I never ate at Happy Joe's.  The idea of Taco Pizza was appealing, though--and I figured my family would love it.  And salad on a pizza sounded fun, different, and even (imagine that) good for you!

Changes I made:

Instead of one huge pizza, I made individual ones.  This allowed each family member to customize their Taco Pizza.  If your kids like to help in the kitchen, this is an ideal recipe.  Once the ingredients are all assembled, kids can spread their favorite toppings on their pizza, then the grownups can bake it until done.

I also added sauteed onions as a topping.  (YUM!)

I had no tomatoes in the house, so I skipped those.  This is not the time of year for tomatoes.  In the summer, though, I'd have to add them!

I made my own pizza dough based on the recipe at Once a Month Mom rather than using premade dough.

Finally, I made a meatless pizza for my daughter, at her request.

Survey Says:

This is a yummy dish!  It would be a fun meal to have while you're watching a little March Madness--just be sure to have plenty of napkins handy, because (as Susie pointed out in the original recipe) the toppings fall all over the place.  It was easy to customize to individual tastes.  My daughter had a meatless pizza.  My husband ate his salad separately and spread sour cream on top.  It's also frugal:  I used up some pizza sauce and refried beans that were already in the refrigerator, so it's a good way to reinvent some leftovers.  I found that it was easier to "fold" this pizza like a huge taco and eat it that way rather than slicing and lifting little pieces of it.

Here's how to make this at home:

Taco Pizza

Makes 8 individual pizzas

1 batch pizza dough, divided in 8 portions, rolled and par-baked for 5 minutes at 425

1 lb. ground beef, browned and drained

1/2 onion, finely chopped and cooked until onions are soft

2 TBL taco seasoning

1/4 cup water

1 can refried beans

1/4 cup taco sauce

1/4 cup pizza sauce

1/2 cup mozzarella cheese, shredded

1 1/2 cups cheddar-jack cheese, shredded

Lettuce, shredded

Tortilla chips, broken into small pieces 

Additional taco sauce, optional

Sour cream, optional

Season cooked ground beef with taco seasoning.  Add water and simmer until water cooks off.  Meanwhile, mix refried beans, taco sauce and pizza sauce.  (I found that heating the beans in the microwave for about a minute made them easier to mix up with the other ingredients).  Spread bean mixture on your par-baked pizza crusts.  

Top with mozzarella cheese, then with seasoned taco meat.

Add onions, then cheddar-jack.  Bake at 450 for 8 to 10 minutes, until cheese is melted and crust is golden brown on the edges.

Allow pizza to sit a few minutes before you try to slice or eat it.  Then top with salad and chips.

Grab a napkin or three, and dig in!

Don't miss the other recipes in today's Secret Recipe Club big reveal.  I always find a whole bunch that I want to taste-test!

Calzones

Everyone in my family likes calzones, but I haven't had the greatest success making them at home.  I had high hopes, though, when I bookmarked the recipe for Buffalo Chicken Calzones over at Once a Month Mom.

Since I don't like Buffalo chicken, I decided to make some of my calzones with barbecue chicken.  These wound up being the ones everyone loved. 

The next time, I filled the calzones with mozzarella cheese and sliced meatballs.  Once again, this was a hit!  (The pictures are from the meatball batch, but the technique is the same.)

BARBECUED CHICKEN FILLING

2 cups cooked chicken, shredded
1 cup Cheddar or Cheddar-Jack cheese, shredded
1 medium onion, caramelized
1 cup barbecue sauce

MEATBALL FILLING
10 to 12 meatballs, sliced (1 per calzone)
1 cup spaghetti sauce
1 cup mozzarella cheese

One sliced meatball per calzone.

Top with cheese (the kids want me to add more next time!)

Crimp it tightly so the filling doesn't leak out!

HOMEMADE PIZZA DOUGH from Once a Month Mom
15 ounces warm water
1 TBL active dry yeast
1 TBL sugar
2 1/2 tsp kosher salt
2 TBL olive oil
3 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

This is the easiest pizza dough ever!  Just mix yeast, sugar, salt and olive oil with the warm water in a large bowl.  Mix in the flour with a wooden spoon.  No kneading necessary.  The dough will not look or feel like a kneaded bread dough, but don't worry!  Cover with a towel and let it rest at room temperature for about 2 hours.  (In summer, if I have the air conditioner on, I take the covered bread bowl out to the porch to rise the dough.)
Roll out the dough on a floured surface and divide it into 10 to 12 portions for calzones.

Calzone dough immediately after mixing.

2 hours later, here's the dough after rising!

TO BAKE:   Place finished calzones on cookie sheet (I cover the sheet in parchment paper.)  Brush tops of calzones with olive oil.  Sprinkle with parmesan cheese if desired.  Bake in preheated 450-degree oven for 15 to 20 minutes.

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