*Homemade Pizza Recipe | Pizza Topping ideas | Mushroom Jalapeno Pizza *
I was a fast eater alias food gulper back then at school and college. When a group of people eat together, I used to be the first to finish eating my lunch. During lunch hours, by the time my friends kick-start a topic and are half-way discussing the topic, I’ll be sitting quite like a cat smacking my lips, finishing my lunch. When friends look back into their tiffin-box, I’ll be burping. There are times when few looked at me like ‘that’ and few openly have asked…’hey, you finished your lunch so soon?’
But don’t know what has happened after college days. The amount of food I take in and the hours I spend eating it changed drastically. Today I eat only little but I feel a full-stomach. Also, I take long minutes to finish a plate of food. May be this practice stuck to me from Jeevs. Unlike me, Jeevs eat for his need and not for greed. I used to even think if Jeevs is some reincarnation of Gandhiji 
I’ve never ever seen him excited about any food. Even if he likes some food really well, he enjoys a small cup of it and then denies getting another extra cup. I thought if there is some problem with my cooking, but no. He says he inherited this habit from one of his friends Aan. This habit of his at times worries me since I look forward for some feed-backs for my recipes. I already have shared in my ‘about-us’ page that he’s a man of few words and gives mild comments for my recipes how so ever good and tasty it is. But this day…. O my god…. I received first ever animated comments from Jeevs for my pizzas!!! This is really like a big hike for the job I was doing in my blog all these days. Wooweee… so here it is, the recipe for making homemade pizza dough, the recipe for homemade pizza sauce, the recipe for homemade pizza toppings - The Recipe for making your favorite Pizza at your home ALL by yourself!
You can use your own creative ideas for making Pizza toppings. There are more than 1000+ pizza toppings ideas if you just think about the various possibilities. Here, in this post I am going to show you how to top a pizza with mushrooms and jalapenos. I used Portobello mushrooms, you can use normal white button mushrooms or any edible mushrooms whichever is available in your locality. Unlike the pizza sauce and the pizza dough, making pizza toppings at home is interesting and fun.
How to make homemade Pizza topping and how to bake pizza - with step by step pictures
[All the images can be enlarged if clicked]
[If you want to check on how to make pizza dough with step by step pictures, then you can use this pizza dough recipe.]
Step1. Preheat oven to 450 degree Fahrenheit (235 degree Celsius)
Step 2. Cut mushrooms and jalapenos. Keep aside. Cut the onions thin and long. Keep aside.
[](/images/pizza-topping-vegan1.jpg) [](/images/pizza-topping-14.jpg)
Step 3. Flour your pizza plate with little corn-meal flour or all-purpose flour or wheat flour. Take your palm-sized dough for making medium sized pizza. Punch them such that you form a nice depression in the center of the dough.
[](/images/pizza-dough-recipe-1_thumb2.jpg) [](/images/yummy-pizza-crust-1_thumb1.jpg) Step 4. Keep patting the pizza-dough (from inner to outer edge) until you form a nice circle, enough for preparing a medium-sized pizza. Or you can just pull the pizza-dough (from center after forming the depression) with your hands into a circular base. Retain the high-wall-like outer edge, this will hold the sauce and other toppings together.
Step 5. Take a fork and prick on the pizza base. Prick gently such that the fork does not reach the plate.
[](/images/pizza-topping-step-by-step1.jpg) [](/images/pizza-topping-home-made-12.jpg)Step 6. Apply 1 tsp. of oil over the pizza base. Spread it over the pricked holes. You can also apply it on the walls of the pizza.
Step 7. Apply 1 tbs. of pizza-sauce until the edge of the pizza.
Step 8. Sprinkle the shredded cheese generously over the sauce. Then top up with sliced onions.
[](/images/pizza-topping-ideas-1.jpg) [](/images/juicy-pizza-topping-1.jpg)Step 9. Add the jalapenos and mushrooms. Cover the toppings with another layer of shredded cheese. [If you like, you can now sprinkle LITTLE of Italian herbs too]
[](/images/pizza-topping-at-home-1.jpg) [](/images/how-to-make-juicy-pizza-topping.jpg)Step 10. Bake the pizza in middle rack for 5 minutes. After 5 minutes, move the pizza to upper rack and bake it for 5 more minutes or until the pizza crust becomes golden brown.
[](/images/jalepeno-pizza-topping-11.jpg) [](/images/veg-pizza-14.jpg)Step 11. Switch off oven and remove the pizza from oven. Slice the pizza and enjoy it hot with your favorite sauce/ketchup.
3Ts [ Tips | Tricks | Tactics] for making pizza toppings
- When you use mushrooms for pizza topping, be careful, because they will tend to turn the pizzas soggy. To avoid soggy mushroom topping pizza:
- Do not wash the mushrooms in water because mushrooms themselves release more water when you cook them. So when you wash mushrooms in water they will absorb more water. So gently pat/wipe the mushrooms with damp kitchen cloth/paper.
- When you cut the mushrooms, cut them thin (not like the ones shown in my picture, I like mushrooms and do not mind a soggy pizza, so I have cut my mushrooms really big so that I feel them when I take every bite). Cutting the mushrooms thin will help avoid a soggy pizza.
- Some used to saute the mushrooms before adding it to the pizza.
- Do not over stuff your pizza topping. Little is always best. Personally, I like simple pizza toppings: a one-vegetable topping e.g. tomatoes / mushrooms / jalapenos / spinach / cheese / bellpeppers / sweetcorn / olives… hmm I told you right? the pizza topping ideas are endless! Oh, did I miss the non-veg Pizza ideas here? Or like how I mentioned in GoJingalala face book page, you can even try a 50-50 pizza (50% ground chicken + 50% mushroom).
- Sprinkle cheese generously
because it is cheese that binds and keeps all the ingredients together - If you do not have a pizza plate, you can still bake it in other large bake-ware utensils, but make sure the walls of the bake-ware vessel is of less height, else it will take too long to bake the pizza.
- Flatten the dough nicely, for they are going to rise bigger after baking.
When you have children around while making the pizza toppings, it is even more a gala time. You won’t believe me, kids have more and more topping ideas for pizza than us 
. Making toppings for pizza at home with kids makes the job fast and easy. You have a big kitchen table that is in the center of the kitchen? This will make your pizza topping work even cooler. When you prepare pizza for a big family, just pat the pizzas and spread the patted pizzas over the table. When you prick the patted pizza bases with fork, one kid will follow to pour in and spread the pizza sauce, the other kid will follow to sprinkle generously with shredded cheese and then the next one with the main topping vegetables, then finally finishing it with another generous sprinkle of cheese, everybody busy rounding the table to make delicious pizza for your own family
. I learnt how to top a pizza from my friend Nethra.
How to top and bake Pizza
- PREP TIME: 10 min
- COOK TIME: 10 min
- TOTAL TIME: 20 min
- YIELD: to top 4 medium sized pizzas
- DIFFICULTY: easy
- RECIPE TYPE: Main dish
Ingredients:
- * to top 4 medium sized pizzas *
- Mushrooms – 20 caps
- Jalapeno – 3
- Shredded Cheese – 3 cups (I used mozzarella part-skim)
- Oil – 4 tsp. (I used Olive oil)
- Pizza sauce – 5 to 6 tbsp.
- Large Onion – 1 (I used Indian red onions)
- Pizza dough – enough for making 4 medium sized pizzas
Have a gala pizza-topping-time, learning here at cooking.jinGALAla.org
Mangala from Cooking.Jingalala.Org Eat Well!