Sausage, Fennel and Ricotta Pizza

Because Archer was sick last week, Craig and I decided to stay home and keep an eye on him on Saturday night. I decided to spice things up by having pizza night. We had a great time rolling dough and putting them together. I actually came up with two new pizza combinations, both of which I will put up this week. First, I did a simple chicken sausage with sliced fennel. I used mainly part skim ricotta cheese, to lower the calories, and complimented that with a sprinkle of mozzarella. I bought dough at the store and  just rolled it out to fit my pizza pan.

My favorite part of making pizza is that it only takes a few minutes to cook! I am by no means a pizza expert, but I have complied some tips along the way toward getting restaurant quality results:
1. Get your oven as hot as you can. Until I build a brick pizza oven in my dream house, I settle on getting my oven up to 500 degrees and preheating it for 20-30 minutes
2. Get your crust as even as possible. One of the challenges of homemade pizza is to get an even crust thickness. This goes a long way towards keeping it crisp. I recommend constantly flipping, flouring and rolling
3. Keep your toppings light and spread evenly. If your toppings are too heavy it will make your crust soggy. The best thin crust pizza is only lightly topped.

Full recipe after the jump!

Ingredients:
8oz whole wheat pizza dough (or pre made crust)
1 cup pizza sauce
2/3 cup park skim ricotta cheese
2/3 cup shredded mozzarella
1/2 lb Italian chicken sausage, casings removed
1 small fennel bulb, washed and sliced, fronds reserved
black pepper

Step by Step Instructions
1. Preheat oven to 500 or as how as you can get
2. Roll out crust and place in your pizza pan
3. Using a spoon, spread sauce evenly across the crust
4. Using a spoon, drop dollops of ricotta in even intervals across the crust
5. Sprinkle mozzarella evenly across the crust
6. In a small frying pan, saute sausage for 3-4 minutes, breaking up into small chunks
7. Spread cooked sausage evenly
8. Sprinkle fennel slices evenly across the top
9. Season with black pepper and chopped fennel fronds
10. Bake for 12-14 minutes - until crust has crisped and fennel has browed
11. Serve sprinkled with fennel fronds