White Truffle Potato Pizza

I know, I know for someone who isn't all that crazy about potatoes I sure do make a lot of them. I swear there's a method to my madness, even if I'm not entirely sure of it at all times. It's true I'm not big on potatoes but I do love pizza and when I saw a Food Network chef say this was one of his favorite pizzas I knew I had to try my hand at it.

Now I didn't actually have a recipe to go by so I went based on what ingredients the celebrity chef claimed were on the pizza. I actually had some prized white truffle oil in our pantry from our trip to France and I knew this was a perfect time to break it out.

Fresh Mozzarella, Prosciutto and Fresh Spinach Pizza

Fun fact right here....I believe this is the first recipe I'm posting about that has no connection to Pinterest, rather this pizza was inspired by a recipe I saw on an episode of The Pioneer Woman. PW made this pizza for a girl's night in, although hers was topped with arugula and I believe she used a different cheese. The addition of black olives was all me! I chose to use fresh spinach because I prefer the taste and my husband is not a big fan of arugula. This pizza came out awesome and was super tasty. 

Chicken, Bacon & Caesar Pizza and a Little Help from Newman's Own

I can't begin to tell you all how excited I was when I got a huge package from Newman's Own the other day as part of the Tastemakers Program with FoodBuzz. I was like a kid on Christmas morning tearing open the box, all for salad dressings and tomato sauce, but hey isn't that what it truly means to be a food blogger? Food excites me and new products are like presents. And what was especially exciting about this package? The awesome Flip Video Camera that I got to shoot awesome videos. I will most definitely be using this in the future to record tips and tricks on some more complicated recipes and give you a little insight into my world and kitchen.

Tonight though I had to work solo on this project and I had just gotten back from the gym so I wasn't exactly thrilled with making my on camera debut but of course I took one for the team and jumped right in front of the camera anyway. Turns out this Flip Video Camera is actually a lot of fun to play around with. I played around with editing the video and ended up with a really cute vignette type of video that lasts about 30 seconds. I added some music into the background and considering my amateur status here I think it came out pretty cool.

Fig, Pancetta & Gorgonzola Cheese Pizza

I can only imagine the reactions I may be getting just by writing that title. My own husband asked me what was for dinner and when I replied with fig, pancetta and gorgonzola cheese pizza there was just silence on the other end of the phone. I had to assure him that I was making a back up pizza just in case this one didn't come out as planned. I told him to just give it the benefit of the doubt.

The good sport that he is, of course tried the pizza and actually enjoyed it. The funny thing about this pizza is he doesn't really like gorgonzola cheese and I'm not a fan of figs. It's a bit of a head scratcher I know, why make a pizza where each of us individually doesn't like a third of the ingredients, a pizza where combined we disliked two thirds of the toppings? Because my friends it's a challenge and in the fashion of Barney Stinson from How I Met Your Mother...I say "Challenge Accepted!"

Baked Ziti Pizza

Friday has finally arrived and it's the last day to enter the pizza cookbook giveaway and the last day of pizzas (for now!) Today's pizza combines two great Italian dishes - pizza and baked ziti. Maybe you've seen this before, maybe you haven't but let me tell you, it's delicious. Baked Ziti pizza is like having your cake and eating it too. It's just delicious, the top of the pasta gets just a little crispy and burnt which is my favorite part.

I had a little leftover vodka sauce in the fridge so I used that in my baked ziti to change things up a bit. You can use regular tomato sauce, bechamel...really any kind of sauce you want to use.

And don't forget to enter the cookbook giveaway! I promise the lucky winner will love the book and have a whole new world of pizza opened up to them with the variety of pizzas inside! The winner will be announced this weekend, you have until tonight at midnight to become a fan on Facebook, leave a comment here or subscribe to my blog via email. Good luck everyone!

Roasted Red Pepper Chicken Sausage & Black Olive Pizza

It's Thursday and pizza day number 4 on PLDC...are you sick of pizza yet? Today's pizza is the companion to yesterday's black olive and mushroom pizza. Yesterday's pizza was all about me with my favorite toppings so it is only fair to make one that is up my husband's ally too which is what I prepared for today. My husband, like me, loves black olives but is not a mushroom fan at all so I whipped up a pizza with roasted red pepper and garlic chicken sausage and black olives. He loved it and it made for a very happy husband which is always a good thing. I had originally intended to add some caramelized onions to the pizza as well but after two trips to the supermarket and forgetting them both times I just nixed the thought.

We're also on day four of the pizza giveaway so there is still time to enter the contest. Just leave a comment here, become a fan on Facebook or subscribe to my blog via email. So please enter the contest and good luck to everyone!

Mushroom & Black Olive Pizza

Today's pizza incorporates two of my favorite things to eat...black olives and mushrooms. Of the four pizzas I am making this week this one really had my name written all over it. I could eat mushrooms every day I love them so much and black olives are awesome on top of pizza. Back in our dating days whenever my husband and I went to get pizza after school we'd always get a pie with pepperoni and black olives, we even make it sometimes and it definitely brings me back.

This pizza is a perfect example of how pizza doesn't have to follow any rules or even any rhyme or reason. Take whatever it is you love and put it on top of a pizza. Have fun and be creative. That's the best part of pizza. It's day 3 of my giveaway so don't forget to enter for a chance to win my cookbook. There's over 50 recipes for pizzas, including a breakfast and a dessert pizza, sauce recipes and much more! All you have to do is become a fan on Facebook, leave a comment here or subscribe via email, do one or all three!

Crispino Pizza

The Crispino Pizza is one of my favorites. It has everything I love on it and is a fun pizza to make because you can make little changes to personalize to suit your own taste and there are dozens of ways to change this pizza up. I have seen it made with eggplant, peppers, tomatoes and even with a variety of cheeses, the recipe I'm giving you here is my favorite version of the Crispino.

I was introduced to this pizza by my a friend who told me about this pizzeria that makes a Crispino. It was a bit of a hike from where I lived but my husband (who was my boyfriend at the time) decided to make the trip and try it out. It was worth every minute of the trip. It was a square pizza with a little sauce, layered with tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, strips of roasted red peppers and some fresh basil on top. It was heavenly and now I am sharing it with all of you in the hopes that you love it as much as I do.

Also don't forget this is giveaway day number two! Same rules apply; leave a comment here telling me your favorite pizza, like Per L'Amore Di Cibo on Facebook or subscribe via email. Do one or and all three!

Basic Pizza Dough & a Giveaway!

I have already mentioned my pizza cookbook in another blog post and I thought that it was a great time to make a few pizzas this week. In a sense I'm considering this my very own "pizza week" and I thought that it would be fun to end things with a giveaway of the cookbook I co-wrote with my husband. So stayed tuned for a week of pizzas and of course a chance to win a copy of my pizza cookbook which has well over 50 pizza recipes, entry rules are included at the bottom of this post.

Pretty much any pizza, stuffed bread or anything that utilizes pizza dough can be done with fresh or store bought pizza dough. I think it goes without saying that homemade pizza dough will always surpass the store bought version, but don't get me wrong here - I use store bought pizza dough all the time. Sometimes there just isn't enough hours in a day to do it entirely from scratch.

Ground Turkey, Mushroom, Pancetta & Bechamel Stuffed Bread

I love stuffed bread. It's one of my things to both make and eat. I take a pizza dough, either homemade or store bought and fill it with whatever I'm craving that day. We're talking shrimp parmesan stuffed bread to fresh mozzarella, sun dried tomatoes and sauteed chicken with pesto sauce. This is something you can have fun with and be creative. 

On this particular day I had taken ground turkey out and couldn't decide what to make with it, I had a pizza dough already made and ready to go so I decided it was a stuffed bread kind of day. I paired the ground meat with sauteed mushrooms, pancetta and shredded mozzarella and then decided to top it all off with some homemade bechamel sauce. For those of you not familiar with bechamel (pronounced besh-a-mel) sauce, it is a white sauce that at in it's most basic form is milk, butter, flour and salt. My grandmother, who is from Northern Italy spices her bechamel sauce up with lots of grated parmesan cheese. 

This recipe also includes instructions on braiding bread. It's a very simple process that looks harder than it actually is and really goes a long way as far as impressing guests!

Pancetta & Caramelized Onion Pizza

Here's a little bit of trivia that I haven't mentioned on here before, for our wedding my husband and I wanted to come up with a unique favor so we decided to write a cookbook. And not just any cookbook, a pizza cookbook. You see my husband worked in a pizzeria for quite a few years working his way up from busboy to pizza man to manager. So we sat together and rattled off a list of 50 plus pizzas and I pieced them together into formal recipes, we proofread it and proofread it again and finally sent it off to be published. We even gave them out to our guests in pizza boxes customized with their names at the end of the night. Over two years later we still get a ton of compliments on the favor and he still gets requests from friends to bring it in to show them the book from time to time. Our cookbook is even for sale on Amazon, which I think, is pretty freakin' cool.