Pizza or Calzone...or Both

One of the great things about having pizza dough in the freezer is that you can make a quick and creative meal without a whole lot of trouble. Well, quick once the dough has had a chance to thaw and warm up a bit. Yesterday I knew that I would want pizza for dinner, so I too a couple of portions out of the freezer and they thawed while I did some weeding and stained glass work and read a little more of a book I'm enjoying. The author? Louise Penny, a Canadian writer. If you haven't read any of her work yet, start with Still Life. You can blame me when you fall in love with a little village and want to move there, even though an amazing number of murders happen there for such a small population. Perhaps just visiting is fine.

I made the pizza dough last week when I decided to make calzone, mostly to use up some pasta sauce I'd made a couple of days before. When there are only two of you dining and you were raised to cook for at least eight people, leftovers are a way of life. A calzone is really just a pizza folded over on itself before baking. I like mine with ricotta cheese on the bottom, layers of sauce and meat or veggies, and plenty of cheese.

I made two kinds. One had a filling of the ricotta, some roasted butternut squash,a little bacon, some Italian parsley, and garlic, plus shredded mozzarella and grated Parmesan. The second one had less ricotta, the tomato rich pasta sauce, slices of pepperoni, more mozzarella and Parmesan. Both were delicious in their own way.

For yesterday's pizza I was using up some leftover chicken thigh meat. That's the photo at the top of the post. On went the ricotta, the chicken, some local bacon, crumbled, some caramelized onion, Italian parsley, mozzarella and Parmesan. It was tastiest when cooled just a bit and was a mellow flavor combo, smokey with the bacon, but if you like more flavor, add some hot sauce.

The nice thing about both these is that you hand form the dough, stretching it gently to get a nice thin crust, thicker around the edges. If the dough fights you when you are stretching it. Just let it sit a few minutes and try again. Sometimes the gluten needs a brief rest before it cooperates.

In loading the pizza or calzone, keep the toppings light in weight. When I knew I was going to use fairly heavy pasta sauce, I went very light on the ricotta for the second calzone. When I made the chicken pizzas, I went light on the chicken. One thigh was more than enough for two four-slice pizzas.

The final tip is to use a pizza stone, if at all possible, in the oven and to preheat the oven so that it is really hot when you put the pizza in. I found for my oven that baking each one on the stone, then transferring it to the rack to finish baking was just the thing so that the crust was crispy and the fillings fully heated through.

I still have two more bags of dough in the freezer. Looking forward to the next great pizza/calzone meal.

BASIC PIZZA DOUGH ~ To Use for Calzone or Pizza
Original recipe for the dough taken from “The Bread Baker’s Apprentice” by Peter Reinhart.
Makes six pizza (8-10 inch) crusts or six 4-slice calzone

Ingredients: 4 1/2 Cups (20 1/4 ounces/607.5 g) Unbleached high-gluten (%14) bread flour or all purpose flour, chilled
1 3/4 Tsp Salt
1 Tsp Instant yeast
1/4 Cup (2 ounces/60g) Olive oil or vegetable oil (both optional, but it’s better with)
1 3/4 Cups (14 ounces/420g or 420ml) Water, ice cold (40° F/4.5° C)
1 Tb sugar
Semolina/durum flour or cornmeal for dusting

 DAY ONE Method: 1. Mix together the flour, salt and instant yeast in a big bowl (or in the bowl of your stand mixer).

2. Add the oil, sugar and cold water and mix well (with the help of a large wooden spoon or with the paddle attachment, on low speed) in order to form a sticky ball of dough. On a clean surface, knead for about 5-7 minutes, until the dough is smooth and the ingredients are homogeneously distributed. If it is too wet, add a little flour (not too much, though) and if it is too dry add 1 or 2 teaspoons extra water. NOTE: If you are using an electric mixer, switch to the dough hook and mix on medium speed for the same amount of time. The dough should clear the sides of the bowl but stick to the bottom of the bowl. If the dough is too wet, sprinkle in a little more flour, so that it clears the sides. If, on the contrary, it clears the bottom of the bowl, dribble in a teaspoon or two of cold water. The finished dough should be springy, elastic, and sticky, not just tacky, and register 50°-55° F/10°-13° C.

3. Flour a work surface or counter. Line a jelly pan with baking paper/parchment. Lightly oil the paper.

4. With the help of a metal or plastic dough scraper, cut the dough into 6 pieces. NOTE: To avoid the dough from sticking to the scraper, dip the scraper into water between cuts.

5. Sprinkle some flour over the dough. Make sure your hands are dry and then flour them. Gently round each piece into a ball. NOTE: If the dough sticks to your hands, then dip your hands into the flour again.

6. Transfer the dough balls to the lined jelly pan and mist them generously with spray oil. Slip the pan into plastic bag or enclose in plastic food wrap. 7. Put the pan into the refrigerator and let the dough rest overnight or for up to thee days. NOTE: You can store the dough balls in a zippered freezer bag if you want to save some of the dough for any future baking. In that case, pour some oil (a few tablespoons only) in a medium bowl and dip each dough ball into the oil, so that it is completely covered in oil. Then put each ball into a separate bag. Store the bags in the freezer for no longer than 3 months. The day before you plan to make calzone or pizzas, remember to transfer the dough balls from the freezer to the refrigerator, or you can thaw the dough on the counter for about 3-4 hours before you bake.

DAY TWO
8. On the day you plan to eat calzone, exactly 2 hours before you make it, remove the desired number of dough balls from the refrigerator. Dust the counter with flour and spray lightly with oil. Place the dough balls on a floured surface and sprinkle them with flour. Dust your hands with flour and delicately press the dough into disks about 1/2 inch/1.3 cm thick and 5 inches/12.7 cm in diameter. Sprinkle with flour and mist with oil. Loosely cover the dough rounds with plastic wrap and then allow to rest for 2 hours.

9. At least 45 minutes before making the pizza, place a baking stone on the lower third of the oven. Preheat the oven as hot as possible (500° F/260° C). NOTE: If you do not have a baking stone, then use the back of a jelly pan. Do not preheat the pan. Note: In case you would be having trouble rolling the dough or if the dough never wants to expand and always springs back, let it rest for approximately 5-20 minutes in order for the gluten to relax fully,then try again.

On a lightly floured surface roll each dough ball into a circle about 8 or 9 inches in diameter. Place on a sheet of baking parchment paper.
Fill as desired. To assemble the calzone, roll out as described above and place on pieces of baking parchment.

If making as I described at the top of post, spread about 1 - 2 tablespoons of ricotta on half of the dough circle. Top with other ingredients, remembering to keep filling light.

Salt and pepper to taste.

Fold the plain half of the dough over the filled half. Run a finger that you have dipped in water around the edge of the filled section and press the top dough to seal. Use the tines of a fork to press all around the edge to seal further. If desired, glaze the dough with some of the beaten egg and sprinkle with additional Parmesan cheese.

Set aside and make the other five calzone. If there are dough balls left, save for pizza or more calzone. They can be frozen to be used later, too.

Once all the calzone have been filled, check to make sure that the pre-heated oven is hot. If you are using a baking stone, slide the calzone, still on its parchment onto the stone and bake until the dough is golden brown. Repeat with each of the other calzone. Let cool a couple of minutes, then remove from the paper to a cutting board and cut each into four pieces. Serve at once.

For pizza, follow the same steps, but fill the whole shell and don't fold over or seal.

This Little Piggie

 

The enthusiasm for all things bacon is still running high, as far as I can tell, around the blogosphere. Although I need to keep my consumption to a minimum, I do love the flavor and crunch of bacon.

In Sebastopol, in Sonoma County, CA, part of the West County in fact, there is a new foodie haven called The Barlow. Since I've been familiar with Sebastopol for decades, I can tell you that The Barlow area used to be Barlow's cannery. That was from the ancient past when Sebastopol was the central point for the cultivation and harvest of the lovely Gravenstein apple, now a Slow Food apple. Gravensteins are not keepers. They tend to turn to mush over time, as I found out when I tried to store a box of them over the winter during our first year in the area. Best to beat them to it and turn them into some of the best applesauce you'll ever have. Hence the Barlow's cannery operation.

With the inroads that grapes for wine have made in Sonoma County, the acreage planted in Gravensteins (or any apple, really) has fallen off and the cannery has been closed for years.

Now it has been transformed into an area for both retail and wholesale distribution of coffee, wine, beer, bread and baked goods, and...bacon.

 

Last week I had lunch at Zazu Kitchen and Farm in The Barlow and my friend and I had a yummy pizza that had bacon, but also a delicious artisan crust, slivers of fresh basil and some fresh and toothsome corn, as well as a nice, thin layer of intensely tomato flavored tomato sauceand a nice, light hand with the cheese. I think it was cooked in a wood fired oven, so the crust was crunchy in places and overall the dish was delightful. They also sell the Black Pig bacon used on the pizza. In fact it is made right there at the Barlow.

New establishments are opening every week, so if you happen to be in the area or live in the Bay Area and want to take a day trip, come see The Barlow, especially Zazu before it becomes too crowded to enjoy.

More Tomato Love

We have been having a little heat, so the cherry tomatoes have been ripening up at a good clip. I've given three or four pints away and today cooked up two pounds to use as the base for some awesome home made pizzas. More ways to love those tomatoes.

With the oven preheating to a toasty 500 degrees F, I made sure they all were sans stem and clean. Some were ripe enough that the skins had split...so juicy! Some were tiny, some were about the size of a walnut, and everything in between. Red, yellow, orange and gold orbs, uncut, went into a large plastic bag to be coated with olive oil, then  onto a parchment paper lined baking sheet. I did sprinkle a little garlic salt and grind a little pepper on them, but otherwise they were just roasted until the skins were a bit browned.

I poured them into a big glass bowl and mashed them down a bit with a wooden spoon. Extra juices from the pan were scraped into the bowl too. That was it...the perfect tomato sauce for pizza, with skin and seed still in the mix for flavor and nutrition.

For the pizza, I spread spoonsful of the tomatoes over the shaped pizza dough, added dollops of ricotta cheese, sprinkles of

freshly chopped basil and Italian parsley and oregano, sprinkles of shredded mozzarella cheese, a drizzle of olive oil and a light sprinkle of grated Parmesan.

It was excellent once baked! The crust had crisped up since it was baked on a pizza stone in a very hot oven. The intense flavor of the roasted tomatoes was offset beautifully by the mellow cheeses and the sharply herbal flavors of parsley, oregano and basil. We enjoyed it a lot, along with a nice Caesar salad. And then we had another (they were small) just to make sure that we liked that roasted cherry tomato sauce. We did...in fact we loved it.

Pizza Revisited

I've posted some pizza recipes in the past, including a nice sourdough one. A couple of nights ago I decided to take that dough and revisit it so that I could make it with dry yeast from a packet. My sourdough starter has been defunct since January, so I'm back to buying packets of dry yeast. I prefer the RapidRise yeast because it has more active yeast in it so I never worry about enough yeast action when I use it.

When I was back East, we ate out once...at a local brew pub. I shared a fantastic pizza with one of my sisters and a niece. This is my attempt to capture some of the flavors of that pizza. The base was ready-made pesto, then I added blue cheese crumbles and mozzarella cheese shreds, toasted walnuts, dried cherries, finely chopped fresh rosemary and some thinly sliced Italian sausage, plus some Parmesan cheese on top. The crust for this one was stretched nice and thin. This was a pizza with robust flavors and a nice crunch from the walnuts.

I also decided to make an almost-veggie pizza with the other half of the dough. It does have some ham and a bit of pepperoni, but it also has snow peas and sugar snap peas, carrots, celery, onions, and sun-dried tomatoes for the veggie part. The base was plain yogurt with a sprinkle of garlic salt, and there was mozzarella cheese, cheddar cheese and Parmesan. I couldn't seem to get the crust on this one as thin as the other, but with the heavier ingredients, maybe that was for the best. The flavors here were more mellow and dairy and veggie but with a bit of emphasis from the pepperoni.

Although the two pizzas had very different flavor profiles, they went well together and made for a delicious meal. Best of all they allowed me to test-drive my new 13" x 15" pizza stone. Awesome crust! I guess the stone, especially since I preheated it, really makes a difference in creating a crust that is browned top and bottom. It also allowed me to only make two large pizzas instead of the four smaller ones I usually make with my small round pizza stone.

I'm sending this over to Yeastspotting, Susan of Wild Yeast's every changing and inspiring weekly round up of yeast-based recipes. Check it out!

Simple Pizza Dough and Fun Toppings

1 packet rapid rise yeast and 1.5 cups water
½ teaspoon sugar
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon salt
2 – 2 ½ cups all-purpose flour (or adjust if using the rapid rise yeast)

In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine the yeast and the barely warm water. Let this mixture sit at room temperature for two hours. If you will be making the rest of the dough another day, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate this starter mix.

When you are ready to make the dough and make pizza, put the starter mix into a stand mixer bowl and stir the sugar, olive oil and salt into the starter mix. Using the dough hook, gradually add the flour until a dough forms. Knead with the mixer for 4-5 minutes, adding more flour a tablespoon at a time as needed.

Once dough is smooth and elastic, turn it out onto a lightly floured surface and knead by hand for another minute, adding flour if necessary to fully blend the dough.

Form dough into a ball. Place in a lightly oiled bowl or other container good for dough to rise in. Cover with oiled plastic wrap and a tea towel and let rise in a warm place until doubled in bulk, about 1 hour.

When it is about 45 minutes before you plan to bake the pizza, preheat the oven to 500 degrees F and if you have one place a baking stone in the oven to preheat, too.

On a lightly floured surface place 1/2 of the dough. Using floured hands, stretch the dough into a rough circle or rectangle, keeping a rim of thicker dough around the edges. Some people like to toss the dough to do this, but mine always ends up on the floor if I do, so I just push the dough or hold it by the edge and work my way around. Place the stretched dough (about 9-11 inches in diameter) on a piece of baking parchment.

Top the dough as desired. I used pesto as the base for one pizza, then added some crumbled blue cheese, topped with shredded mozzarella cheese, finely chopped dried Michigan cherries, toasted walnuts, chopped, finely chopped fresh rosemary and thin slices of cooked Italian turkey sausages, topped with some Parmesan cheese. The second pizza using the other half of the dough had plain yogurt on the bottom, a dusting of garlic salt, both shredded thinly sliced ham and thin rounds of pepperoni, some raw, chopped snow peas and sugar snap peas, some mirepoix, finely chopped sun-dried tomato and three kinds of cheese: mozzarella, cheddar, and Parmesan.

Feel free to combine your own toppings to suit your tastes.

To bake, slide the parchment paper holding the pizza onto the preheated baking stone. If no stone is available, turn a jelly roll pan upside down on an oven rack in the preheated oven and immediately slide on the parchment paper holding the pizza.

Bake about 5 minutes, then turn the pizza around 180 degrees for even baking. Bake until golden brown. Remove from oven to cutting board, cut and serve. If you are making more than one pizza (recipe makes 2 large or 4 small crusts) prepare it on another piece of parchment and once you remove one pizza, put the next one in the oven.

Serve at once.

Pizza Inspiration

Inspiration comes from lots of places. I like to see what is going on in Kitchen Stadium on the Food Channel, what other food bloggers are up to, I read lots of cookbooks and sometimes magazines like Bon Appétit that focus on food.

This month's issue had a gorgeous pizza on the cover and a suggestion inside that a pizza party is fun to have, with enough dough for everyone to top their pizza their way.

Since I'm just starting to feel like I'm not breathing underwater, the energy required to host a party is way beyond me, but I did like the idea of freshly baked pizza with my own toppings. The dough recipe in the mag was for no-knead dough but I really like the sourdough pizza dough I've made in the past and I did have some toss-off from feeding my sourdough starter. I fed it, allowed it to sit out for a few hours, then covered it and let it sit overnight.

Yesterday I turned it into pizza dough. Because I had the time I let it rise once, punched it down and let it rise again. I also used bread flour in the dough instead of all-purpose flour. The result was a dough with good gluten strands


and one that baked up crisp where the dough was thin and chewy where it was thicker, just the way I like it. It didn't flop like it sometimes has in the past but was nice and firm so I could pick up a piece and eat it out of hand.

For toppings I made two veggie and two with pepperoni and mushrooms.

The veggie one had plain Greek yogurt, shredded mozzarella cheese, asparagus coated with olive oil and a little garlic salt, and baby spinach which had been pre-wilted to release some of the excess moisture. Fresh chopped Italian parsley and some fresh thyme leaves added just enough herbal zing. Parmesan cheese sprinkled over the top was the perfect finishing touch.

For the meat ones I started with a very small amount of pasta sauce, some of the Greek yogurt, the same herbs, very thin slices of pepperoni and thinly sliced mushrooms. Parmesan on top here, too. For the second meat one I also added some shredded mozzarella over the pasta sauce and I liked that additional melty cheese a lot.

These were excellent pizzas even if, because each was baked separately on the baking stone, I was up and down a lot while they baked. I liked the veggie ones the best but Sweetie liked the meat ones best. If you make these you can top them with whatever toppings you enjoy, just be sure to go lightly on the toppings if you want your pizza to have a good crust. Too many toppings overwhelms the best dough. If you don't have sourdough starter, there are lots of good pizza dough recipes online.


Homemade Pizza

Sourdough Pizza Dough
Sponge:
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup barely warm water
1 cup sourdough starter

Dough:
½ teaspoon sugar
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon salt
1 ½ – 2 ½ cups bread flour
Make a slurry of the flour and water. Mix the sourdough starter with the slurry and whisk to combine thoroughly. Let this mixture sit at room temperature for two hours. If you will be making the rest of the dough another day, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate this starter mix.

When you are ready to make the dough and make pizza, put the starter mix into a stand mixer bowl and stir the sugar, olive oil and salt into the starter mix.

Using the dough hook, gradually add the flour until a dough forms. Knead with the mixer for 4-5 minutes, adding more flour a tablespoon at a time as needed.

(If not using a stand mixer, put two cups of the flour in a bowl. Make a well in the center and add the mixture of starter, sugar, olive oil and salt that you’ve whisked together in another bowl. Stir to mix the wet mix into the flour until a dough forms. Turn out onto a lightly floured surface and knead in enough flour to make a smooth and elastic dough which can still be a little sticky.)

Once dough is smooth and elastic, turn it out onto a lightly floured surface and knead by hand for another minute, adding flour if necessary to fully blend the dough.

Form dough into a ball. Place in a lightly oiled bowl or other container good for dough to rise in. Cover with oiled plastic wrap and a tea towel and let rise in a warm place until doubled in bulk, about 1 hour.

When it is about 45 minutes before you plan to bake the pizza, preheat the oven to 500 degrees F and if you have one place a baking stone in the oven to preheat, too.
On a lightly floured surface place one quarter of the dough. Using floured hands, stretch the dough into a rough circle, keeping a rim of thicker dough around the edges. Some people like to toss the dough to do this, but mine always ends up on the floor if I do, so I just push the dough or hold it by the edge and work my way around.

Sometimes I let the stretched dough sit for a couple of minutes, then stretch it some more. Place the stretched dough (about 9-10 inches in diameter) on a piece of baking parchment.

My Toppings:
1/4 - 1/2 cup pasta sauce - if too watery boil until thickened
1/2 cup plain Greek yogurt
2-3 oz shredded mozzarella
1 oz thinly sliced pepperoni
1 oz thinly sliced fresh mushrooms
2 tablespoons finely chopped Italian Parsley
1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves (or use oregano)
1 cup shredded Parmesan cheese
6 stalks fresh asparagus - washed, dried, thinly sliced
1 teaspoon olive oil
sprinkle garlic salt or salt
1/2 cup fresh baby spinach, steamed for 1 minute, then drained

Top the dough as desired, leaving the outer rim untopped except for when sprinkling the final Parmesan cheese. I used a tomato based sauce that included canned tomato sauce, canned diced tomatoes, zucchini, mushrooms, onions, basil, oregano and garlic, all cooked together over low heat for an hour until most of the liquid had evaporated. The topping over the sauce for the meat version was dollops of plain Greek yogurt, thinly sliced pepperoni, mozzarella cheese, chopped fresh Italian parsley and fresh thyme leaves and Parmesan cheese.

For the veggie version plain Greek yogurt was thinly spread over the dough and a few dollops of thicker yogurt added here and there. Shredded mozzarella cheese was sprinkled over that. Previously I had washed, dried and thinly sliced on an angle about 1 cup of fresh asparagus spears. I put these in a bag and doused them with 1 teaspoon olive oil, sprinkled on a bit of garlic salt, then shook the bag to coat the asparagus pieces with oil and seasoning. This allows them to stay moist in the high heat needed to cook the dough. The asparagus were distributed evenly over the mozzarella, some lightly steamed baby spinach leaves were added, then a sprinkle of freshly chopped Italian parsley and fresh thyme leaves (just like the meat pizzas) was added. A final snow of grated Parmesan cheese left them ready for the oven.

Baking notes: The high heat and baking stone really combine to make a nice crust. I left each pizza on its piece of parchment and slid it onto the baking stone with a pizza peel. After 5 minutes I used the parchment to turn the pizza 180 degrees and baked it for 4 minutes more. I baked one of the veggie ones first, then kept it warm in my toaster oven while I baked the meat one. We dined on those two while the other two were baking.

If no stone is available, turn a jelly roll pan upside down on an oven rack in the preheated oven and immediately slide on the parchment paper holding the pizza.

Bake pizzas until golden brown. Your timing may be different as ovens differ. Remove from oven to cutting board, cut and serve. If you are making more than one pizza (recipe makes 4 crusts) prepare it on another piece of parchment and once you remove one pizza, put the next one in the oven.

Th Lazy Baker Makes Pizza

I am a baker, and occasionally lazy but not today. There are times when being in the kitchen for hours, lovingly stirring a pot of pasta sauce or chili, making cookies, baking bread and other such tasks is pure comfort and joy. Other times life gets hectic and all you want to do is get something good on the table at dinnertime without a lot of fuss.

It has been the former kind of weekend here at the ranch with lots of time to make fresh tomato sauce and stir polenta and concoct salad with lots of local veggies in them. Almost everything I made has already been posted before now, so even though pleasant hours were spent in the kitchen, there is little to post about.

Luckily for me NoHandle has sent me another guest post. Along with fond memories of pizza made by his Dad, he also passes on a quick pizza that he made for his sons when they were growing up. This pizza takes about an hour and a half total time to make, although most of that time is taken up with waiting for the dough to rise.

For you pleasure we have The Lazy Baker Makes Pizza, guest blogged by NoHandle:

The Lazy Baker Makes Pizza
By NoHandle

When my kids were younger (3 boys) they always liked pizza, as did my wife and I. Like my dad before me, I decided I could do a presentable job for a lot less money than the carry-out stores (Yeah, not just lazy, cheap too). Actually, when my dad made pizza there were no carry-out pizza stores; pizza was only available in Italian restaurants. Saturday night became pizza night at our house, and even with the extra time, it always seemed to be a rush job. Teen-age boys are always hungry. I don’t know where the recipe came from, but it has served me well over the years.

When I say lazy, I mean that this recipe doesn’t take a lot of time or effort, and uses some prepared ingredients. If you want to cook up your own sauce, go for it! The dough is a yeast dough, as you will see, but with rapid-rise yeast, and only one rise (and one kneading) it is both quick and easy. You can use whatever toppings you choose, but as Wallace Simpson once said, “You can never be too rich, too thin, or have too many mushrooms on your pizza.” Well, she said most of that, anyway. So mine was usually topped with as many mushrooms as would fit. Since this makes two pies, the other was often topped with pepperoni.

I will describe briefly the dough making process, and leave the recipe to speak to the rest. Add 1.25 Cups of warmed water (I microwave it) to the salt and yeast in the bottom of a medium-large bowl. Add in the flour. (It usually takes an extra .5 Cup or so to get the right consistency; it is sticky, but you can lift the dough without it dripping through your fingers. This is not critical, you will end up kneading in more after it rises.) I have always set the bowl in a shallow bowl of warm water, cover it with a towel, and let it rise until doubled in volume. This typically takes a bit less than an hour.

I then turn it out on a floured plastic sheet (from Tupperware, long, long ago) “pastry cloth” and knead in extra flour until it is no longer even a little sticky. I then divide into two even balls and roll it out each of them on the same sheet. You could toss it, but like the title says, I’m lazy. Also, I suspect the dough would not stretch well with so little time spent in its preparation. I usually made one round (12 inch) and one rectangular (9x13 or so) pie, because those were the pans we had. These are fairly thick crusts, but that’s the way I like my pizza, and it’s less work rolling them out.

After that, it goes very quickly, so you should preheat the oven when you start kneading the dough. I use a Pampered Chef pizza stone which slows the preheating considerably. I usually grease the pans lightly with cooking spray, but it doesn’t usually stick if I don’t.

So with that out of the way, here is the recipe:

Crust:
1 package rapid rise yeast
1.25 Cups warm water
.5 teaspoon salt
2 Cups unbleached all purpose flour

Toppings:
2 teaspoons crushed Oregano (dry)
1 small jar of thick spaghetti sauce (Ragu or one of the others)
12-16 ounces of shredded part-skim Mozzarella cheese (Dad used sliced fresh, and you can too if that is your preference, but his came out more like what you get with carry-out.)
8 ounces sliced mushrooms (I slice them about .125 inches thick)
Other toppings to taste

Add the oregano to the sauce, stir and let stand. Prepare the dough as described above. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Spread the sauce over the prepared dough, sprinkle on the cheese, and add your toppings. Bake until the cheese (and the crust) starts to brown at the edges (about 25 minutes where I live, perhaps a bit less at sea level). Remove from the oven, slice and serve. If you ended up with extra dough, coat it with butter, cinnamon and sugar, and bake on the rack below the pizza on a cookie sheet. I usually bake each one separately, but with a large oven you can probably bake both together with no issues.

Pizza is a clean canvas. You can top it with lots of different things. Tomato sauce is sort of traditional, but you can leave that off and top with wild mushrooms, sliced onions and cheese (again mozzarella is more traditional, but not mandatory). We had that combination recently at a local new pizza restaurant, and it was yummy.

See that was pretty quick and easy. The total time is about 90 minutes, with only a few minutes of that (maybe 10) actually doing any work. Shiraz pairs nicely with this if you are out of Chianti.

Gulp...Grilled Pizza

Perhaps those who have followed this blog for a while think that I am fearless in the culinary arena since I often change recipes I've never made before and jump right in to the Daring Bakers ...and now the Bread Baking Babes, too...challenges. Mostly that's true, but there are some things that I've been too chicken to try.

Grilled pizza is one of them. One reason is probably because Sweetie is soooo great at grilling things, so I never have developed a comfort level about grilling things in general. Another on is that I've always had this image of a fully loaded pizza sliding through the grill grates and catching fire on my first try. That's enough to give me pause. Even when I was successful with pizza baked in the oven I was still really nervous about trying it on the grill.

This morning I woke up and decided that today I was going to stare down my fear of grilling pizza and give it a try. During the past week I have been reading online recipes and an Alton Brown one to get some ideas on how others have done it. I went to the store and bought the things I wanted to put on the pizzas. This morning I made the dough, using a recipe in Alton Brown's Gear For Your Kitchen book. After it doubled in size I tucked it in the fridge so I could keep scraping paint on the bathroom window in preparation for putting on new paint this week.

Late this afternoon, when the sun was turning everything golden and the shadows were lengthening (both of which made photographing the pizza process problematic, so be kind when you look at the photos, 'kay?), I rolled out the dough to make four smaller pizzas, assembled everything else and headed for the grill.

As I read through others' recipes I had collected some tips:
1) Have everything you need at the ready once you put the dough on the grill...things go quickly.
2) Put the dough on parchment and oil one side of the dough. Put the oiled side down on the grill first. That way you don't have to oil the grill gratings.

3) Pay attention. Depending on the heat of your grill things can go quickly or more slowly.
4) Have a very large spatula to turn the dough rounds, and to remove the finished pizza. Having a cutting board hand to slide the finished pizzas on for cutting is a great idea, too.

So I started the grill and let it preheat, then went to the kitchen and brought out the toppings, the olive oil, the pastry brush, the cutting board and pizza cutter and a large spatula like thing that is almost as big as a small cookie sheet.

Once the grill was hot enough, I oiled the dough, took each piece and placed it oiled side down and then shut the grill cover. It didn't take very long before the wonderful bread baking smell wafted out. I opened the cover and saw that the dough had bubbled...so I turned the two pieces over (I baked two at a time which was the best amount for my size grill). At that point Sweetie came to see what I was doing so I let him help load toppings on top of the pasta sauce I had just spread on the grilled dough.

He went a bit overboard, so the first two pizzas were fully loaded...lots of thinly sliced zucchini, red onion and mushrooms, slices of pepperoni, a few strips of prosciutto, some pine nuts, shredded mozzarella and Parmesan cheeses.

He turned the heat up a bit because with all those toppings it was taking the cheese a while to melt and the crust was getting a bit burnt. Guess regulating the heat is something I still need to learn about.

Once those came off the grill we put on the other two pieces, oiled side down just like the first two. Once they were turned they got the pasta sauce but less toppings...just the thinly sliced pepperoni and prosciutto and the two shredded cheeses. The cheese melted more quickly, so these had nice crunchy but not burnt crusts.

I enjoyed both versions and am happy to report that I didn't dump anything into the insides of the grill. It may take another few tries to figure how to regulate the heat better and I will roll the crust thinner next time, too, but I'm no longer afraid to grill pizzas. Hmmmm...bet I could figure out a sourdough version of the pizza dough. Maybe a sweet version with ricotta cheese and fresh fruit. Sweetie may find that his grill has been commandeered by yours truly.

This is absolutely a High Five personal challenge...just wish I had been brave sooner...these were great pizzas! Sending this to the lovely and talented and newly blessed Lynn of Cookie Baker Lynn.

Also sending this over to Susan of Wild Yeast for Yeastspotting, a weekly wonderland of great yeasted inspiration. Her post on grilled pizza (well, two posts actually) gave me hope that I could do this. Thank you Susan!

Last but hardly least this is my entry for Bread Baking Day #32 - Italian Bread since there is hardly anything more Italian than pizza.


Grill-Friendly Pizza Dough
from Alton Brown's Gear For Your Kitchen

1 packet instant yeast (about 2 1/2 oz or 7 gm)
1 pound all-purpose flour, plus more for kneading and rolling out
1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon kosher salt
1 cup hot water
2 tablespoons olive oil, plus more to oil the dough before putting on the grill

Combine the yeast, flour, sugar, and salt, in that order, in a large mixing bowl. In a small mixing bowl combine the water and olive oil and then stir the liquid mixture into the flour mixture with a large wooden spoon until a dough starts to form. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead by hand for 10 minutes, or until the dough develops a silky texture.

Oil the surface of the dough and place it in another large mixing bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place until doubled in size, about 1 1/2 hours. Divide the dough in half and with a rolling pin roll the dough out onto a lightly floured surface.(I made mine into four smaller pieces and when they were rolled out placed them onto sheets of parchment, keeping a tea towel over them until ready to grill. I oiled the dough while still on the parchment before placing, oiled side down on the prepared grill.)

Heat grill to medium-low. Oil one side of the dough. Place on grill, oiled side down. Cook the dough on one side until firm and lightly browned, then turn, add your favorite toppings, and cook until lightly browned on the other side and toppings heated through. Remove to cutting board, but and serve right away.

Yield:Two 12-inch pizzas

Sourdough Pizza

Sweetie had a fire board meeting on Wednesday evening and I was the dinner cook. To challenge myself I decided to see if I could make pizza from scratch in under two hours so that he would be on time for his meeting.

Fortunately I had used the 'toss off' when I fed my starter on Monday and mixed it (1 cup sourdough starter) with a slurry of a cup of all purpose flour mixed with a cup of water. That mixture had been in the 'fridge' for a couple of days and was ready to bake with.

After putting the mixture in the stand mixer bowl, I added some sugar, olive oil and salt and stirred it around with a spatula. A little over two cups of all-purpose flour was easily absorbed as I used the dough hook to incorporate the flour and knead the dough. I sprinkled about another 1/4 cup flour on the board I used for final kneading, then the dough went into the rising bucket to rise until doubled in bulk. Since I put it in the warmer part of the living room near but not next to the stove, it took about an hour to double.

While the little yeasties were doing their thing, I made a tomato based pizza sauce. based on my favorite spaghetti sauce. I also added about a 1/4 cup of very finely diced mushrooms. The sauce simmered for almost an hour, with lots of stirring to keep it from scorching. I wanted it to be thick and not to have much loose liquid which coudl ruin the crisp crust.

While the sauce was simmering, I cooked some Italian turkey sausages from Willie Bird's in a pan with a little water over medium-low heat. I took a couple of them, once cooked, and sliced them to put on as pizza toppings. This was also a good time to find the shredded mozzarella cheese and to finely grate some Parmesan cheese, and to preheat the oven to 500 degrees with the pizza stone in the oven.

Once the pizza dough had doubled, I cut it into 4 pieces. Since the dough was still a bit sticky, I was liberal with the flour on the board I used to make the dough circles for the pizza. It's a good idea to keep the rim a bit thicker than the base of dough.

The final shaping was done on a piece of baking parchment, then the toppings went on: some sauce, applied in a thin layer, the sausage slices, the mozzarella and Parmesan cheeses. Using a pizza peel which I slid under the baking parchment, I slid the parchment and pizza onto the preheated baking stone. About 5 minutes later I used a corner of the paper to turn the pizza on the stone 180 degrees for more even baking.

The resulting pizza was delish! The crust was tangy with sourdough flavor and the bottom crust was crisp and firm enough to hold the toppings without drooping. The sauce and toppings went perfectly together. With a nice salad this made a fine meal...and it was ready in under 2 hours, including baking time.

If you don't have sourdough starter at hand, substitute rapid acting yeast...a full packet should do it...and 1 1/2 cups warm water. You may need to add a little more or less flour with either method due to differences in weather and flour. You want a dough that is still a little sticky but smooth and elastic.

If you don't care for tomato sauce and Italian sausage, substitute your favorite toppings. Bechemel sauce or ricotta cheese make a nice base for non-tomato pizzas and the sky's the limit for what to top them with, including meat, poultry, fish, and veggies, plus herbs and all kinds of cheese.

Simple Sourdough Pizza Dough

1 cup sourdough starter
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup barely warm water
½ teaspoon sugar
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon salt
2 – 2 ½ cups all-purpose flour

Mix the sourdough starter with the slurry and whisk to combine thoroughly. Let this mixture sit at room temperature for two hours. If you will be making the rest of the dough another day, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate this starter mix.

When you are ready to make the dough and make pizza, put the starter mix into a stand mixer bowl and stir the sugar, olive oil and salt into the starter mix. Using the dough hook, gradually add the flour until a dough forms. Knead with the mixer for 4-5 minutes, adding more flour a tablespoon at a time as needed.

(If not using a stand mixer, put two cups of the flour in a bowl. Make a well in the center and add the mixture of starter, sugar, olive oil and salt that you’ve whisked together in another bowl. Stir to mix the wet mix into the flour until a dough forms. Turn out onto a lightly floured surface and knead in enough flour to make a smooth and elastic dough which can still be a little sticky.)

Once dough is smooth and elastic, turn it out onto a lightly floured surface and knead by hand for another minute, adding flour if necessary to fully blend the dough.

Form dough into a ball. Place in a lightly oiled bowl or other container good for dough to rise in. Cover with oiled plastic wrap and a tea towel and let rise in a warm place until doubled in bulk, about 1 hour.

When it is about 45 minutes before you plan to bake the pizza, preheat the oven to 500 degrees F and if you have one place a baking stone in the oven to preheat, too.

On a lightly floured surface place ¼ of the dough. Using floured hands, stretch the dough into a rough circle, keeping a rim of thicker dough around the edges. Some people like to toss the dough to do this, but mine always ends up on the floor if I do, so I just push the dough or hold it by the edge and work my way around. Place the stretched dough (about 9-10 inches in diameter0 on a piece of baking parchment.

Top the dough as desired. I used a tomato based sauce that included canned tomato sauce, canned diced tomatoes, zucchini, mushrooms, onions, basil, oregano and garlic, all cooked together over low heat for an hour until most of the liquid had evaporated. The topping over the sauce was sliced cooked Italian turkey sausages, mozzarella cheese and Parmesan cheese.

To bake, slide the parchment paper holding the pizza onto the preheated baking stone. If no stone is available, turn a jelly roll pan upside down on an oven rack in the preheated oven and immediately slide on the parchment paper holding the pizza.

Bake about 5 minutes, then turn the pizza around 180 degrees for even baking. Bake until golden brown. Remove from oven to cutting board, cut and serve. If you are making more than one pizza (recipe makes 4 crusts) prepare it on another piece of parchment and once you remove one pizza, put the next one in the oven.

You can also make breadsticke: use one of the dough pieces, spread out or roll to about the same diameter as a pizza, but keep the thickness pretty even. Sprinkle with grated Parmesan and cut into strips. Place the strips a small distance apart on the baking parchment and bake like the pizzas!

I'm sending this to Susan at Wild Yeast for her popular Yeastspotting event. Check it out!

When the Moon Hits Your Eye Like a Big Pizza Pie...

The scarecrow, comfortable in the waning veggie garden on a farm in the Land of St. Honore’, looked in the kitchen window and wondered.

He had noticed the recipe a few weeks ago, all spread out on the counter. He has seen her face light up with excitement and it looked like she was thinking hard…maybe about making the recipe.

Last night as the full harvest moon rose over the far hills, he saw the light on in the kitchen, flour clouds in the air, and on the counter what looked like dough. After a while he had seen her take the dough out of the bowl, divide it in pieces, shape the pieces in balls, dip the balls in oil, then put them into plastic bags. What on earth was she doing?

Tonight she took the pieces and then floured her hands. She held one of the pieced by an edge and moved around the edge, shaping a sort of flat circle. Then she put the circle on her hand, moved her hand and the dough slid off onto the floor. What crazy thing was she up to?

After that she took another ball and did the edge thing, then laid it out on a board and pushed and pulled until it was a large circle. Very curious!

Next she spread some yucky looking red stuff over most of the circle, added thin slices of something red, sprinkled on a whole bunch of some shredded white stuff & shoved the whole thing in the oven.

Too bad the window was open. He smelled what came out of the oven…it was hot, freshly made pizza! The crust was golden and Sweetie quickly sliced it up and put it on plates. Soon they both were enjoying the pizza. The black dog came flying out of the dog door. He had some pizza crust and was enjoying it, too. The scarecrow was envious…no pizza for him.

He hopes that you will visit the Daring Bakers all over the blogosphere to see all the variations of pizza that can be imagined. Just go to the Daring Bakers Blogroll here. Thanks go to Rosa of Rosa’s Yummy Yums at http://www.rosas-yummy-yums.blogspot.com/ for this great recipe and for a second month of savory Daring Baker joy!


BASIC PIZZA DOUGH ~
Original recipe taken from “The Bread Baker’s Apprentice” by Peter Reinhart.

Makes 6 pizza crusts (about 9-12 inches/23-30 cm in diameter).

Ingredients:
4 1/2 Cups (20 1/4 ounces/607.5 g) Unbleached high-gluten (%14) bread flour or all purpose flour, chilled
1 3/4 Tsp Salt
1 Tsp Instant yeast
1/4 Cup (2 ounces/60g) Olive oil or vegetable oil (both optional, but it’s better with)
1 3/4 Cups (14 ounces/420g or 420ml) Water, ice cold (40° F/4.5° C)
1 Tb sugar
Semolina/durum flour or cornmeal for dusting

DAY ONE

Method:
1. Mix together the flour, salt and instant yeast in a big bowl (or in the bowl of your stand mixer).

2. Add the oil, sugar and cold water and mix well (with the help of a large wooden spoon or with the paddle attachment, on low speed) in order to form a sticky ball of dough. On a clean surface, knead for about 5-7 minutes, until the dough is smooth and the ingredients are homogeneously distributed. If it is too wet, add a little flour (not too much, though) and if it is too dry add 1 or 2 teaspoons extra water.

NOTE: If you are using an electric mixer, switch to the dough hook and mix on medium speed for the same amount of time. The dough should clear the sides of the bowl but stick to the bottom of the bowl. If the dough is too wet, sprinkle in a little more flour, so that it clears the sides. If, on the contrary, it clears the bottom of the bowl, dribble in a teaspoon or two of cold water.
The finished dough should be springy, elastic, and sticky, not just tacky, and register 50°-55° F/10°-13° C.

3. Flour a work surface or counter. Line a jelly pan with baking paper/parchment. Lightly oil the paper.

4. With the help of a metal or plastic dough scraper, cut the dough into 6 equal pieces (or larger if you want to make larger pizzas).
NOTE: To avoid the dough from sticking to the scraper, dip the scraper into water between cuts.

5. Sprinkle some flour over the dough. Make sure your hands are dry and then flour them. Gently round each piece into a ball.
NOTE: If the dough sticks to your hands, then dip your hands into the flour again.

6. Transfer the dough balls to the lined jelly pan and mist them generously with spray oil. Slip the pan into plastic bag or enclose in plastic food wrap.

7. Put the pan into the refrigerator and let the dough rest overnight or for up to thee days.
NOTE: You can store the dough balls in a zippered freezer bag if you want to save some of the dough for any future baking. In that case, pour some oil (a few tablespoons only) in a medium bowl and dip each dough ball into the oil, so that it is completely covered in oil. Then put each ball into a separate bag. Store the bags in the freezer for no longer than 3 months. The day before you plan to make pizza, remember to transfer the dough balls from the freezer to the refrigerator.

DAY TWO
8. On the day you plan to eat pizza, exactly 2 hours before you make it, remove the desired number of dough balls from the refrigerator. Dust the counter with flour and spray lightly with oil. Place the dough balls on a floured surface and sprinkle them with flour. Dust your hands with flour and delicately press the dough into disks about 1/2 inch/1.3 cm thick and 5 inches/12.7 cm in diameter. Sprinkle with flour and mist with oil. Loosely cover the dough rounds with plastic wrap and then allow to rest for 2 hours.

9. At least 45 minutes before making the pizza, place a baking stone on the lower third of the oven. Preheat the oven as hot as possible (500° F/260° C).
NOTE: If you do not have a baking stone, then use the back of a jelly pan. Do not preheat the pan.

10. Generously sprinkle the back of a jelly pan or pizza peel with semolina/durum flour or cornmeal. Flour your hands (palms, backs and knuckles). Take 1 piece of dough by lifting it with a pastry scraper. Lay the dough across your fists in a very delicate way and carefully stretch it by bouncing it in a circular motion on your hands, and by giving it a little stretch with each bounce. Once the dough has expanded outward, move to a full toss.

NOTE: Make only one pizza at a time.
During the tossing process, if the dough tends to stick to your hands, lay it down on the floured counter and reflour your hands, then continue the tossing and shaping.

In case you would be having trouble tossing the dough or if the dough never wants to expand and always springs back, let it rest for approximately 5-20 minutes in order for the gluten to relax fully,then try again.

You can also resort to using a rolling pin, although it isn’t as effective as the toss method.

11. When the dough has the shape you want (about 9-12 inches/23-30 cm in diameter - for a 6 ounces/180g piece of dough), place it on the back of the jelly pan or pizza peel, making sure there is enough semolina/durum flour or cornmeal to allow it to slide and not stick to the pan.

12. Lightly top it with sweet or savory toppings of your choice.
NOTE: Remember that the best pizzas are topped not too generously. No more than 3 or 4 toppings (including sauce and cheese) are sufficient.

13. Slide the garnished pizza onto the stone in the oven. Close the door and bake for about 5-8 minutes.
NOTE: After 2 minutes baking, take a peek. For an even baking, rotate 180°.
If the top gets done before the bottom, you will need to move the stone to a lower shelf before the next round. On the contrary, if the bottom crisps before the cheese caramelizes, then you will need to raise the stone.

14. Take the pizza out of the oven and transfer it to a cutting board or your plate. In order to allow the cheese to set a little, wait 3-5 minutes before slicing or serving.

The basic recipe from “The Bread Baker’s Apprentice: Mastering the Art of Extraordinary Bread”, by Peter Reinhart can be found above, but once you have visited some Daring Baker blogs, you will probably be inspired to go way beyond the basic pizza I made. My sauce was a tomato based sauce with Italian sausage bits. My toppings were coppa slices, sliced tomatoes, and shredded Italian cheese mix.

Fall At Its Finest - Blog Friends Lunch in Sonoma

Yesterday was the first nice day we have had in about a week. The sun came out, the trees were wearing the myriad shades of red and gold of autumn, and I met for lunch with Anna of Anna's Cool Finds. Anna writes the best restaurant reviews of lots of places in Marin County, so it is always a little daunting to write a review of a place where we have lunched together. She is also looking really good...due in part, no doubt, to her adherence to the South Beach Diet. Way to go Anna! No photos yet since she is getting better and better looking each time I see her, so the best is surely yet to come. She is also a super nice person and good conversationalist. I'll admit that we talked about a lot of things besides the food.

We met just off the square in the quaint town of Sonoma, the site of the Bear Flag Revolt that led to California becoming a state. It is in the county of Sonoma, so it's Sonoma, Sonoma, CA. To get there we both had nice drives through the vineyards that blanket the area. The vines have mostly been relieved of their grapes and the leaves have changed to fall colors so there is row after row of vines in shades of gold or burgundy.

The restaurant for October is The Red Grape, which is known far and wide as the place with the New Haven Style Pizza. My nephew was with us last night and as soon as I told him the name of the restaurant, he said that he had been told that it had the only decent pizza in the Bay area...of course he is from New Haven, Connecticut, so there might be a bias.

Despite the lure of the pizza, I was drawn to the soup and salad combo. I had the Tomato Basil Soup, a perfect choice since tomatoes are in season and quite delicious right now, plus their Gorgonzola Salad. (Note to Peabody: Yes, this was the Soup of Death, but still pretty looking.)

Anna had the same soup and salad combo, but she chose a savory herbed clam chowder to go with her salad. They had other salads to choose from but, as you can see from the photo, this one was really a great choice. The dressing was light, the cheese pungent, the grapes very seasonal, and those nuts were just a little spicy and nicely crunchy.

As I had suspected, the tomato soup had a full, deep tomato flavor, plus a nice complexity from basil and garlic. The texture was velvety and light, but not watery. On top there was a chiffonade of basil which added a good basil punch, and a few herbed croutons that added a nice crunch.

Although they had a nice array of dessert offerings, we both found that the salad and soup were enough for lunch. The service was good and the restaurant itself was airy and bright, if a bit noisy from the nearby large group which were giving sports team awards to some delightful kids.

If you find yourself in Sonoma, CA, the town, do try the Red Grape Restaurant, just off the square. Next time I'm going to try the pizza...I'll let you know how it is.

The Red Grape Restaurant
529 First Street West
Sonoma, CA 95476
707-996-4103

Open daily for lunch and dinner from 11:30 am