School Pizza

My early school years took place primarily in the 90’s, and I remember the cafeteria serving up super cheesy rectangles of pizza on a thin crust every Friday.  Everyone looked forward to Pizza Friday!  As I grew older, I realized that “rectangle pizza” was a more widespread thing that existed in many schools other than my small lil’ educational establishment in East Tennessee.

 School Pizza

Servings: 8

Ingredients :

Crust :

• 2-2/3 cup flour
• 3/4 cup powdered milk
• 2 T sugar
• 1 package quick rise yeast
• 1 tsp salt
• 1-2/3 cup warm water (110-115)
• 2 T vegetable oil

Filling :

• 1/2 lb Italian sausage
• 1/2 lb ground chuck
• 1/2 tsp pepper
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 (8oz) block mozzarella cheese

Sauce (I make the day before) :

• 1 (6oz) can tomato paste
• 1 1/2 cups water
• 1/3 cup olive oil
• 2 cloves garlic minced
• 1 t salt
• 1 tsp pepper
• 1/2 T dried oregano
• 1/2 T dried basil
• 1/2 t dried rosemary

Instructions :

Crust :

1. Preheat oven to 475.
2. Spray 18 x 13 sheet pan with Pam and lay parchment paper down.
3. Add flour, powered milk, sugar, yeast, and salt to a large bowl. Whisk to blend.
4. Add oil to warm water. Pour into flour mixture. Stir with a wooden spoon until batter forms. Don’t worry about lumps - you just want no dry spots.
5. Spread dough onto sheet pan with fingertips until even. If the dough doesn’t want to cooperate then let it rest for 5 min and try again.
6. Bake just the crust for 8-10 min. Remove from oven and set aside.

Filling :

1. Brown meats (add salt and pepper) until it resembles crumbles. Drain, set aside.
2. Get out sauce.

To partially baked crust assemble:

1. Spread sauce all over crust.
2. Sprinkle meats.
3. Sprinkle cheese.
4. Bake at 475 for 8-10 min. Until cheese starts to brown.
5. Let stand 5 min, cut into slices and serve.

Notes

Sauce was good, but too sauce much for a half-sheet. Too much meat too, could reduce by 1/2. The crust was thick, dense and pastey. Could reduce the crust by half to thin it out, add more flour until it resembles dough (instead of batter), and let it rise a bit so it’s more airy.