Oh Pizza Dough, How I Love you!

So let's talk pizza dough for a minute (if you know me, then you I know I could talk about it for hours.. days..weeks...months...years...ok get it?!) Pizza dough is one of my all time favorite ingredients that really comes in handy for multiple uses. Now obviously you need to start by making some really good dough, I will now direct you to my pizza video to see how it's done! (I feel so Tony Soprano right now for some reason...) 

Ok, so now that you know how to make good pizza and you're pretty much a pro, let's talk about a few of my favorite way to use it. Now of course making some traditional pizza is a must, I mean come on, especially now that you can throw the dough up in the air, you got this!

Summertime for me means lighting the grill and grilling up burgers, meat, veggies and pizza! That's right, I said pizza, I'm Italian and.. that's pretty much all I have to say about that. You can top grilled pizza with pretty much anything your heart desires, for me, prosciutto, olives, mozzarella and arugula is pretty much my favorite combination so that's what I'm going with most of the time. You need to try this like now! I know it's not summer but I'm sure you've got a grill pan around your kitchen somewhere so whip it out and make this baby! 

Homemade focaccia rolls are the best soft, moist rolls in the universe! These are what we served most of our sandwiches on at the restaurant and people used to come in all the time to buy dozens of these, that's how good they are, the perfect bed for some chicken and broccoli rabe.  I will warn you though, these are dangerous to have around the house because you wont be able to stop yourself from eating them, well I can't anyway, maybe you have better self control. 

Garlic knots, oh my goodness gracious are these unbelievably good! If you want something full of flavor, crusty on the outside, soft on the inside, and just overall amazing, these are it. I have no other words for them. Do everybody a favor and make them immediately, please! 

Since I like leaving our conversations on a sweet note, the last recipe I'll share with you is for my sweet Italian zeppole. I have never made pizza dough without making an extra batch to make these babies, just how I never turn my fryer on without frying up a batch of these no matter what else I'm frying up that day and since I don't really whip out my deep fryer very often (I try to really limit my fried food intake to a bare minimum) these are something I always make whenever I am frying anything. You can coat them in pretty much any flavored sugar you like, my personal favorite way to eat them is when they are tossed in plain ole' granulated sugar because that's how my nonna made them for us when we were little and anything my nonna does is like the law for me. I haven't come across anybody that likes traditional doughnuts over these, and I think it's because the dough isn't sweet at all so any sweetness comes from what you coat them in and therefore the balance is pretty much amazing! 

So if your making some pizza dough this week, make an extra batch and try some of these recipes, you will be much happier after you eat some of this deliciousness!