Tootsie's Pizza Dundee Michigan

"He Said"...

Imagine this. You're anxiously awaiting the delivery guy, he pulls into your dive way and you would swear that you can already smell the pizza. The driver hands you your 2 large 2 toppings pies, cheese bread, and something called a Tootseroni all for $10.99 including delivery! (Still gotta tip scrooge!). You rush inside and open the boxes. It smells so good and it looks great. You slap a couple pieces on your plate and take that first bite and POW. You realize your mom snuck in, smashed two pieces of plain ole white bread together, spread on some of the nastiest tomato sauce you'll ever find, put three sprinkles of cheese on it and a few toppings, and threw it in the microwave and called it PIZZA!

No wonder you get so much for $10.99. Food likes this makes me with we had a dog again!

Seriously, the pizza crust was like biting into fresh plain white bread. It was super chewy without the slightest bit of crunch. The sauce has a very distinct and over powering spice that I just can't put my name on. For my money, Rivers Edge is the only place to get pizza in Dundee.

Thai Pizza?

"He Said"...

Okay this is a weird one and involves a bit of a story. Last night G and I got a babysitter (YEE HAW!) and went out to dinner and a movie alone! We went to this Thai place in Toledo called Tasty Thai. We both ordered this basil chicken dish and the waitress asked us how spicy we wanted it. The choices were none,mild, medium, hot, and Thai Hot. We started to order medium spice but the waitress led us to believe it was very mild. We both like spicy food so we upped it to hot. I'll save the rest of the review of that restaurant for another post but the food was HOT. I can't imagine what Thai Hot if hot was that hot! We are talking about nose running, lips burning, took an hour and 5 glasses of water to eat hot! G couldn't eat hers and had to order a new mild one.

We had to pay for the new one so we took the spicy one home and thought about what to do with it. Eating it was out of the question because nearly 24 hours later I was still suffering! So we thought about ways to tone down the spice factor. Somehow we ended up deciding to turn it into a pizza. (That's why I said it was weird!)

Turns out there are thousands of recipes for Thai Pizza. Whoda thunk?

All the recipes I saw had a peanut sauce and in one of my failed homemade Asian attempts I used a peanut sauce and it was gross so I didn't want to try it. G insisted and she's gotten pretty good at getting her way. (I'm not allowed to elaborate.)

I whisked the following together in a bowl until it was a creamy peanut butter texture but not quite as thick.

1/4 cup Jiffy creamy peanut butter

3 tablespoons water

2 teaspoons rice vinegar

2 teaspoons low sodium soy sauce

1/2 - 1 teaspoon ground ginger (The recipe I based this on called for 2 tsp fresh)

1/2 - 1 tsp minced garlic (original recipe called for 1 fresh clove minced)

I had some frozen wheat pizza dough so I thawed that out and pre-cooked the crust, spread the peanut sauce on the crust, put the Basil Chicken leftovers on, followed by a little shredded mozzarella. I cooked the crust for 7-8 mins then put it back in until the cheese was melted (probably another 3-5 mins).

The pizza was awesome. The flavor was incredible. It was still too spicy for G but I could eat it without my lips burning. If we had leftovers of the mild it would have been fantastic and

definitely something we would make again. This is so far outside of the norm for me I can't believe I tried it let alone liked it! If your bored and don't know what to do with your leftover Asian food, give this pizza a try you won't be sorry!!!

Oh yea, the Basil Chicken had ground chicken, basil leaves, green beans, onions, and green and red peppers.

Calzones!

"He Said"...

I've always loved calzones. Way back a long long time ago in a city far far away... Okay back to reality... In Greenville Ohio there was a little Italian restaurant near the plant that I worked at. I can't remember the name and I just tried Googling Italian Greenville Ohio and nothing came up near where I thought it was. Anyway the family that owned this place made awesome calzones. You could get anything you wanted in them and they were huge! The unofficial rule in the company that I worked for was that the person on travel always took the others in the group out to lunch and without fail this little Italian place was the destination of choice.

Anyhow... It's been years and years since I've had a calzone. Tonight lil G and I decided to make some. I searched on RecipeZaar for a calzone recipe just looking for a how to on how much I could get away with stuffing inside and how to properly seal the dough and a rough cooking time. I came across this recipe and the dough sounded really good so I followed this one to the letter except for choosing our own toppings. (I love broccoli on pizza and in calzones!) This turned out awesome! We made three small ones and they were really good. A tad over cooked at 35-40 minutes so watch that. The dough has an awesome taste and has now become the official household dough recipe! Give it a try it didn't take more than 30 minutes to get everything ready (not including rise time. Since we don't have a bread machine I used the stand mixer and let it rise for 30 mins. Could have gone 60 if I had time.) We also used G's homemade pizza sauce. I'll ask her to post that recipe too. Very good and very quick.

Awesome stuff!

BBQ Rib Pizza!

He Said...

Tonight I had some left over pork that I had trimmed from the spare ribs we smoked earlier this week. What to do with it? I know! I'll throw it on a pizza.

I had some bread dough from some Italian bread that I made but never got around to baking. I rolled that out (Dear I really need a pizza peel!) and covered it with Sweet Baby Rays BBQ sauce. Then I finely diced the the already smoked rib meat and sprinkled it on top followed by a mixture of cheddar and mozzarella cheeses and some freshly ground black pepper. I threw it in the oven @ 500 degrees on a pre-heated baking stone and 10-11 minutes later I had an awesome pizza!

After I had already cut it up I thought crap I should have taken a picture for the blog. I'll grap a couple slices and post a picture tomorrow.

Pizza!?

"She said"...Why is it so hard to find a good Pizza place? I mean really, is it that difficult to make pizza? The answer is NO, we make home-made pizza all of the time, mostly because it is so difficult to find a decent pizza place around these parts. Sam's Italian Pizzeria in Petersburg, Michigan is just plain yuck! We have tried this place two or three times now because they are one of the only places that deliver to our house. For some reason we keep thinking if we order the pizza again, that somehow it will magically be different and taste great unlike the other times we have gotten it. This is just plain old lifeless Pizza! Overall, Sam's Italian Pizzeria is two thumbs down from us!

We have found one good pizza place: River's Edge Pizza, Pub & Grille located at 135 Riley Street in Dundee, Michigan 48131 (734-529-2445). Their only downfall is that it is pick up only. We love their Sausage Pizza. The sausage is so good. It is not your typical pizza place large chunk prepackaged frozen sausage, you know the kind you typically find on a sausage pizza!? I was never a fan of sausage on pizza for that reason but after trying River's Edge Sausage Pizza, I love it! We have also tried a few of their specialty pizza's like the BBQ Chicken Pizza - excellent choice if you like BBQ pizza's and The Kitchen Sink Pizza - great for the person who likes lots of stuff on their pizza. Overall, River's Edge is a thumbs up from us!

Back when we lived in Ypsilanti, Michigan we use to order our pizza from Jet's Pizza on Washtenaw Ave. The BBQ Chicken Pizza was to die for!!! We no longer live near a Jet's Pizza but every once in a while we pick up a pizza at a Jet's Pizza in the Toledo area. We have gone to Jet's Pizza at 4900 N. McCord Ste, Sylvania, OH 43560 (419-885-1500) and Jet's Pizza at 5392 Monroe, Toledo, OH 43623 (419-841-7700). The first time we ordered from the Jet's Pizza on Monroe they got our order wrong so we were kind of disappointed. Overall, the BBQ Chicken Pizza at Jet's Pizza is a thumbs up from us!