Bubble ring

First of all, today was Kay's first day at a new school. It went very well and she had no problem opening her locker (which was causing the most stress!). Here she is in her very cute "first day of school" outfit. This year she won't get home from school until after 4 PM. Unfortunately, we have to leave for her soccer practice around 5 PM which means we are eating dinner at the ridiculously early time of 4:15. This also means that Kay will not be around to help me fix dinner. All this time I have spent grooming her to take over in the kitchen and she ditches me!!

So, I took advantage of her last day of summer break and let her pick something to make for dinner. We looked through her pile of cookbooks and decided on this. It wasn't nearly as difficult as I first thought it would be and we all really liked it.

This is in the pan after it was cooked.

This is it turned out of the pan.

And this is one of the pieces with sauce.


Pizza Bubble Ring

8 tablespoons of butter
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 tsp dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes *
2 pounds pizza dough **
8 ounces shredded mozzarella
2 tablespoons Parmesan
1 1/2 cups pizza sauce

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and spray a bundt (or tube) pan with cooking spray.

Melt the butter. Add the garlic, oregano, garlic powder, onion powder, black pepper, and red pepper flakes. Stir to combine.

Divide the pizza dough into 40 small balls. Flatten each ball and place some of the mozzarella into the center of it. Roll the dough up around the cheese.

Dip each ball into the butter/spice mixture and place into the prepared pan. Sprinkle Parmesan over the top and drizzle on any extra butter mixture.

Bake for 35 minutes. Let cool 5 minutes and then turn out onto a plate.

Warm the pizza sauce. Pull off pieces of the bubble ring and dip into the sauce.

Serves 8 ***

* - Kay and I thought this was a little too spicy. Bill thought it was perfect but, as usual, he loses and we will cut back on this next time!

** - I doubled this recipe: http://besidespizza.blogspot.com/2007/04/cheese-pizza.html

*** - Ha, ha, ha, ha!!!! The three of us finished this whole thing without a problem!

Kay: It was good but next time we should do 1/8 teaspoon salt and 1/8 teaspoon red pepper because it was too spicy and needed a little salt I think. This was fun to make but it is really messy when you dip it in the butter sauce.

Mom (Dana): This was really, surprisingly very good. It is the kind of thing that feels like junk food but it is basically pizza in a different form. A side a vegetables probably wouldn't hurt though!