Living it Write

Blogging live from the Sherdell Football Cafe I bring you Chicago style deep dish pizza:

The Bears played Monday Night Football last week, and in honor of that game I thought I’d try to bring a little piece of home to the desert.  I love making homemade pizza, so I thought I’d kick it up a notch and try my hand at making deep dish style. I typically prefer thin crust, but I don’t mind changing things up once in a while.

I followed Eat Live Run’s dough recipe, used Muir Glen Organic’s pizza sauce (with a little sprinkling of oregano) and then worked on toppings.  I made one with traditional Italian sausage and shredded mozzarella cheese…

…and then I got a little fancier and made the other with bacon, jalapeno peppers and fresh mozzarella.

The pizzas turned out darn tasty if I do say so  myself!  I loved the sausage one, but the star was the bacon and jalapeno.  The flavors worked so well together and using fresh mozzarella made it extra cheesy, gooey and delicious.

Since this was my first go around with the deep dish style I didn’t invest in the proper pan to make it in, but the pie pans worked out fine.  I think for next time I would get the right pan though, it would make it a little easier to punch the dough down and get it really deep dish.

Other tips if you try the dough recipe:

• I switched out the sugar and used garlic powder instead and it was fine.
• Making the dough is a little time consuming, so try to make it ahead if you can.  Otherwise you won’t be eating dinner until 9pm!
• Thankfully I have a Kitchen-Aid so kneading the dough was much easier than having to do it by hand but by hand is fine too, will just take a bit longer.

Sadly the pizza didn’t bring the Bears any luck, they lost miserably to the Lions.  I can’t even be a Cutler hater anymore because our offensive line is just crap this year.  They play Sunday night this week, so here’s hoping for a win.  We need it!