A Pizza Promised

Your pizza is here! Well, not actually at your door like delivery, but shaming myself in front of you did get me going with this pizza recipe post. I don't know why it took so long.

First let me me tell you that this recipe made more than one pizza. I made a different pizza each night for three or four nights and G and I shared each of them. They were all different depending upon the ingredients that I happened to have at the time.

But there was one thing in common with all the pizzas. An expected ingredient is missing. Can you figure it out from the picture? It's actually pretty easy to guess. I'll give you a little time to figure it out.

Don't worry. I'll occupy myself with other things while I'm waiting. ... La la la la ...

Oh have a great July 4th, if I forget to tell you at the end. I think that G and I will be going to a barbecue over my aunt's house. I'll probably be making a dessert. What are your plans?

I didn't try grilling this pizza, but it would be something kind of different to try this weekend. I recently saw this post, which reminded me of grilled pizza again.

Okay, time's up. Did you guess what's missing? CHEESE! Yup! I had forgotten to buy soy cheese at the store, so we just tried the pizza without. For toppings, I put olive oil on the dough, then added some pasta sauce. Yes from a jar!

Depending upon the night, we added chopped onions, black olives, cut up turkey meatballs, peppers, and some seasonings - usually a little lemon pepper and basil. But season your pizza to your taste and add whatever you like. We really enjoyed these pizzas and I'll have to make some again soon. I cooked the pizza on a heated pizza stone in the oven at about 400 degrees for around a half an hour. Below is the recipe for the pizza dough.

Pizza Dough
(adapted from the book Italy in Small Bites by Carol Field)

1 package yeast
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. sea salt
1 1/2 cups warm water
2 T lemon olive oil

In a small bowl, whisk the yeast into the warm water. Let sit for about 10 minutes or until foamy at the top. Stir in the olive oil. In a large bowl, combine flour, sea salt and yeast mixture. Stir with large wood spoon until a dough. Turn dough onto a floured surface and knead until easy to work with - about 10 minutes.

Put the dough into a lightly oiled bowl and cover the top with plastic wrap or a tea towel. Let rise for about an hour and a half.

After rising, punch the dough down and separate into 3 or 4 balls. Leave one ball of dough out for immediate use. Wrap the others separately in plastic wrap. You can leave these in the fridge for several days. When you take the dough out of the fridge, you can just roll it out and top as you like then bake.

Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees. If you are going to use a pizza stone, put it in now.

For the dough that you use right away, place in the bowl again for a second rise - about 30 minutes. Roll out dough and put on pizza stone. Be careful, stone will be very hot! Add olive oil, pasta sauce, and other toppings and seasonings of your choice. Bake for about 30 minutes. Let cool before you cut into slices. Enjoy!


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