Bell-peppers pizza

I saw the themes for VoW and JFI merged into one this time, on Pooja's My Creative Ideas. As a relatively new blogger, I am new to these roundups and theme cookings. I wanted to submit something from my blog this time aorund, but I was in a dilemma. Why?, you ask. I am going to reveal a secret. We are a family of a not-so-good veggie-eaters! There, I said it! Please dont gasp, thats the sad truth. Apart from a very few traditional vegetarian recipes that we occasionally (weekly) make, we are not very passionate about veggies. So I decided to go with a sure bet. A bell-peppers pizza! With the name pizza, not many would care whats on it :-). Hence this creation. I have posted the recipe for the basic pizza dough before. Not many modifications from the basic method, but this was, for the first time in our house, a vegetarian pizza. To tell you the truth, I didnt miss the non-veg in it at all. It was made with red, green and yellow bell peppers along with some sliced black olives and mozzarella cheese to pave the way for my first entry into JFI and VoW. I did not add any other veg toppings to highlight the colors and arragement of bell peppers on the crust. I have decided that this week onwards we are going to incorporate more veggies into our routine menu. Happy baking !

Recipe ( Makes a 12" pizza) :

Basic pizza dough - 1 recipe
Bell peppers - 1/2 each of red, yellow and green
Black olives - about 10-12 sliced into rings
Mozzarella cheese - 4 oz
Pizza/pasta sauce - as needed (I used store bought)

Method:

Prepare the basic pizza dough substituting 1 tsp of Italian seasoning for rosemary.

Keep covered in a warm place to double in size. usually it takes about 45 minutes - 1 hour. (I usually switch on the oven to 250F for a minute or two, then switch it off, and keep the dough in the oven. I also cover the bowl with a wet paper towel and a kitchen towel).

When the dough doubles in size, punch the dough down to release the bubbles.

Preheat the oven to 425F.

Roll it out into a 12" circle with a rolling pin, dusting with flour if necessary.

Another tip is to roll it out a bit larger than 12" and then roll the extra dough inwards to form the outer ridge of the pizza.

Transfer onto the pizza pan dusted with flour, or sprayed with cooking spray.

Poke holes in the pizza dough using a fork.

Bake the plain crust for 3 minutes in the oven.

Spread the pizza/pasta sauce over the crust.

Line with sliced/grated mozzarella cheese.

Bake the crust again for 2-3 minutes.

Now line the crust with bell peppers and olives.

Top with a bit of grated/sliced cheese.

Bake in the oven for 10-12 minutes, until the cheese is melted and the crust is light brown.

Let stand for 5 minutes.

Slice and serve.

Garnish with oregano and/or red chilli flakes, if desired.


Tips:

1. How I arranged the peppers:
   Cut 2 rings from each of the bell peppers. Chop the remaining of the half of each pepper into small cubes. Line the crust with the bell pepper rings. Fill the rings with the chopped cubes from the other two colors. Top with olives and a few strands of cheese.
2. You can also add onions, tomatoes, mushrooms, banana peppers, jalapenos etc inaddition to the above mentioned toppings.