Sep 18

Sep 18 Mystic Pizza

Check your fridge for inspiration on this DIY pie

I currently live out in the suburbs and when I randomly get a hankering for some pie, there aren’t many options. &Pizza and Blaze haven’t made it all the way out here yet, so I’m forced to make my own. I grabbed some pre-made crust from the grocery store and used Frik and Frak’s Handsome Devil tomato sauce. Whatever was in the fridge, went on my pie: fresh mozzarella, roughly chopped basil, cheddar cheese, parmesan and turkey sausage. I carmelized some onions in kosher salt and brown sugar, then put the pizza in a pre-heated oven and baked it at 375 for 12 minutes. If you want to be fake-healthy like me, sprinkle on some arugula.

Even though pizza is such a nostalgic food for me, I rarely eat it anymore. Looking back, anytime you did something good in school: pizza party. Friends having a birthday sleepover: party-sized pizzas. The date is 1996, it’s Friday night and Blockbuster is poppin: pizza and watching Dumb and Dumber for the fifty-leventh time! I remember the ridiculous commercials for Pizza Hut’s stuffed crust pizza, which offered Inception-levels of pizza within a pizza. Because sometimes you need a little pizza with your pizza, apparently (no judgement).

Top your pizza with arugula and fresh basil

Skipping ahead a few years into adulthood, and it was manna from the heavens after a night out. If you’re familiar with the DC-Metro area, then you already know you can’t round out an evening of bar-hopping in Adams-Morgan without stopping for a jumbo slice the size of your head. Or if you’re in Philly, it was Lorenzo’s. A stiff, triangle-shaped piece of cardboard topped with stretchy, hot cheese. Like communion, you will rise (spiritually and emotionally) after the first bite. There is nothing more sobering than biting into lava-hot pizza and spending the next three days wondering why everything tastes like packing peanuts.

If your partying days are somewhat behind you, and you just need something quick to make for dinner: just make your own pizza. It’s ok if you’re not throwing pizza dough over your head and spinning it with precision, or laboring over your own four-hour marinara. Sometimes you just need something quick because traffic was terrible, you are craving carbs, the kids need something to eat or you and your spouse can’t decide on what to eat. This is a no-frills, culinary experience NOT required meal. Put those mushrooms and bell peppers to good use before they go bad in the back of your fridge!