Pizza 101 - The Toppings and Italian Sausage Pizza

Since "pizza" is just really a fancy name for a large, baked, open face sandwich, pretty much anything you like can get piled on top of the sauce; raw or roasted vegetables, an assortment of cooked meats, any good melting cheese, even fruit.  The trick is to not overwhelm the crust with toppings, and it is absolutely imperative to use the freshest ingredients possible (that means no commercial grated Parmesan from a can, no canned mushrooms or no frozen spinach if you can help it).  The difference between a pizza made from fresh ingredients versus canned ingredients is immense.

It's so easy to want to pile the toppings nice and thick, but that is a mistake that could leave the crust soggy.  Try to adhere to the "see through" rule for topping your pizzas; you should be able to see the layer below each new layer you put on top, and that even includes the cheese.  I'll show you the way I top my favorite Vegetable Pizza (olives only on half, please, because my daughter doesn't like them).  After you have preheated your oven and baking stone to 500F, and have rolled out your crust and smeared it with sauce:

Top the sauce layer with 1/4 - 1/2 cup shredded provolone and 4 oz torn fresh mozzarella cheese.

Top the cheese layer with about 4 oz thinly sliced portobello or cremini mushrooms, 1/2 sliced green and/or red bell pepper, sliced red onions, olives, and, if in season, one chopped fresh tomato (just the flesh of the tomato, though - don't put the juice on the pizza).

Top the vegetables evenly with freshly grated Parmesan and a few pinches of dried or freshly chopped oregano, basil, and crushed red pepper flakes, if desired.

Bake the pizza at 500F on a preheated baking stone for about 10 minutes, or until the crust slides easily off the stone and it looks like this:

Cut it and eat it.

Now, that's one of my favorite pizzas.  I'm also fairly enamored with Spinach and Feta Thin Crust Pizza, and a whole host of others, to be honest.  But my husband and my son prefer a sausage pizza.  The problem with purchasing pre-made Italian sausage is that comes with a lot of MSG and nitrates and fillers I don't want to feed my family.  It's pretty easy to make your own Italian sausage with just a few staple herbs and spices.  The following recipe is for two pizzas - if you are only planning to make one, the uncooked Italian sausage mixture freezes quite well.

Italian Sausage Pizza
makes 2 (two) 12-14 inch pizzas

• 1lb fresh ground pork
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/4 c onion, finely diced
• 2 Tbs fresh parsley, chopped
• 2 tsp Italian seasoning
• 1 tsp paprika
• 1 tsp sea salt
• 1/2 to 1 tsp crushed red pepper flakes, depending on how spicy you want it
• 1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
• 1/2 tsp fennel seeds
• 1 tsp olive oil
• 1 recipe pizza dough
• cornmeal for dusting
• 1 recipe pizza sauce
• 1 c shredded provolone cheese
• 8 oz fresh mozzarella cheese, torn into small pieces
• 1/2 c freshly grated parmesan cheese
• several pinches each: fresh or dried basil, dried oregano, and/or crushed red pepper flakes, optional

Preheat oven with baking stone(s) to 500F. 

In a bowl, combine the pork, garlic, onion, parsley, Italian seasoning, paprika, salt, crushed red pepper flakes, black pepper, and fennel seeds.  Mix well.

Heat olive oil in skillet over medium high heat.  Add pork mixture.  Brown the mixture for about 10 minutes, or until cooked, breaking up any large chunks.  Set aside.

Dust pizza peel(s) generously with cornmeal.  Roll out two crusts, each between 12-14 inches in diameter, depending upon how thick you'd like your crust (*if you are only making one pizza at a time, refrigerate the unused portion until ready to use).

Divide the pizza sauce between both crusts, smearing with the back of a spoon, to within a half inch from the edge.

For each pizza, sprinkle with 1/2c provolone cheese.

Top each pizza with half of the Italian sausage.

Sprinkle 4 oz. torn fresh mozzarella on each pizza.

Divide the freshly grated parmesan between both pizzas.

If desired, sprinkle each pizza with a few pinches of basil, oregano and/or crushed red pepper flakes.

Slide the pizzas onto the hot stones in the preheated oven and bake for approximately 8-10 minutes, or until the crust slides off the stone and the cheese has melted to your liking.  Remove with the pizza peel.

Now, if you are still with me after what I think might be the longest post I've ever written, please wish a Happy 1st Birthday to my favorite 'coon hound, Huckleberry Pi (the kids wanted to name him 3.14, so we compromised)!

Huck at 3 months

Huck on Christmas '11 morning

Isn't he great? ♥  One more year until he outgrows eating inedible things, like shoes and library books ($70 in fines so far.  Sigh.).  Good thing he's so sweet and very well loved.

Happy pizza making, everyone!  Have a great Super Bowl weekend!

Pizza 101 - Perfect Pizza Sauce and The Liebster Award

When most of us think of pizza, we think of it coming with oodles of cheese and toppings, and a red sauce made from tomatoes.  Some of us like it with a white sauce, which is thickened milk with butter, cheese and herbs, or just an olive oil glaze with garlic, or salsa, or beans, or ricotta with herbs, or...  Some of us like it with any one of those things.  I am one of those people.  So, while it was difficult to choose which sauce to cover, I decided to go with the traditional tomato sauce for the second portion of the Pizza 101 tutorial. I did toil, and I finally decided that I could be here for days and still not cover all of the best sauces for pizza.  Really.

This very flavorful basic red sauce is extremely simple to put together regardless of the season (I have an awesome fresh sauce recipe for summer tomatoes to share when tomatoes are back in season).  But since I'm presently out of said summer sauce (no fresh tomatoes worth a squat in the dead of winter where I live and I've used up my stored lot), I'll share a simple tomato sauce made from pureed tomatoes, dried herbs, fresh onion and garlic.  Some people like a sweet sauce (I am not one of them), and if this is you, add a little raw honey or a pinch of sugar to the sauce.

Perfect Pizza Sauce
enough for two 12-14 inch pizzas

• 1 1/2 cups tomato sauce or tomato puree
• 1 clove garlic, pressed
• 1 Tbs onion, shredded (do this with a fresh onion and a cheese grater)
• 2 tsp dried basil
• 2 tsp dried oregano
• 1/4 tsp crushed red pepper
• sea salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

Mix all ingredients together.

After you have rolled out your crust, use half of this mixture for each crust; spread with the back of a spoon over the crust to within a half inch from the edge.

If you do not use the whole recipe, this sauce will keep in the refrigerator for several days, and it freezes well, too.  We always have some on hand because my kids like to make little pizzas for lunch from the bread dough always present in our fridge (thanks to the awesome technique provided by the Artisan Bread in Five duo, who, by the way, have a new book entirely dedicated to pizza which is most definitely worth a look if you love pizza as much as we do).

And, of course, I will share more pizza recipes in the future that include some of those other delicious sauces.

Next up - Toppings (and how to make your own Italian sausage)!

But first, I'm so excited to share this news:

Yesterday I was flattered to be awarded the Liebster award from Mama F at Doggie at the Dinner Table.  Then, last night, I recieved another from Chris at Sweet Mornings!  What an honor!

The Liebster Blog Liebster is German and translates to "dearest" or "favorite". It is meant for up-and-coming blogs with less than 200 followers.

Here are the rules:

- Thank your Liebster Blog Award presenter on your blog

- Link back to the blogger who presented the award to you

- Copy and paste the blog award on your blog

- Present the Liebster Blog Award to 5 blogs of 200 followers or less who you feel deserve to be noticed

- Let them know they have been chosen by leaving a comment on their blog

I feel extra fortunate that with both awards, I am able to award ten other blogs.  It was difficult to choose only ten because there are just so many fantastic blogs out there, but I've finally gotten my list down.  So, without further ado, I am awarding the Liebster to:

The Wimpy Vegetarian

GeorgieCakes

Vegetarian Mama

Badger Girl Learns to Cook

My Twisted Recipes

The Irish Mother

PassionEats

Table for Seven

Soni's Food for Thought

My Gingerbread Men

Thank you all so much for your support and for reading my blog.  And thank you Mama F and Chris for nominating me!  I feel so fortunate to be a part of such a warm, generous, and supportive community!

Pizza 101 - The Crust



This week I am going to feature a tutorial about how to make your own homemade pizza. Homemade pizza is a simple enough thing for many cooks out there, but for a lot of us, our experience with enjoying pizza includes a phone call to the local pizzeria or a few overpriced, underflavored frozen pizzas tossed into the cart at the grocery store.  Since one of the goals for my blog is to teach how to cook great food with real, fresh ingredients, I'm going to spend the week discussing basic pizza making, beginning with the crust.

As I discussed in my Spinach and Feta Pizza Thin Crust Pizza post, there are a few tools worth investing in; a pizza peel and a baking stone.  Since some of the very best pizzas in the world are baked in stone hearths, a baking stone will help tremendously with crisping and evenly heating the crust for a perfect pizza every time.  I purchased mine (actually, I own two which are rarely removed from my oven) at a local shop for about $30 each; usually they cost from about $30 to $40, but whatever your investment, if you choose to regularly make your own pizzas, your investment will be justified after just a few pizzas (if you order out often, you might even recoup your investment with your first dinner).  A peel is simply a wooden or stainless steel board with a handle and beveled edge so the pizza can slide off onto the stone.  A decent one can cost anywhere from $15 - $40, depending on what you choose (mine were on the $15 end).  I own two large ones because I always make two largish pizzas, and with two stones in the oven, the texture is not compromised by making two at a time.  I've added a few choices for the stones and peels to my Amazon store (under the heading "other items") for you to consider if you still need to purchase these items.

Additionally, I use my food processor to make the dough, but a breadmaker will work, as will a stand mixer, or everyone's old standby, a bowl and spoon.

Each of the pizza components (crust, sauce, toppings) I am going to discuss this week will make two 12-14 inch pizzas.  In addition to pizzas, the basic crust recipe can also be used to make up to six calzones or six mini pizzas.

Whether you like thick crust (roll it thicker) or thin crust (roll it thinner) or somewhere in between, use the following pantry staples to make a good basic crust:

• 1 1/4 c warm water
• 1 tsp raw honey
• 2 tsp yeast
• 3 1/3 c flour (I use 2 c unbleached all purpose and 1 1/3 c whole wheat)
• 1 1/2 tsp kosher salt
• 1 tsp dried herbs or 1 Tbs fresh herbs, optional
• 2 Tbs extra virgin olive oil, divided

Pour the water into a large measuring cup; the water should be warm enough to notice when you dip your finger into it, but not so hot you need to pull your finger back out (really, you do not need a thermometer).  Stir the honey and the yeast into the water and set aside for about 3-5 minutes so the honey can feed the yeast.  This step is called "proofing", and while it may not be completely necessary, I don't like any dead yeast surprises, so I always do this with this method for making the crust.

I couldn't find my measuring cup, so I used the next best thing

While the yeast is proofing, insert the dough blade into the food processor.  Add the flour(s), salt, herbs if using, and 1 Tbs olive oil.  Pulse a few times to mix it together.



When your yeast looks like it does in the earlier picture (with a fair bit of froth on top), turn your processor on (use the dough mode if you have it - if not, don't worry about it, it will be fine), give the yeast mixture a stir, and slowly pour it through the chute, allowing for the flour to absorb the liquid.  If the mixture seems too dry, add another tablespoon or two of water (temperature will not matter) until the dough forms a ball.  Once the ball has formed, process for an additional 30 seconds (this will be the "kneading" part, so if you are doing it by hand, knead for about 5 minutes).



 Place the remaining 1 Tbs olive oil into a large bowl.  Transfer the dough (it will be sticky, so you might want to put a little olive oil on your hands, too) to the bowl and turn the ball to cover it in the oil.  Cover with plastic wrap or a clean towel and set aside to rise for about 45 minutes.  Take the rising time as an opportunity to prepare your sauce and get your toppings shredded and chopped.

Preheat the oven (with the stone(s) on any rack from the middle to the bottom) to 500F.

Generously dust a pizza peel with cornmeal. The cornmeal layer will prevent the dough from sticking and allow for easy transfer to the pizza stone, so don't be shy; use about 1/3c - 1/2c, depending on the size of the peel.

Divide the dough (which should have doubled in size) in half.  Using a rolling pin lightly dusted in flour (my preferred method) or your hands, roll or flatten and stretch the dough to a 12 inch circle for a thick crust, a 13 inch circle for a medium crust, or a 14 inch circle for a thin crust. 

The only picture I could find of the crust rolled out already had sauce on it, but you get the picture.

Naturally, at this point, you will add your sauce and toppings, which we'll talk more about later this week.  If you are only making one pizza, you can choose to halve the recipe, freeze the remaining portion to thaw for later use, or pre-bake the crust.  To pre-bake the crust, simply roll it out on the cornmeal dusted pizza peel, brush it with some olive oil, poke it with a fork several times so you won't get bubbles, and bake it in the preheated oven for about 5 minutes. Once your crust is pre-baked, cool it and then wrap it in waxed paper if layering, or plastic wrap or foil, and freeze until ready to use.  To bake it, top the frozen crust with what you like and bake it at 450F (usually for about 15-20 minutes).  Frozen crusts are especially nice for busy nights when you are tempted to call for delivery; by the time the pizza guy finally arrives with your pizza, you could have already made your own.

Now that you know how to make a basic pizza crust, you can make many possible alterations to the original recipe; different herbs, changing the kind of flour you use, adding garlic or cheese, etc.  Yes, there are different methods to make pizza crust, but I learned with this one, and it's the one to which I always return because it has never failed me, so this is the method I wanted to share with you.

Next up, the sauce!







Spinach and Feta Thin Crust Pizza

Making your own pizza is easy and fun - the possibilities for topping combinations are nearly endless.  The crusts are easy to tailor, too; thick, thin, herbed, cheese stuffed...  And the sauces!  Red sauce, white sauce, pureed beans, no sauce at all...  The best part, though, is that it's inexpensive, not very time consuming, and the whole family can get involved.  Pizza is just good, no matter how you look at it.

A few kitchen items I use when I make pizza include my food processor, a rolling pin, a pizza peel and a pizza stone.  No, you probably don't need any of those things, but I find they make the process easy and improve the quality and flavor of the finished pizza.  If you do not have a pizza peel or stone, you can always pat the crust into some jelly roll pans (or cookie sheets) and bake them on the bottom rack, but you will get a crisper, more evenly baked crust with the stone.

For this pizza, I like a thin, crispy crust.  It's pretty simple to achieve this with a basic pizza dough recipe; more yeast and less oil yields a thicker, more bread-like crust, and less yeast and more oil will turn into a crispy, thin crust.

Working with yeast isn't as tricky as a lot of people tend to think it is, and that is especially true with a pizza crust.  With this recipe, we will "proof" the yeast before we add it to the dry ingredients so that there won't be any Oops My Yeast is Dead surprises.  We'll feed the yeast some honey while it hangs out in some warm water and when it foams, we'll know our yeast is happy and our crust will be awesome.  If it doesn't foam, you need to go buy some new yeast and throw the old yeast away.  There is really no need to check the temperature of the water with a thermometer - it just needs to be warm enough to not be too hot.  It should be between 90-105 degrees, so you should be able to put your fingers in the water without needing to pull them back out right away, and it should be warmer than your hand.

The dough recipe makes enough for two 12-14 inch pizzas.  You can either use it all  now, or freeze half; after the rise, form half of the dough into a ball, wrap it well in plastic wrap and freeze.  Thaw when ready to use.

For the dough:
2 cups unbleached white flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 tsp kosher salt
2 Tbs olive oil, divided
1 1/2 tsp active dry yeast
1 tsp raw honey
1 cup warm water (about 90-105 degrees)

Pour the water into a 2 cup (or larger) measuring cup.  Quickly stir in the honey and yeast, breaking up any clumps of yeast.  Set aside to rest for about 3-5 minutes, or until there is anywhere from 1/4 inch to 1/2 inch of froth on top.  It will look like this when it is ready:

Meanwhile, insert the blade (the dough blade is ideal, if you have one) into the food processor.  Place the flours, salt and 1 Tbs olive oil into your food processor.  Give it a few pulses to mix.  When your yeast and water are ready to go, turn your processor on "dough" speed and slowly pour the yeast mixture through the tube.  If the flour looks a little dry, add some more water by tablespoons full until it catches and creates a ball.  Let the ball whirl around in there for about 30 seconds (this the "kneading" part we are able to skip by letting the food processor do it for us).

Place the remaining 1 Tbs olive oil in a large bowl.  Remove the dough (it will be sticky) and place it in the bowl, turning to coat in the oil.  Cover with plastic wrap (or even a clean towel) and set aside to rise for about 45 minutes while you get the rest of your pizza ingredients together.

Spinach and Feta Thin Crust Pizza
makes one 12 - 14 inch pizza

2 Tbs olive oil
2 Tbs minced garlic
1/2 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
1/2 c shredded Provolone cheese
3 c chopped fresh spinach
 5 or 6 sun dried tomatoes, thinly sliced
1/4 c thinly sliced red onions
a handful of pitted olives, chopped or sliced
1/4 c shredded fresh Mozzarella cheese
3 oz Feta cheese, crumbled
Grated Asiago or Parmesan
1/2 recipe thin crust pizza dough (above)
Cornmeal for dusting the peel

Preheat oven (with stone) to 500F. *If you are not using a stone, lightly oil two jelly roll pans or pizza pans and adjust your oven racks to the lowest level.

Dust your pizza peel generously with cornmeal. Divide the dough in half (decide if you will be making two pizzas - if not, wrap the other half of the dough in plastic wrap and freeze or refrigerate).  With a floured rolling pin, roll out the dough directly on the pizza peel into a 12-14" inch round.  *If using pans, either roll it out or pat it into the prepared pans.

Using a pastry brush, evenly brush the olive oil over the whole crust.  Sprinkle with the minced garlic, crushed red pepper flakes, and provolone.  Top with spinach, tomatoes, onions, olives, Mozzarella, Feta, and grated Asiago or Parmesan.

Slide onto the pizza stone and bake for about 10 minutes, or until the crust is crisp and the cheese is just beginning to lightly brown. *If using pans, place them on the bottom rack and continue as directed for baking time.