Spicy Sausage, Banana Pepper and Onion Pizza

As I've mentioned before, Friday is homemade pizza night in our house.  Recently, we have been trying out lots of different combinations or different toppings.  This was one of our favorites so far. 

A lot of times when we go out for dinner, I like to use the menu as an inspiration for dishes I can make at home.  The toppings on this pizza are inspired by a recent dinner we had at a local pizza restaurant named Coal Fire.  We had tried one of their signature pizzas, "The Ring of Fire" and really enjoyed it.  As we were eating it, we knew it was something we wanted to, and easily could, recreate at home.

I changed a few things from our "standard" pizza recipe when making this pizza.  For starters, I made a more chunky sauce than usual.  I followed my usual pizza sauce recipe but simply substituted chunky crushed tomatoes for regular crushed tomatoes.  The result was a slightly chunky pizza sauce that wasn't over the top chunky-and we both think this was a successful substitute.

I also slightly altered the pizza dough recipe by adding 1 teaspoon of honey in addition to the brown sugar.  This made the dough slightly sweeter and I plan on continuing to experiment with different ways to continue to improve the pizza dough (although Matt and I already think it's pretty delicious!)

The best part about pizza is that you can alter the ingredients to suit your taste.  Use as much cheese and toppings as you'd like, and add and omit toppings that you prefer. We also like to put the toppings directly on the sauce and then sprinkle the cheese on top. This is the recipe we followed-it was really good!

before baking....



After baking...


Spicy Sausage, Banana Pepper and Onion Pizza

Pizza Dough for one 12-inch pizza
Olive Oil for brushing
Pizza Sauce
Shredded Mozzerella Cheese
Grated Parmesan Cheese
2 links of spicy Italian sausage, cooked and chopped into 1/4 inch pieces
1/4 cup banana peppers, sliced in rings
1 small yellow onion, chopped

Place a pizza stone in the oven and preheat the oven to 500 degrees.  Allow the pizza stone to heat for at least 30 minutes in the oven.

Meanwhile, place a round of parchment paper the size of your pizza stone on a work surface.  Place the pizza dough in the center and roll the dough to desired thickness and shape it into the shape of a pizza.  Pinch a crust border around the perimeter of the pizza.  Lightly brush this border of the crust with olive oil. 

Spread a thin layer of sauce over dough. Distribute the sausage, banana peppers and onion over the sauce. Sprinkle cheeses evenly over the toppings.

Decrease the oven temperature to 425 degrees and take the pizza stone out of the oven.

Carefully transfer the parchment round to the preheated pizza stone.  Place in the oven and bake 7-10 minutes until the cheese is bubbly.