Better Than Delivery...

The other night my boyfriend wanted to call up the local pizza parlor and order his favorite pizza (usually some pepperoni concoction with pineapple on it). I quickly stopped him in his tracks and told him that I would make a pizza for him instead. What was I thinking?? I’m not sure what made me say that as I was pretty certain that I had no frozen pizza dough or flat bread (unless you count the freezer-burned pita bread that really needed to be thrown out), and no pepperoni in the house. Well, it was too late to turn back at this point and retract my offer as my boyfriend happily put down the telephone and had a big smile on his face. I hid my panic with my own smile and confidently said, “dinner will be ready in about 45 minutes.” So the challenge began. I opened up my freezer and saw the box of Trader Joe’s puffed pastry that I bought for apple turnovers a few weeks ago. Thankfully, I still had one sheet of pastry left in the box. Woohoo! Next, I looked in the fridge and grabbed the shredded mozzarella cheese, some Chinese sausage, a Tupperware of marinara sauce, and the leftover top round steak that I made for some beef tacos the previous day. Lastly, I checked the pantry and found a can of crushed pineapple. Putting all the ingredients together was a breeze and a lot of fun. I first brushed the puff pastry with a little egg white wash, then spread a nice, thick layer of marinara sauce right over that. My boyfriend loves his pizza on the "saucy" side so I was pretty liberal with the marinara. Next came a few handfuls of part-skimmed mozzarella cheese, and then I sliced up one Chinese sausage and spread this out on one side of the pizza; the other half of the pizza was topped with the sliced top round steak. Finally, I added some of the crushed pineapple here and there because for my boyfriend, a pizza just ain’t a pizza without some pineapple on top! Into the preheated 400 degree F oven it went, and in about 20 minutes, the pizza was done. The end result was, to quote my boyfriend, “one of the best pizza’s I’ve ever tasted”! Can you believe it?
Since I received such accolades with the aforementioned puffed pastry pizza, I decided to make another for tonight’s dinner. This time though I changed up my toppings and used Canadian bacon, black olives, cherry tomatoes, precooked shrimp, and of course pineapple! Once again, the pizza turned out great and we didn't even have to pick up the phone. Saturday night cooking should always be this simple. Hope you enjoy.