Tis the season…for football!  I will have to admit, I’m not much of a sports enthusiast.  If you were to ask me on any given weekend day who was playing who on any level, college or pro, I would draw a blank.  But when it comes to playing with my food…game on!  Here’s a great idea for pizza that is sure to score a touchdown with all your football fans!

You will need:

8 Rhodes White Texas Rolls (or 12 Rhodes White Dinner Rolls), thawed to room temperature

1 to 1 1/2 cups pizza sauce

1 1/2 to 2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese

2 string cheese

30 or so slices pepperoni

First, spray a cookie sheet or cake pan with vegetable spray.  Place the frozen rolls on the pan and cover with sprayed plastic wrap.  Depending on where you live and how warm your house is, this can take a few hours.  Living in San Diego…in the winter…in an uninsulated house does not cause for the speedy rising of frozen bread dough, so it took mine forever to get to room temp.  This is important!  If the dough isn’t warmed up somewhat, it won’t knead together and roll out as successfully.

Pre-heat your oven to 350°.  Put your rolls onto a silicone baking liner…I don’t usually do this, but I thought this might help me with an upcoming step, so hang in there with me.

Knead into a ball of dough.  Here’s where I used the liner to my advantage.  When I first attempted to roll this into the shape of a football, it was hard to transfer it from my counter to the cookie sheet to bake it, while still retaining its shape.  Also, you would normally need to spray the pan so that the dough doesn’t stick to it when you bake it.  Once I sprayed the pan, the dough kept shrinking and losing it’s shape because of the slick surface.  So my silicone baking liner came to the rescue!

Not only was the liner almost the right size for the dimensions of the crust in the recipe so I had a sort-of guide, but the dough rolled out better, clinging to the liner and it was easy to transfer the liner to the cookie sheet, which I also didn’t need to spray in the first place.  That was definitely a win-win!

Next, poke holes with a fork around the crust so that you don’t get any bubbles when you bake it.

The transfer to the cookie sheet was a breeze and the dough held its shape!  Place the crust in the oven and bake for 10 – 12 minutes.  Once you take it out of the oven, you need to let it cool for a few minutes before you do the following steps.

Spread the sauce on the baked crust.  You can adjust it according to your family’s preferences – mine doesn’t like a ton of sauce.  Next, sprinkle the grated mozzarella over the sauce.

Now its time for the pepperoni.  My kids don’t like me to skimp on that, so I loaded up.  I didn’t take pictures of how I did it, so I’ll explain…watch the numbers!

Give yourself the outer points – 1, 2, 3, & 4, then follow around the outer edge, overlapping the pepperoni, forming a football; keeping working until you get to the center.  The last thing you do before you bake it is to cut the string cheese into strips and make your “stitches”.  The length of the string cheese wasn’t long enough, so I hid the seam with a piece going across it.  Put in the oven and bake it for another 15 to 20 minutes.

So next time you have the gang over to watch a game, here’s a fun way to serve a football favorite – Pepperoni Football Pizza!