If you plan to make your own crust just know that it take about half an hour prep time for the dough to rise. Here’s a website that has quite a variety of pizza dough recipes. To make a stuffed crust pizza you would need to triple everything.
Store bought crust mixes will cost more, but aren’t too expensive, especially if you buy in bulk. A case of 24 pizza crust mixes costs approximately 85 cents per crust (this is an average, you can get cheaper). Each mix is supposedly five servings, but because a stuffed pizza is more filling and I have trouble cutting a circle into five equal parts, I usually cut it into eight pieces and have a salad on the side. If you divide the pizza into eighths, this recipe will cost approximately $1 per piece.
Stuffed Crust Pizza
Ingredients:
3 twelve-inch pizza doughs (2 for the bottom, one for the top)
1 med. Zucchini, chopped
1/2 small onion, chopped
1/2 cup chopped mushrooms
1 bag frozen spinach
8 oz shredded mozzarella
3 lg garlic cloves, chopped
1/4 cup tomato sauce
Recipe:
Preheat oven to 450-degrees.
Make sure you give the spinach time to thaw. Moving it from the freezer to the refrigerator at the beginning of the day should do it. The first thing is to do is to get the moisture out of the spinach. Put it in a colander and use a paper towel (or clean cloth towel that you don’t mind dirtying) to press out all the moisture. This is important to prevent the crust from getting soggy. Mix 1/2 cup of the mozzarella (this would be about a fourth of the shredded cheese) with the spinach and set aside. Chop up your fillings. Sauté the zucchini, onion, mushrooms, and garlic in a pan for about 5-6 minutes on med-high heat.
Combine two of the pizza doughs and press them into a 10-inch cast iron skillet. There should be enough dough to completely cover the bottom of the skillet and come up the sides with dough to spare. This extra dough is fine because you will have to pinch the crusts together.
Put the spinach mixture into the bottom of the pizza crust. Top with other fillings. Press out the remaining pizza dough on a flat surface then lay across the bottom crust and fillings, pinching the edges of the top and bottom crusts together. Cut several 1-inch slits in top crust to vent. Spread the tomato sauce evenly over the top then sprinkle with the remaining cheese.
Cook on bottom rack of 450-degree oven for ten minutes to prevent a soggy bottom crust. Then reduce the heat to 400-degrees, move pizza to top rack, and cook for an additional 30 minutes. This recipe should take approximately 1 hr.
Variations:
I’ve made suggestions, but you can also choose other pizza toppings that you like. If you don’t like mushrooms, leave them out. You could include a cup of sausage inside the pizza or top the upper crust with pepperoni. I have no idea how authentic any of this is, but it’s comfort food so I really don’t care.
Money savers:
- Buy canned tomato sauce instead of pre-seasoned sauce. Add things like garlic salt and oregano to make it more flavorful. Make sure to cook in a sauce pan while chopping vegetables. This lets the flavors mix.
- Make your own crust. This take about 30 minutes, but at least some of that time could be spent chopping and cooking vegetables.
- Shred your own cheese. This actually makes measuring the cheese easier. Take an 8 oz block of cheese and cut off 1/4. This will be mixed with the spinach. Personally, I find it easier to mentally divide a block of cheese than a pile of shredded cheese.
- If you don't own a cast iron skillet you can purchase a disposable pizza pan for under a dollar. Make sure to grease it before you place the crust on. Though this may be less expensive now, in the long run cast iron pans are just too useful. You can cook anything in them and I highly recommend getting one (you could always ask for one as a present!).
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