Deep Dish Pizza

I was looking at recipes the other day and I decided to make a deep dish pizza. I've made them before, but I always used a 9x13 inch pan. This time I decided I wanted a round deep dish pizza. So, after consulting with my daughter (over at Tuffet) we came up with the idea of using a cheesecake pan. My sweet husband came in to help me with the cheese, and we decided to use mozzarella cheese sticks in the edges and grated muenster cheese (that needed to be used up, you could use what ever you have on hand, the pizza won't mind!) on the top. I also shopped my food storage in the basement for some of the filling ingredients.

Deep Dish Pizza

Pizza Crust

1 cup hot water, not boiling
1 heaping tablespoon yeast
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
2- 2 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt

In a mixer fitted with a dough hook, pour the water, sprinkle the yeast over the water and the sugar over the yeast. Let sit 5 minutes. Add the whole wheat flour and 1 cup of flour. Mix adding salt and more flour to form a soft dough. Let knead in mixer for 5 minutes. If you don't have a bread mixer, you can do this dough by hand and you don't have to knead the dough if you don't have time. Put the dough in a greased bowl and cover with a towel. Let rise for 20 to 30 minutes.
While it's rising make the filling.
Grease a cheesecake pan and with your hands (I put some oil on my hands to work the dough) work dough in pan and up the sides.

Pizza Filling

1 pound bulk breakfast sausage
1/2 cup chopped onion
1/2 cup chopped green pepper
15.5 oz can manwich (sloppy joe mix) or tomato sauce
8 oz can mushrooms, drained

Brown the sausage. Drain and add the onion and green pepper. Stir and cook until softened. Add the manwich, or if your using tomato sauce you'll want to add some salt, pepper, onion powder and garlic powder to taste. Pour into crust.

Pizza Toppings

1 1/2 cups muenster cheese, grated
3 string cheese sticks cut in half length ways
Lay the cheese sticks around the inside edge of the pan and pull the pizza dough up and under the edge of the cheese stick. Sprinkle the cheese over the top. Bake at 400 degrees for 20 - 25 minutes.