Proud Italian Cook

Soon after a dear cousin of mine past away, family members handed down to me an old metal box containing priceless recipes of my aunt, their mother, it was like I won the lottery!

A simple gray slightly rusted box stuffed full of yellow stained index cards, some typed but the majority handwritten treasures by my aunt. I spent some time going through them all recently, what I found were decades of her cooking, some magazine and newspaper clippings, but in between it all were some of our most cherished family recipes. Needless to say it brought back many happy food memories of my childhood. I also came across some unfamiliar recipes that I couldn’t wait to try.

Like this pizza bread recipe, sort of a vegetarian version of sausage bread, something we would have each year at Easter time when I was a kid.  Pizza bread mimics the makings of a pizza but it actually gets rolled up and baked as a savory bread.

You can make your own pizza dough which is provided in the recipe or buy a good quality one like I did to make it really quick.

I made the filling exactly as the recipe stated but you can certainly be creative and add other ingredients or change up the cheese to make it your own.

Make sure to leave about a one inch edge all the way around free of sauce to make the rolling and sealing easier. After all the filling is placed on the dough your going to roll it up jelly roll style. Brush the top with olive oil, sprinkle with romano cheese and crushed black pepper.

This is a keeper, thank you Aunt Eileen!

Pizza Bread

 

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Ingredients

• DOUGH
• 1 small cake compressed yeast
• 1 cup lukewarm water
• 4 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• FILLING
• ¼ cup olive oil
• 1 clove garlic
• ½ onion, minced
• ½ teaspoon of dried oregano
• 2 cups of canned tomatoes
• 1½ cups of shredded mozzarella
• ½ cup of grated romano cheese
• salt and pepper

Instructions

1. For the DOUGH, dissolve yeast in water, make a well in flour and add yeast mixture. Knead for 10 miniutes, add oil and knead until smooth. Place in bowl cover with wax paper and towel and set in a warm place. Let rise for about 2 hours. Spread dough in a circular shape about 14 inches in diameter
2. For the FILLING, saute garlic and onion in oil. Remove garlic and add tomatoes, salt and pepper.cook over medium about 20 minutes, crushing tomatoes with a slotted spoon. Let it cool then cover dough with sauce.
3. Arrange mozzarella over the tomatoes. Sprinkle grated cheese and oregano on top. Roll pizza like a jelly roll and place on a greased cookie sheet sprinkled with corn meal or polenta.
4. Bake in a 425 oven for 10 minutes. Lower oven to 375 and bake for 35 minutes more.
5. NOTES;
6. I opened one 28oz can of whole tomatoes and just used the tomatoes without the juice.
7. I crushed the garlic and left it in.
8. You could easily increase the mozzarella to 2 cups.

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