Focaccia Pizza is My Family’s Comfy Weeknight Dinner

2020 is a mess.  However, now that the outcome of the election is known—yes, Joe Biden decisively defeated Donald Trump—it feels like we can get back to talking about other things besides the vote margins in Pennsylvania.  By the way, thank you Gritty. 

With the coronavirus raging out of control in Iowa—thank you for your “leadership” Governor Kim Reynolds—some old standby weeknight dinners out have been nights at home.  My entire family misses trips to Need Pizza in downtown Cedar Rapids and we eagerly await a time when it is comfortable to return to dining in.  Take out is okay, but pizza is best consumed soon after sliding out of the oven.

Our replacement has become focaccia pizza.  It all started with this recipe from Sheela Prakash at The Kitchn.

It is perfect for the home cook because it does not try to mimic the pizzas made in high temperature ovens with expert hands.  However, it still hits the notes of warm crusty and cheesy goodness that makes pizza a winner with almost every person on the planet.  I do not trust people who do not like pizza.  It is alien to me.

Over the course of the past eight months of safer-at-home—I cannot believe that it has been eight months—I have made a few changes to the original recipe and I will continue to tinker until I feel that it is just right.

The most recent change has been to utilize Red Star Platinum Instant Sourdough Yeast and Sourdough Culture:

Some people complain about the cost of this particular yeast, but I have been picking it up locally for ~$1 as opposed to the more than $3 I see it advertised for online.  Amazon and other online retailers are not always the cheapest option.

After mixing the dough looks like this:

After twenty-four hours or so the dough looks like this:

During my first attempt to make this particular dough I did not let twenty-four hours pass.  Big mistake.  Huge.  The difference that waiting period makes turns the dough from merely a vehicle for the toppings into a co-star.

I use a well-worn 18” by 13” sheet pan that is greased well with shortening.  Just dump the dough and get the spreading it out with your fingers plus a healthy helping of olive oil to keep things from sticking:

From there it is just a question of what you want to top it all off with.  We roll fairly vanilla using store bought shredded mozzarella, jarred pizza sauce, pepperoni, and whatever is left around the house from prior meals:

As you might be able to tell from the image above I cleaned out the refrigerator of some leftover red onions and diced jalapenos.  Given my son’s recent interest in plant-based meat—he has tried every available plant-based burger in the grocery stores this year—I am looking for some suggestions of plant-based pepperoni or Italian sausage to try out.

Some day soon we will return to Need Pizza for our cheese and carbohydrate fix, but until then I will keep slinging the focaccia pizza.

What Does Meal Planning and Prep Look Like in My Household?

Kind of like this:

Yes, those are three pans of lasagna cooling off on my deck before being decamped to the freezer in the basement.  Why on the deck?  Why not take advantage of nature’s icebox to save me some kilowatt hours in the freezer?  Plus, it might never actually be spring here in Iowa with low teens temperatures in April.

When we make lasagna in my house we make it in batches of four.  One to bake that day and three to freeze for later.  With just a little more work than making a single pan we have prepared dinners for three more nights.  It’s a multi-faceted effort to really focus on eating at home whenever possible and every shortcut helps.

The recipe is a variation of the one Barila provides on the back of the box of their no boil lasagna noodles. I am sure that somewhere a die-hard Barefoot Contessa fan is shrieking in horror that I would use no boil lasagna noodles and a box recipe, but I digress.  There are, of course, some changes that I make to “spice things up.”

The normal recipe calls for just a pound of Italian sausage.  I up that to a pound and a half, split between sweet and hot varieties.  I also add a diced onion to the sausage while browning and sometimes a shallot as well.  When batching four pans we just dice all of the vegetables ahead of time, brown the sausage for each pan in turn, and let it cool on a plate before assembly.  It does look kind of funny to have four plates of browned sausage sitting on your counter and no dinner to show for it.

The only other trick is to not believe other online recipes that claim you need to thaw the lasagna for twenty four hours before cooking.  Try at least forty eight hours.  At a minimum.  And I would still be checking to see if the center of the pan is still frozen.  I do not know if it is the foil pans or some other issue, but these pans of lasagna are still bricks after just twenty four hours.

 

Easy No Boil Lasagna (Option to Freeze for Later)

Ingredients:

• 1 Box Barilla® Oven-Ready Lasagne
• 2 jars marinara sauce
• 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 5 lbs lean ground beef or sausage, browned
• 1 onion, diced
• 1 shallot, diced
• Salt and black pepper to taste
• 1 15 oz container ricotta cheese
• 4 cups mozzarella cheese, shredded and divided
• 1/2 cup Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, grated

Instructions

1. Pre-heat oven to 375°F.
2. In a large skillet, heat olive oil and brown meat until cooked through; season with salt and pepper. Once the sausage begins to release its fat, add diced onion and shallot.  Cook until softened.
3. In a bowl, combine ricotta, 2 cups mozzarella, and Parmigiano cheese. Stir well.
4. Spray a 13 x 9 inch baking dish with non-stick cooking spray. Pour one cup of sauce on the bottom of the dish; spread evenly. Place 3 sheets of lasagne side by side (sheets will expand while baking to the ends of the dish).
5. Pour 1 cup of sauce and 3/4 cup of cheese mixture on the first layer. Top with ¼ cup mozzarella and 1/3 cup of the cooked meat. Repeat for 3 more layers.
6. For the final layer, top with 3 lasagne sheets, add remaining sauce and top with cheese mixture and mozzarella.
7. Cover with foil and bake for 25 minutes. Remove foil and bake additional 5 minutes to brown the cheese. Let rest 15 minutes before serving.
8. If freezing, assemble in a foil pan as instructions above and freeze covered. Freeze cheese mixture for the top in a separate bag.
9. When ready to prepare thaw in refrigerator for at least forty eight hours.
10. Bake at 375 degrees for 25 minutes. Check with instant read meat thermometer to ensure doneness.  If the temperature is high enough, top with cheese and bake uncovered for 5-10 minutes.  Otherwise, bake for additional time until appropriate temperature is achieved.