I know yesterday was National Pizza Day, but Monday is always my busiest day with work so I knew I was going to have time to post a new pizza recipe that I had tried out. I have made lots of different pizzas, sometimes with making my own dough and sometimes with store-bought dough and they have all turned out pretty well, though some are always better than others. Not long ago Sean had asked me if I ever thought about trying to make a Sicilian pizza instead of just regular pizza. I hadn’t had Sicilian pizza in quite a long time and had never made it myself before, but I was always willing to try and was waiting for the right recipe to come along to inspire me. Then along came this recipe from Cook’s Illustrated for Sicilian-style thick crust pizza and it seemed just right. I did have to pick up a couple of things I don’t normally have around, namely semolina flour and anchovies, but other than that I had everything else ready to go and gave it a try.
For the Dough:
2 1/4 cups (11 1/4 ounces) all-purpose flour
2 cups (12 ounces) semolina flour
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon instant or rapid-rise yeast
1 2/3 cups (13 1/3 ounces) ice water
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 1/4 teaspoons salt
1 (28-ounce) can whole peeled tomatoes, drained
2 teaspoons sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 tablespoon tomato paste
3 anchovy fillets, rinsed, patted dry, and minced
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
2 ounces Parmesan cheese, grated (1 cup)
12 ounces whole-milk mozzarella, shredded (3 cups)
For the pizza dough: Using a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook, mix the all-purpose flour, semolina flour, sugar, and yeast on low speed until the ingredients are combined, about 10 seconds. With the machine running, slowly add the ice water and oil until the dough forms and no dry flour remains, about 1 to 2 minutes. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let the dough stand for 10 minutes.
Add the salt to the dough and mix the dough on medium speed until the dough forms a satiny, sticky ball that clears the sides of bowl, about 6 to 8 minutes. Remove the dough from the bowl and knead it briefly on a lightly floured counter until it is smooth, about 1 minute. Shape the dough into a tight ball and place it in a large, lightly oiled bowl. Cover the bowl tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate it for at least 24 hours or up to 48 hours.
To make the sauce, process the tomatoes, sugar, and salt in a food processor until the mixture is smooth, about 30 seconds. Heat the olive oil and garlic in a medium saucepan set over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally, until the garlic is fragrant and just beginning to brown, about 2 minutes. Add the tomato paste, anchovies, oregano, and pepper flakes and cook until the mixture is fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add the tomato mixture and cook, stirring occasionally, until the sauce measures 2 cups, about 25 to 30 minutes. Transfer the sauce to a bowl, let it cool, and refrigerate the sauce until it is needed.
To make the pizza, one hour before baking the pizza, place a baking stone on the upper-middle rack and heat the oven to 500 degrees. Spray a rimmed baking sheet (including the rim) with vegetable oil spray, then coat the bottom of the pan with oil. Remove the dough from the refrigerator and transfer it to a lightly floured counter. Lightly flour the top of the dough and gently press it into a 12 by 9-inch rectangle. Using a rolling pin, roll the dough into a 18 by 13-inch rectangle. Transfer the dough to a prepared baking sheet, fitting the dough into the corners. Spray the top of the dough with vegetable oil spray and lay a sheet of plastic wrap over the dough. Place a second baking sheet on the dough and let it stand for 1 hour.
Remove the top baking sheet and the plastic wrap. Gently stretch and lift the dough to fill the pan. Using the back of a spoon or ladle, spread the sauce in an even layer over the surface of the dough, leaving a 1/2-inch border. Sprinkle the Parmesan evenly over the entire surface of the dough to the edges followed by the mozzarella.
Place the pizza on the baking stone; reduce the oven temperature to 450 degrees and bake the pizza until the bottom crust is evenly browned and the cheese is bubbly and browned, about 20 to 25 minutes, rotating the pizza halfway through the baking process. Remove the pan from the oven and let it cool on a wire rack for 5 minutes. Run a knife around the rim of the pan to loosen the pizza. Transfer the pizza to a cutting board, cut it into squares, and serve.
You do need to plan this one a day or two ahead of time so he dough has a chance to rest properly. The two different flours do make a difference here as you get the thick crust that is more cake-like than chewy like you get with a thin crust. The anchovy adds some great flavor to the pizza sauce and overall the combination of the crust and sauce made this a really perfect pizza and one of the better Sicilian pies I have tried. It is worth the work to put into it if you like this type of pizza and don’t want to spend $20 on one from a pizza place. Unfortunately the pictures I took of the pizza seem to have gotten lost in cyberland somewhere between my phone and computer and I cannot find them anywhere, but if I do find it I will post them here. trust me, it looked really good.
That’s all I have for today. Check back next time for another recipe. Until then, enjoy the rest of your day and enjoy your meal!
Super Bowl Food Ideas and Party Recipes – Bon Appetit.
As we deal with a snowstorm here in my area of New York and then a family party later today, you can have a chance to look over some more great Super Bowl snack, appetizers and recipes for your party, to bring to a party or just to have for your own while you watch the game. Bon Appetit has all kinds of great ideas for your Super Bowl party guide for all of your favorite game-time snacks. Check it out!
14 Pizzas That Are the Definition of Perfection – Bon Appétit.
Friday night is pizza night in many homes, but instead of ordering out, why not try making some pizza at home tonight. You can make your own dough or buy store-bought pizza dough and let your imagination run wild with what you want on your pie or you can take a look at these 14 pizza recipe suggestions from Bon Appetit to get some great ideas for dinner tonight. Add a salad and you are all set for a great Friday night meal. Check it out!
31 Great Labor Day Grilling Recipes | Kitchen Daily.
Planning on doing some grilling on Labor Day but what to go beyond the usual hamburgers and hot dogs? Kitchen Daily has put together 31 great grilling recipes for you that cover everything from your appetizers and main courses to side dishes and dessert so you can grill every part of your meal and make the most of that last unofficial day of summer. Check out the recipes and find one to try this weekend!
When the weather is hot and muggy, one of the easiest things you can do of course is order a pizza. Sure, I do it just like everyone else does, but making your own pizza can be quick and easy and you can control all of the ingredients so you can make the type of pizza that you really enjoy. If you don’t want to turn the oven on, you can just as easily make one on the grill using a pizza stone. I cam across this very simple recipe last week at My Baking Addiction for a quick and easy barbecue chicken pizza that you can put together very easily using leftover chicken and a store-bought pizza crust to have a great tasting pizza for the family in under 20 minutes.
Barbecue Chicken Pizza
1 store-bought pizza crust or homemade pizza crust (such as Food Processor Pizza Dough)
1/2 cup of your favorite barbecue sauce (or homemade barbecue sauce)
1 cup cooked and shredded chicken
1/2 cup thinly sliced red onion
1 bell pepper (any color), seeded, cored and sliced thin
1 3/4 cups Monterey Jack shredded cheese or mozzarella cheese
Place a pizza stone in the oven and preheat the oven to 475 degrees. Allow the pizza stone to heat for 30 minutes. Allow the pizza dough to come to room temperature and stretch the dough into the shape that you wish. Alternatively, place the pizza dough onto a foil-lined or oiled baking sheet.
Spread the barbecue sauce onto the pizza crust, leaving about a 1/2-inch border around the edge of the pizza. Add the shredded chicken, red onion, and bell pepper on top of the barbecue sauce. Top the pizza with the shredded cheese.
Bake the pizza in the oven for 12 to 15 minutes or until the cheese is melted and the pizza crust is a deep golden brown. Cut the pizza into squares or slices and serve.
I also added a couple of dashes of some mesquite seasoning to the pizza to give it some extra kick and barbecue flavor. I really liked the mix of the barbecue sauce with the red onion and the peppers ( I used red pepper because that is what I had on hand) and this was a very easy pizza to put together using some the leftover chicken I had. you could also make use of rotisserie chicken this way or even some leftover pulled pork if you happen to have any and I think it would be great.
That’s all I have for today. Check back next time for another recipe. Until then, enjoy the rest of your day and enjoy your meal!
You would think we would have gotten sick of meatballs by now, wouldn’t you? Surprisingly enough we managed to keep on with our meatball theme this week, using another recipe from Giada di Laurentiis that makes use of the classic Italian turkey meatballs I made earlier in the week. For this recipe, just like the one yesterday for meatball paninis, we kept it very easy and decided to go the pizza route. This one is for pizza Bianca, which is a white pie without any red sauce, perfect for those who may not like the acidity or flavor of tomato sauce. You can use some of the meatballs from the original recipe that have not been put into sauce, or just take some of the sauced meatballs and cut them up if you want just a hint of the sauce flavor. In either case, it is a very flavorful pizza.
Pizza Bianca with Kale and Turkey Meatballs
For the Sauce:
2 tablespoons butter, at room temperature
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 cup milk
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 bay leaf
1 clove garlic, smashed and peeled
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
For the Pizza:
Extra-virgin olive oil, for oiling the baking sheet and for drizzling
One 1-pound ball pizza dough (store-bought or homemade, such as Food Processor Pizza Dough), at room temperature
3/4 cup coarsely grated mozzarella
8 Classic Italian Turkey Meatballs, halved
1/2 cup finely grated Parmesan
2 medium leaves kale, ribs removed, coarsely chopped
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
For the sauce: In a heavy small saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat. Add the flour and stir constantly for 1 minute. Gradually add the milk, whisking constantly. Add the nutmeg, bay leaf and garlic. Whisk the mixture over medium heat until the mixture thickens to sauce consistency and is smooth, about 2 to 5 minutes. Stir in the salt and pepper.
Remove and discard the bay leaf and the garlic.
For the pizza: Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F. Oil a heavy nonstick 16- by 10-inch baking sheet with olive oil.
Using your fingers, spread the dough over the prepared baking sheet into a rectangle shape. Drizzle the dough with olive oil. Spoon the sauce on top and spread the sauce evenly across the dough, leaving a 1-inch border around the dough. Sprinkle the mozzarella on top. Arrange the meatballs, cut-side down, on top of the mozzarella and sauce. Sprinkle the pizza with the Parmesan cheese. Bake the pizza for 15 minutes. Remove the baking sheet from the oven and add the kale in an even layer on top of the meatballs. Drizzle the kale with olive oil and sprinkle the top with salt. Bake the pizza until the kale is crispy, about 10 minutes longer.
Cut the pizza into squares and serve.
One thing I did differently with this recipe, since I did not have any kale on hand, was that I used some spinach instead. Sean and Michelle both like spinach better anyway so this worked well for us, but if you really want the kale I would think it would turn out nice and crispy and taste great on the pizza. Everyone loved this pizza, not just because of the meatballs but because of the white sauce as well. The sauce had just that hint of nutmeg to give it a really unique flavor and it just seemed to go really well with the meatballs and spinach. Sean asked that I make this one again and maybe try another pizza combination with the sauce from this recipe, which sounded like a good idea to me.
That’s all I have for today. Check back next time for another recipe. Until then, enjoy the rest of your day and enjoy your meal!
Very often around here Friday night’s are pizza night and more often than not I make my own pizza. It seems just as easy, doesn’t take a lot of time to make, and costs less than buying 2 pizzas from our favorite pizza place nearby. I have nothing against getting a pizza now and then; we do it ourselves on nights where no one has the energy to cook,but I just think for the minimum effort it takes to make the dough or even buy the pizza dough (most times a pound of dough is only about a dollar), you can make a pretty good pizza on your own. Sean had been asking me to try making a deep dish pizza because he wanted it, and I found a pretty easy recipe on the Cooking Channel website that was a good one to try.
Chicago-Style Deep Dish Sausage Pizza
4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 pound sweet or hot Italian sausage, sliced into thin rounds or removed from the casing and crumbled
2 tablespoons butter, softened
1 pound pizza dough, at room temperature, or 1 serving of Food Processor Pizza Dough, at room temperature
10 ounces mozzarella cheese, shredded or thinly sliced
1 cup of your favorite marinara sauce or 1 1/2 cups crushed and strained tomatoes
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon dried oregano
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Heat a skillet over medium-high heat with 2 tablespoons of the olive oil. Cook the sausage until the sausage is nicely browned and cooked through, about 8 to 10 minutes.
Grease the inside of a 12-inch cast-iron skillet with the softened butter. Place the pizza dough in the center of the skillet and spread the dough evenly towards the bottom edge and 1 1/2 inches up the sides.
Begin layering the ingredients on your pizza crust by evenly laying the sausage on the dough, followed by the mozzarella cheese and then by the tomato sauce or the tomatoes, whichever you happen to be using. Sprinkle the garlic and the dried oregano on top of the cheese and sauce. Finish the topping by adding the Parmesan cheese on top and drizzle the top with the remaining 2 tablespoons of the olive oil.
Place the cast-iron skillet on the bottom rack of the oven and cook the pizza until the edge of the crust is golden brown and crusty, about 30 to 35 minutes. Remove the skillet from the oven and allow the pizza to rest for about 5 minutes before slicing and serving.
Just a couple of quick notes about my experience with this recipe. First, you should preheat the oven for about 20 minutes or so to make sure the temperature is nice and hot before you put the pizza in. This seemed to make a big difference for me. Secondly, I didn’t get the pizza as “deep dish” as I would have liked it since I did not have quite enough dough to fully go up the sides of the pan. I had split the dough in half to make two pizzas and kind of short-changed myself, so make sure you have enough dough if you really want that deep, crispy crust. Thirdly, the sequence in the layering does seem to make a difference in getting the crisp bottom that you want. Putting the sausage on the bottom does make a difference here and helps to crisp the crust. You could, of course, use any toppings that you like for your pizza, but since we all like sausage pizza it worked well for us. This recipe is a very easy one that is perfect when you want the crunchy, deep-dish style pizza.
That’s all I have for today. Check back next time for another recipe. Until then, enjoy the rest of your day and enjoy your meal!
Pizza is always a great option for dinner and to me it tastes even better when you can make your own at home. I have tried a lot of pizza recipes and started making my own dough about a year ago. Once I saw how easy it actually was and how much money I could save by making my own pizzas instead of ordering out from one of the local pizza places, I decided to do it almost all the time. Sure, like anyone else there are times when you are too tired to cook or just feel like having a slice of pizza from your favorite pizzeria, but if you are planning ahead, you can make some great pies on your own. Recently the New York Times posted recipes for pizza dough and pizza Margherita from Roberta’s, a well-known pizzeria located in Brooklyn. The pizza looked very good so I thought I would give it a try and see how it came out.
Roberta’s Pizza Dough
If you want to make a quick homemade tomato sauce that is perfect for the pizza, in a food processor, whiz together whole, drained canned tomatoes, a splash of olive oil and a sprinkle of salt and you are good to go. I actually put a couple of slices of tomato on mine as well just to round it out and I used a little more cheese than the recipe called for. The pizza has a nice thin crust and great flavor with just the simple ingredients so you can make this easily at any time.
I just came across a bunch of recipes for pizza that do not make use of any tomato sauce so I have wanted to give some of them a try. Sean loves pizza but he does not like a lot of sauce, so making no sauce pizzas is a great option for them. honestly, I find the sauce on a lot pizza overpowering and too acidic for my tastes anyway, so making some pizza without sauce seems like a good idea to me. This recipe from Williams-Sonoma is for a pancetta, asparagus and goat cheese pizza that I adapted for our own purposes since I did not have any pancetta or goat cheese on hand. Bacon substitutes for the pancetta here and I used mozzarella and Parmesan instead of goat cheese for the cheese.
Pancetta, Asparagus & Goat Cheese Pizza
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 ounces pancetta or bacon, minced
Pinch red pepper flakes
1 bunch slender asparagus, ends trimmed
1 pound Food processor pizza dough or store-bought pizza dough
Cornmeal, for dusting
6 ounces shredded mozzarella cheese
4 scallions, white and pale green parts only, thinly sliced
1/4 pound soft, fresh goat cheese, crumbled
Parmesan cheese
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. In a medium skillet over medium heat, warm 1 tablespoon of the olive oil. Add the pancetta or bacon and the red pepper flakes. Saute until the pancetta is browned, about 2 minutes. Remove the skillet from the heat. Cut each asparagus spear into 3 pieces and then cut the thick ends of the asparagus in half lengthwise. Place the asparagus in a small bowl. Add the remaining 1 tablespoon of olive oil and toss the asparagus to coat.
Roll out the pizza dough on a lightly floured work surface to an 11 or 12-inch oval or round. Sprinkle a rimless baking sheet with the cornmeal. Transfer the pizza dough to the baking sheet. Brush the dough with some of the pancetta cooking oil and the sprinkle the pancetta mixture onto the pizza. Spread the mozzarella cheese over the dough, leaving a 1/2-inch plain edge. Sprinkle the scallions and then the goat cheese over the mozzarella cheese. Arrange the asparagus over the pizza. Grate some Parmesan cheese over the asparagus then season the pizza with salt and pepper to taste.
Place the pizza in the oven and bake the pizza until the asparagus is tender and the edges of the crust are brown, about 20 minutes. Transfer the pizza to a cutting board and let the pizza stand for 5 minutes before cutting it into small wedges or pieces and serve.
The pizza had some great flavor from the bacon and asparagus. I loved the asparagus; it had the same roasted flavor I get when I roast it in the oven and the mix with the bacon and just a hint of red pepper flakes and scallions was perfect. This makes a great appetizer dish, a snack for watching the game or just for something different on Fridays for pizza night. You could easily leave off the pancetta or bacon altogether and make it a vegetarian pie.
That’s all I have for today. Check back tomorrow for another recipe. There’s still lots of good stuff to come. I am trying a beef stroganoff recipe tonight that I’ll be sharing soon too. until next time, enjoy the rest of your day and enjoy your meal!
Fun, unusual and forgotten designations on our calendar.
Happily Ever After Lives Here
a little bit naughty a little bit nice
Letting Life Lead
Simple and delicious dinner inspiration
onedadskitchen 