"Welcome to Fort Collins!" Pizza Recipe

Living in a gorgeous place away from family and friends is a recipe for out-of-town visitors. From April to November we had 8 groups of guests from Minnesota. At one point it was 3 weekends in a row. By August we had our hosting game down to a science....

Most often our friends and family arrived on a Friday afternoon. Some took naps and others just wanted to chill at our home before venturing out. To save everyone a little money (so they can spend their money on amazing local beer or a Mary's Mountain Cookie) we would plan to make dinner at home.

What is easy to make and pleases most everyone?

{ Pizza }

Rob introduced me to homemade crust using plain greek yogurt and self-rising flour. We often made it on nights we had dinner together in Minneapolis. Slowly overtime I began to tweak the recipe. Specifically the sauce and crust. It needed more flavor. The sauce from the jar was too heavy and didn't taste that good. Overtime, we slowly moved our way from the jar, to canned tomatoes, to crushing our own to finally finding what we like most: sliced tomatoes. I guess you could call the tomatoes a topping now because we've created a different type of pizza sauce.

I used Dominoes pizza crust as my inspiration. It's buttery and has the perfect blend of herbs. I've created my own version which I think is better, if I do say so myself. ;)

We've received so many amazing reviews from our guests and many have asked for the recipe but there is one little problem.

I never use a recipe!

but...I've finally created a written recipe and have my fingers crossed it works for all of you.

___________________________________________________

Kitchen utensils you need

• Large oven-safe cooling rack with a grid design

• You can find ours HERE.

• Rolling pin

• Small cereal sized bowl

• Measuring cups + spoons

• Pizza cutter

• Large cutting board

Crust Ingredients

• 1 cup of plain Greek yogurt (or two 4.03oz containers of yogurt)

• Splash of olive oil

• 1 1⁄2 cups of self-rising flour

• Self-rising flour for counter surface

Sauce Ingredients

• 1.5tbs butter melted

• 4tbs olive oil

• 1tbl minced garlic

• 1tsp Italian seasoning

• 2tbs powered parmesan cheese

Toppings

• 2 large tomatoes

• Fresh basil leaves

• Cheese

• Your favorite veggies, meat, etc.

DIRECTIONS

Make the sauce first

• In a cereal bowl melt butter

• Mix butter while adding olive oil

• Combine butter + olive oil mixture with garlic, Italian seasoning, and parmesan cheese

• Mix well and set aside

Prep toppings

1. Slice tomatoes and cut pieces into quarters

2. Chop up onion, peppers, and other veggies

3. Set aside

Assembly

• In a large bowl, mix yogurt and olive oil

• Add self-rising flour and mix with a spoon until the dough is pulling away from the sides of the bowl

• Knead the dough and add more flour as needed

• Dough shouldn’t stick to your hands

• On a floured work surface, continue to knead dough to the consistency you like

• Roll out the dough into the shape you want

• Dough should be a quarter inch thick

• Transfer dough to cooling rack

• Roll + pinch the edges of the dough to form a crust

• Make sure dough does not hang off edges of the cooling rack

• Cover the entire pizza with sauce

• Don’t forget the edges! Use the back of the spoon or a pastry brush.

• Place tomatoes across the pizza

• Add your cheese and other toppings

• Bake in a 450°F oven for 12-14 minutes or until cheese has started to brown

• Slide pizza off cooling rack onto a large cutting board

• Slice and serve

If you use this recipe, please let me know!