Impromptu Pizza Night

I like when dinner comes together easily. That transition from wondering what the heck to make and eat, to a ha! Last night was one of those nights. I was putting together the shopping list and menu for the week and could not decide what to make that night. Nothing was sounding good. Because of the diet restrictions for J, we have not had much bread or cheese in our lives lately, which of course is missed. J has been doing so well that we have decided to start slowly introducing these things back into his diet, and happily it has been going very well. We have found that he does better with natural, local sourdough than commercial yeast, so we will be sticking to that - which is fine with us.

So after struggling to decide what to make, my a ha moment came - pizza! I had a sourdough dough ball in the freezer, tomatoes and basil in the garden, and just enough cheese in the fridge to pull it all together. I set the dough out to defrost, picked some pizza perfect San Marzano tomatoes, a bunch of basil, and got to it.



The sauce was simple, and uncooked. I chopped a few cloves of garlic in the food processor, added about 2-3 cups of chopped tomatoes, a handful of basil, some oregano and rosemary (all the produce came from the garden). Pulse it together for a few seconds with a pinch or two of salt and you're good to go. Fresh, bright and delicious.


I only had a small amount of mozzarella on hand, so we relied heavily on some goat's milk pecorino which was nutty and rich and a perfect foil to the sweet tomatoes.


Clearly I am not too concerned about perfectly round pizzas. I went low stress, just slap them together, throw them on a hot hot hot baking stone (preheat your oven as hot as it will get for at least 30 minutes). The sourdough crust was good - light, with a little crisp and some airyness. It's not a well charred crust like pizza from a wood fired oven (still on the list of things I covet - and will one day make) but for an impromptu pizza night with the family, it couldn't get much better.


The fun thing about pizza night is that each pizza takes time, they come out of the oven about every ten minutes which is just enough time to pull the previous pie out, cut it up so everyone has a slice and hang out together having fun. By the time you finish your slice, the next pizza is ready. It's always a great way for us to spend some silly time playing and eating with the kids. Now that J is handling some sourdough and cheese, we will definitely be having more pizza night picnics. How could you not want to with this is how your kids react?

Pizza Night

Every once in a while we like to have pizza night. It's always fun because you can put together any sort of combo you want for your own personal pizza creation. This is another good way to clean out the fridge, because almost everything tastes good on a pizza. That said, I also have some very strict traditional neapolitan/NY pizza beliefs, but those fly out the window on the fridge clearing pizza nights.

I had some Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day style semolina dough in the fridge. Although I am trying to expand my bread baking skills, I still have a love for the 5 minute a day bread. It's there, hanging out, ready for an impromptu pizza night celebration at a moment's notice.


This night I didn't have any mozzarella in the house so we got creative. I made a BBQ chicken and cheddar pizza for the kids. I ended up making another one later in the evening, just to finish up the dough, with some peppers and onions added.

For R and I, I made a prosciutto, roasted potato, caramelized onion, and feta pizza. It was really good, but I couldn't shake the feeling that it was something that would have been on the menu at L'idiot in the movie LA Story with Steve Martin. It just had this very yuppy/hipster/1989/California feel. Who cares? It was good.

Pizza Party with the Daring Bakers

This month's Daring Baker challenge (hosted by Rosa's Yummy Yums) was, again, a recipe I've been wanting to make but I had just never gotten around to. It's amazing how almost every month when I see the new challenge I find myself saying "oh cool, I've been wanting to try that!"

I have certainly made pizza before, but we often just use whatever bread dough we have in the fridge when we are in the habit of keeping Artisan Bread in 5...dough around. We have become particularly fond of the semolina dough as a great pizza base. We've made them in the oven on the stone, grilled them directly on the grill, and grilled them on the stone as well.

This time, we were excited to try a real pizza dough recipe, from Peter Reinhart's classic The Bread Baker's Apprentice, which I happen to have. Thus far, I have only managed to make bagels from the book, and that was only after finding the recipe somewhere online first. So I've now tried two recipes from the book and I have to admit, not my favorite so far. I am certainly planning on working with some of the other more traditional breads in the book and I will even try this pizza dough recipe again because most of the other DBers seemed to really like it. But we were largely disappointed with the taste, and the texture was only okay. The dough was fun to work with, supple and soft, and part of the DB challenge was that we had to attempt tossing the dough. I ended up doing only mini tosses because the soft dough stretched out so quickly.

In honor of the challenge I made my own mozzarella for the pizzas. I also put together a batch of pesto with some basil from the yard. To end the evening, I also put together a small dessert pizza. This one ended up being our favorite. I dotted the dough with butter and cream cheese and covered it with cinnamon spiced apples and sliced almonds. It was just sweet enough, rich and had a nice thin, crispy crust.

I definitely recommend making your own pizza: it is relatively easy and almost always better than the alternative. And most importantly, it is always fun to come up with your own toppings.

~ 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 tablespooons 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 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, 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 or bake directly on the jelly pan. Close the door and bake for abour 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 or jelly pane 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 or jelly.

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.

Pizza on the Grill

Not your classic grilled pizza. This time I actually put the baking stone right on the grill and cooked the pizzas on the stone with some water in a metal cup on the side for the steam. The pizzas looked great and were okay to eat, but the crust was definitely on the charred side. I'll have to experiment some more in order to really get this one down. It was nice on this near 100 degree day to not heat up the stove in the house though.

We made three small pizzas for dinner, all with a semolina crust, basic tomato sauce and mozarella - one with pepperoni, one bbq chicken and one plain pie with fresh basil.

Good enough to try to hone in the cooking heat and time in order to perfect the crust.