Pour-A-Pan Pizza

Travis requested pizza last night.  Well, I didn’t have any pizza crust so I couldn’t make a traditional pizza.  I did, however, have all the ingredients for this recipe, because it (conveniently) was already on my list of meals for the week.   For anyone who wants to know, I make a list of meals each weekend before I head to the grocery store.  By doing this I know I always have the ingredients on hand for what I want to make.  I’m always on the look-out for quick and easy recipes that look like something our kids will like.  Another good reason for planning ahead is that it’s easier to stay within my budget – I know what I need, and I get everything in one trip.  I don’t go back to the grocery store 3 more times throughout the course of the week. 

Unless the boys forget to tell me we need dog food.  But that’s another story.

But I digress….

What you need to make this recipe:

 

·         1 cup all purpose flour

·         1 teaspoon salt

·         ½ teaspoon garlic powder

·         1/8 teaspoon pepper

·         2/3 cup milk

·         2 eggs, beaten

·         1 pound bulk Italian sausage

·         1 package ( 3 ½ ounces) sliced pepperoni

·         2 tablespoons chopped onion (I just cut up part of an onion and called it good.  It was way over 2 tablespoons but it still worked fine)

·         2 tablespoons chopped green pepper (I left this off.  I’m not a fan of green peppers.  I think one little piece of cooked green pepper makes the whole dish taste like green pepper.  If I wanted the whole thing to taste like that I’d just cook up a dish of green pepper and forget everything else.  That will never happen, by the way.)

·         1 cup pizza sauce (really I just used what looked like the ‘right’ amount to me.  You’ll have to judge for yourself if 1 cup is enough.)

·         2 cups (8 ounces) shredded mozzarella cheese

 

Okay, so I probably could have made traditional pizza crust with what I had.  I’ll be honest – I wanted to try this recipe instead.  Travis was still very happy - this was close enough in his book.

 

Once you have your ingredients ready, this is what you want to do with them all:

 

In a skillet, cook sausage until it is no longer pink.  Drain off grease.  While that’s cooking, combine the flour, salt, garlic powder and pepper in a bowl.  Stir in milk and eggs.  Pour into greased 13x9x2 inch baking dish.  Sprinkle cooked sausage over crust.  Top with pepperoni, onion, and green pepper (if that’s your thing).  Bake at 425°, uncovered, for 15 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.  Spread with pizza sauce; sprinkle with cheese.  Bake another 5 minutes or so, until cheese is melted.  Let stand 5 minutes before cutting.

 

So that’s the recipe.  A couple things I will do differently next time:  I will cook the onion with the sausage.  Nothing like an onion sopping in grease!  Seriously, they were cooked but I think they would have been better if they’d been cooked beforehand.  Part of it may have been that I had a LOT more than the 2 tablespoons called for though.  The other thing I will do is pop the pepperoni in the microwave on a plate with about a zillion paper towels for about 14 seconds per plate full.  Gets rid of a lot of the grease that way; I usually do that for traditional pizza and I’m really not sure why I didn’t for this recipe.  The dish was delicious but a little greasy.  I tilted the dish to let the grease drain out of the leftovers before I packed them up so that the hubby wouldn’t be overwhelmed with grease.

This dish was a huge hit!  The boys loved it – Travis said I could make it every day for the next week!!  So I am!!

No I’m not!!

The hubby agreed it was very good, and said that while every day would be too much, once every week or so would be perfect.

The Princess did not like it.  Sausage and pepperoni are just too spicy for her.  I gotta hand it to her though, for being just 2, she did great at least trying it.  She ended up having some sliced ‘ham’ (it was chicken, but it’s all ham to her), carrots, and raw cabbage.  I know!  Raw cabbage!  But she was happy and ate very well.  And so I was happy.

There was enough left when the boys and I were finished that I thought the hubby would have enough for his lunch.  And he would have too, but when he got home he ate it then instead.  And then he ate some more.  And then it was gone.