French Bread Pizzas

I love to make and freeze french bread pizzas for a quick dinner or lunch. Around here most food is made from scratch and these are no different, but while it may take awhile to make these they are worth it!

First make your bread. I make an Italian loaf because I like it a bit better than French bread but if you have recipe you like you can use it in place of this recipe.

Ingredients:

2 1/4 teaspoons of active dry yeast
1 1/4 cups warm water (105° – 115° F)
3 cups unbleached all purpose flour
2 teaspoons sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon olive oil

Directions:

1. In a small bowl, dissolve yeast with a quarter cup of the lukewarm water and the sugar. Pour yeast into a large bowl, let rest for 10 minutes.
2.Mix in flour, salt, and remaining lukewarm water and mix in until dough starts to form. Add more flour if dough is to sticky.
3. Turn out onto flat surface and knead for 6-8 minutes or until smooth and elastic. Put dough into an oiled bowl, turn to coat, cover with a thick towel, and let rise in a warm place, for about 1.5-2 hours or until doubled.
4. Preheat oven to 400°F.
5. Punch down and on a flour flat surface shape into 2 oblong loaves about a foot long each. Lightly oil a cookie sheet and place your loafs on it. Cover and let rise again for 40 minutes. Loaves will about double in width.
6. Slit tops of risen bread 3 or 4 times, making slits that are a quarter of an inch deep. Put cookie sheet in oven.
7. Bake for 40 minutes until golden and baked through. To check if it’s done, thump the bottom of each loaf; if it sounds hollow, it’s done.

After finishing your bread let the loaves cool. While cooling you can make your sauce. Here is my sauce recipe.

Pizza Sauce

1 7oz jar of tomato paste (the acid in tomatoes makes BPA leach from cans so glass is best)
1 tablespoon olive oil
Garlic, oregano, basil, rosemary, and salt
Water

In a medium size bowl mix the tomato paste and oil. Slowly add water until you get the thickness you like. Add seasoning slowly with equal amounts of oregano, basil, and rosemary and a little less garlic. Also just use a small amount of salt. Keep tasting it and seasoning until it tastes right to you. (Sorry I don’t have amounts but I don’t measure the seasoning.)

Let sit for 10 minutes. Store extra in refrigerator or freeze.

Making the pizzas

Once your loaves are cooled turn on their sides and spilt them down the middle, the cut each side in half. Top each piece with pizza sauce and cheese and any other topping you enjoy.

To freeze stop there and place a piece of waxed paper on a cookie sheet and place the pieces on it. Put the cookie sheet in the freezer for about an hour, place pieces in foil or a reusable container.

To cook fresh put in 375′ oven for about 10 minutes or until cheese is melted and browning on edges. To cook from frozen add 5-10 minutes.