Pizza! Pizza!

Whenever we get an itch for pizza, the Hawthornes can scratch with the best of 'em. 

Pizza is always just a dough and a sauce away.

Today, it's two pizzas in one - two entirely different pizzas - two entirely different flavor combos- in one pie.

On the left hand side, I have my figgy pizza.

On the right hand side, I have a classic tomato sauce pizza.

For the dough:

1/2 cup warm water

1 package yeast

sprinkling of sugar

1 cup + bread flour

1/2 tsp kosher salt

a few good grinds of pepper

Pour water into a medium sized bowl and sprinkle yeast, then sugar on top.  Wait until it "proofs."  That means the dough "proves" it's alive by eating the sugar and emitting carbon dioxide and alcohol.  In other words, it gets all poofy and foamy.  That's when it's ready to fork in the flour.  Mix the flour in until you have a shaggy dough, then turn it out onto a lightly floured surface and knead the dough until it comes together in a nice, pliable, smooth ball, adding more flour if needed to keep dough from sticking.  Place ball into an oiled bowl, cover, and let rise until doubled.

 Heat oven, preferably with a pizza stone in it, to 500° degrees.  If you make pizzas a lot, like the Hawthornes do, go ahead an invest in a pizza stone.  This is what gives you the crisp crust you want.

After rising, place ball in center of oiled pizza pan or rimless baking sheet.  Beginning in center, start pressing the dough outwards.  Take your time doing this.  The dough needs to stretch, then relax.  Press outwards again, working the dough, then letting it rest a bit.  Keep pressing until the dough is 1/8-1/4 inch thick and dimply.  Let it rise.

Now for the toppings.

For the classic tomato sauce pizza:

tomato sauce

sliced onion

chopped green, yellow, orange, and red pepper

sautéed, sliced mushrooms

grated mozzarella

grated Parmesan

more oregano

extra virgin olive oil

Make a sauce:

1 small can tomato paste 

water to thin out the paste  

granulated garlic

onion powder

dried oregano

pinch sugar

pinch kosher salt 

Scrape the tomato paste into a small sauce pan.  Fill can with water, scraping down sides and swirling to use up all the paste, and pour into the pan.  Heat over low heat until simmering, stirring occasionally.  Add more water, as needed, to get a sauce-like consistency.  After a bit of simmering, season the sauce with 1/2 tsp each of the garlic, onion, and oregano.  Add in a pinch of sugar and salt.  Keep at a bare simmer and taste test.  Add more water and seasonings as needed.  Adjust the taste to how you like it.

Make the pizza:

On one half of the pizza dough, thinly spread some of the tomato sauce.  Top with sliced onion and peppers and mushrooms.  For the mushrooms, I sauté them first.  This gives them a more intense flavor and gets a lot of the moisture out so it doesn't seep into the pizza.  Simply melt butter or oil in a skillet over medium heat, add in sliced mushrooms, and sauté for a few minutes.  Sprinkle mozzarella and Parm over top of pizza.  Lightly drizzle with extra virgin olive oil.  One of my favorites is corto extra virgin.  And remember, there's no such thing as "too much cheese."

For the figgy pizza:

Cambozola cheese

Chèvre cheese

Brie cheese

sliced onions

sliced sautéed mushrooms

sliced figs

sprigs of fresh rosemary

grated mozzarella cheese

grated Parmesan cheese

extra virgin olive oil

For the base "sauce," smush together some softened Cambozola and Chèvre cheeses.   Equal amounts.  Spread the Cambozola/Chèvre mixture evenly over half the pizza. 

In case you're unfamiliar with Cambozola cheese, it's a combination of a cow's milk brie-style cheese

injected with the same blue Penicillium roqueforti mold used to make Rocquefort, Stilton, and Gorganzola cheeses.  It's like a blue brie.  It's not pungent like a Stilton, nor crumbly like a Rocquefort.  It's soft, moist, rich, and creamy.  Savory and nutty with undertones of sweetness.  It's a good gateway cheese into the sharper blues.  Call it the "bunny slope" of blues.

On top of the cheese base, add some sliced onions, sautèed mushroom slices, and sliced figs.  Dot figs with small dabs of Brie cheese and sprinkle with grated mozzarella and Parmesan.  Sprigs of rosemary make a nice addition.  Lightly drizzle with extra virgin olive oil.

To bake pizza:

Have oven heated to 500°.  Hopefully you have a baking stone in there which has been heating up with the oven.  It helps to continue heating the stone at 500° for another half hour or so.  You want that stone hothothot!

After the pizza has been assembled on a pan and the oven and stone are hot, place the pan on top of the stone for 3 minutes.  Rotate pan and bake another 3 minutes.  Now, slide the pizza off the pan onto the stone and bake for about 6-8 more minutes, until edges are light brown.  Remove pizza from oven and place on rack.  Let cool a few minutes before placing on cutting board and slicing.

 Classic side.

When you just can't decide what type of pizza to have,

have the best of both worlds.

Figgy side.

Enjoy!

Sunday Lunch. In Which Rosie Makes A Pizza.

It's a Lazy Sunday afternoon.

There's a ball of Mr. Hawthorne's pizza dough in the fridge.

I'm pinchin' off a piece of dough and making myself a late lunch.

 Here's my little dough ball.

 I started working the dough.

 Stop pressing out and let the dough relax and breathe.

 Let's give it some oregano lovin'.

 Breathe and stretch out.
Kinda like Yoga.  If I did Yoga.  Which I don't.

 Go outside and pick some kale.

 Kale and parsley.

Rosie has her mise en place.

Top right:  Pizza dough with air bubbles.

Bottom right:  Assorted toppings:  minced fennel heart (YES!), chopped onions, sliced multi-colored peppers, sautéed sliced mushrooms

Left:  Chopped parsley and slivered kale from the garden

Pizza fixin's in the foreground.

Mr. Hawthorne is in the background with his assigned reading material:  Dominique Ansel's Kouign Amann recipe.  That's my next project.  And I've been saving that for, I think, about a year.  At any rate, I've saved up a gazillion small cans (from crushed pineapple that goes into the birthday cakes I make for special people) to make the kouign amanns in.  Please rest assured.  Rosie is ON it!

 

This is the way Rosie cooks.
She doesn't follow a "recipe."
She just does.

Rosie looked into her fridge and came out with mushrooms, multi-colored peppers, fennel.
I had onion in the bin.

Rosie checked out her cheeses and brought out these two.

Oh, what a friend we have in cheeses!

I love the black negative space of the triangle.
Which has become positive.

Keep working the dough.
Press it out.
Leave it alone.
Let it relax and breathe.
Drizzle some OO on it.

Spread out Mr. Hawthorne's pizza sauce.
Lightly.

Layer of sauce.
Then the grated cheeses.
Mozzarella going on here.

After the sauce and the cheese, I added the onions, peppers, mushrooms, kale, and fennel.

Then some more grated mozzarella with grated Parm/Regg and the truffle cheese.

That's some purty pizza!

 

This went into a 500 degree oven.
About seven minutes on the pizza pan.
Then I slid it off onto the heated pizza stone.
Five more minutes.

And it's beautemous!

Brown bottom pizza!

Rosie and Mr. Hawthorne can make pizza.

 Same pizza.  Different light.

Good pizza!

It's Pizza Time.

Rosie is making pizza and she's procrastina planning ahead.


I allowed myself two days for the dough process.  Because I can.  I made the dough the first afternoon, then found myself doing something else later on, so decided to ball it up, refrigerate, and chill.  Both the dough and myself.

I don't need to tell you how to make a pizza dough, do I?
I've done it so many times, I can do it in my sleep.
You make dough until it feels right.

And I know.  It looks downright shaggy at first.  Don't worry.

Rosie's Dough:
1 1/2 cup warm water
1 package yeast
sprinkle of sugar over yeast
1/2 tsp kosher salt

Mix 1/2 cup water, yeast, and sugar and let the yeast proof.  That means it's gotten all puffy and foamy and has "proved" it's alive by producing all those bubbles.
Add in remaining 1 cup warm water, forking it in.  Add in 1 1/2 tsp kosher salt, then  3 cups of flour, one cup at a time, incorporating.

Turn out onto lightly floured board.  Start kneading, adding more flour as needed (a sprinkle at a time) to keep it from sticking.  Don't rush dough.  Let it rest.  Then come back and give it some more luvin'.  You'll be able to feel it.

Now, would you look at 'at!
Smooth and elastic.
Put it in an oiled bowl, roll it around, cover with plastic, and set in a warm to place rise.

When it's doubled, turn out onto lightly floured board.
Notice that pretty little bubble at the bottom!

I love watching the "blob" belly-roll out.
That's the gluten network.  Networking.

After turning out, I gave it a few kneads...

...  and then rolled into 6 little balls.  I don't want one big pizza.  I want OPTIONS!
Roll up each ball loosely in plastic, then place in storage bags and refrigerate overnight.

The next morning, I started on my pizza.  I pulled out one ball of dough from my stash.

 
And then I started a-thinkin'.  And drinkin' coffee. And that can be a dangerous combination.  Gotten me into trouble numerous times.  But I put all that behind me and forged on ahead.

Let me cogitate on this pizza for a minute or two.
What do I want on this pizza?
Hmmmmmm........

Shhhhh.......
I'm still thinking....

Got it!


I took some of that, some of this, some of what was in the garden, some of what was in the fridge, and came up with Rosie's Pizza #651.

Remember I made 6 balls of pizza dough.  I can individually freeze these for later, or I can come up with a different pizza each day for the next 5 days.  That sounds like fun to me.  And I already have the first one materializing right now in my mind!  (It involves shrimp and fennel...)

But I digest...

Let's get back to what Mr. Hawthorne has now called my "Mediterranean Pizza," for reasons unknown.
I've never been to the Mediterranean.

Rosie's Mediterranean Pizza
1 8-10inch diameter fresh pizza dough, lightly risen
enough baby spinach leaves to cover the bottom of the pizza with a few torn kale leaves from the garden
a few small red peppers that come in the pack with the yellow and orange (I'm trying to help you here. We're going to roast the red peppers.  The smaller ones in the assortment are much cheaper than the big sweet red bell peppers.)
Home-marinated artichoke hearts and sliced mushrooms
pancetta
feta cheese
Chèvre cheese

pomegranate arils
your favorite extra virgin olive oil, which now happens to be Porto Campo which I get from an "underground source" which shall remain unnamed.
reduced balsamic vinegar sauce

Start with the pizza dough and layer all items up to the olive oil.
Bake on a heated (for 30 minutes at 500°) pizza stone in a 500° oven for 9 minutes.
Plate and drizzle the balsamic sauce artistically around the pizza.

Now, there are only two things that you need to do ahead of time and I did both the night before::
1)  marinate the artichoke hearts and sliced mushrooms
2)  reduce the balsamic vinegar into a nice syrupy sauce.

 Marinated Mushrooms
1/2 cup white vinegar
1/4 cup water
 1 tsp kosher salt
1 TB fresh oregano
1 TB fresh thyme
2 TB fresh parsley
1 tsp crushed red pepper
2 dried bay leaves
1 TB peppercorns
2 large garlic cloves, smashed and slice
1/4 Bertolli Extra Light Olive Oil
can of artichokes hearts
1 lemon, juice and zest

Mix all and bring to boil.
Add in the hearts, cook at a simmer for 10 minutes.
Let cool.
Add in lemon juice and zest.
Pour into a quart jar and refrigerate.

The next morning, I sliced a bunch of mushrooms and topped the jar off.  Swirl around!

Reduced Balsamic Vinegar Sauce
 I poured about a cup of balsamic vinegar in a small sauce pan and added about a 1/4 cup brown sugar.  Stir to dissolve and heat over very low heat until reduced by half or more.  Use a skewer to mark the level.  I ALWAYS set the sauce pan in an iron pan over lowlowlow heat to dissipate the heat.  Reduced can go to burnt just real quick, you know?

Roasted pepper and sautéed pancetta bits.

Start working on the dough.

Press it out.

Let it rest and breathe.

Press out some more.

Don't rush the dough.

Kalamata olives

spinach and kale

pomegranate arils

marinated mushrooms and artichoke hearts

roasted red peppers

sautéed pancetta

feta

Chèvre

reduced balsamic vinegar

Dough is ready.

Spinach and kale and roasted red pepper strips.

Marinated mushrooms and artichoke hearts.

Kalamata olives.

Pancetta and arils.

Cheeses.

450° oven for about 12 minutes or until lightly browned.

Serve pizza on an insanely busy plate

which you found at the recycling center

and messily drizzle the reduced balsamic vinegar around.

Enjoy my "Mediterranean" Delight Pizza!