Bubble Pizza

I received this recipe in an Allrecipes.com newsletter and it looked pretty good.  It does used canned biscuits and all but I really wanted to give it a try anway.  Sometimes when I see stuff like this I feel like it is a shortcut to the real thing but sometimes that stuff turns out be so very good despite not being the real thing.

Here's the recipe:

Bubble Pizza

I did not get any pictures of it the nite I made it.  I was going to when we got into the leftovers but tossed the rest before I did.  It did look pretty much like what the picture on the recipe page looked like...nice melty cheese!

I have to tell you, I tweaked this recipe so much so that the ingredients I used barely resembled the ingredient list.  I basically used this as a guide and did my own thing with it based on our likes and what I had here at the house since I decided to make it on a whim.  Here are the changes I made:

~I did not have the correct biscuits to start off with.  I ended up using Pillsbury's Buttermilk Biscuits that are in the 7.5 ounce tubes.  I used 3 of them to get close to the 24 ounces of biscuits it called for.

~I did not use ground beef and pepperoni.  Instead, I used turkey Italian sausage for the meat...I cooked up two links of it and cut it into small, bite-sized pieces.

~I did not use onions or olives on it.  If anyone knows me, they know I absolutely HATE onions...so, I skipped them.  I would have loved to put some green olives in this but my husband does not like them so I skipped olives all together.  I did, however, use mushrooms.  I would have prefered fresh mushrooms but used a couple of small cans.  When the sausage was cooked through, I put the mushrooms in with it and put a small spoonful of crushed garlic in with it and stirred it around a bit to flavor it all.

~For the sauce I used 14 ounces of Pastene tomato puree and added oregano, basil, salt, pepper, granualted garlic and honey to taste...I just added a bit of each at a time and kept tasting until it seemed right.

~The cheese was a nightmare.  I usually have all kinds of cheese in my fridge.  Not so on this day that I decided to make this.  I had a partial bag of 2% mozzarella, a tiny bit of 2% colby-jack, some parmesan and some asiago.  I pulled out my big measuring cup and dumped the partial bags in, then all my parmesan in and then shredded the asiago into it until I had the full 2 1/2 cups of cheese.  It actually turned out to be a pretty good mix afterall...I'm just lucky that the cheeses I had were, for the most part, those that you typically put on pizza.

This looked wonderful when it came out of the oven...but when does melted cheese not look wonderful?  It smelled wonderful too...again, I ask...when does something like this not? 

I bet you are wondering if it tasted wonderful as well....it did.  The biscuits were interesting as a pizza base, I'll give you that.  It was very bready but that made it hearty and you were full after you ate it.  Everything that was on it blended very well and was quite satisfying.

The leftovers were a whole other story.  I went ahead and made the 9x13 pan of this instead of making half of it and putting it in an 8x8 or 11x7 pan because I thought the leftovers would be great over the weekend.  This is where I was wrong.  I cut a piece last nite and then cut that piece into two so when I microwaved it, it wouldn't take forever for the middle to get warm.  I put it on 50% power and cooked it until it was warm.  The biscuits dried out and the cheese did not get properly melty again.  I ate it but tossed the rest of the leftovers. 

If I were to make this again, I would make the smaller pan of it and enjoy it that nite.  I would like to try it with different toppings and maybe get those green olives on it...maybe I will put them on top and only on half so that we we can clearly see where they are so we can make sure no one gets them who doesn't like them.