by Charlotte Beal
Today I want to dish about super-easy quasi-homemade pizza. Recently my parents were in town, so I tried to come up with some impressive yet still budget-friendly and simple-to-make-after-a-long-day-of-editing dishes. Skillet pizza, a recipe from my Bon Appetit days, fits the bill, made even easier if your favorite grocery store sells fresh pizza dough in a bag (I like Trader Joe’s garlic and herb, which is a hideous green color but full of flavor and lets me skip the step of chopping fresh herbs). I hear you can also get fresh dough from your local pizzeria.
So basically you stretch out the dough with your hands – no rolling pin or messy floured work surface required – and add it to a hot, olive-oil-streaked cast iron skillet. Let it get golden, then flip it and top it with sauce, mozzarella, sliced bell peppers and onions and a sprinkling of s/p. Put it in a 400-degree oven for 10 minutes until bubbly. It’s like the Pizza Hut pan pizza of my childhood memories, but with much better ingredients and significantly less oil.
Just add salad – mixed baby greens and homemade dressing – and dinner is done. Did I mention there’s NO need to EVER buy bottled salad dressing? I literally make some variation of this almost every night: In a large liquid measuring cup mix equal parts white wine vinegar and olive oil, a forkful of Dijon mustard, salt and pepper. You can also experiment with adding smushed garlic, chopped shallots, herbs, different types of vinegar (sherry or red wine or balsamic or cider), buttermilk, yogurt, mayonnaise, sour cream and honey. The point is for it to be creamy, tangy, salty and spicy, all at the same time. And with ingredients I can pronounce.
