I love Pizza!!! And this one was a winner.This pizza is very nutritious as well as delicious. With the heart healthy properties of olive oil and olives, nutrients from the mushrooms, the lycene packed and antioxidant rich sun-dried tomatoes and spinach, I thought it would be the perfect entry for Sweetnicks ARF/5-a-day
Tuesday evening round-up. So go visit!!
The Dough: (Recipe from Gold Metal and Fleishmann's Bread Machine Yeast)
Makes 2 pizzas, 6 slices each
1 cup plus 2 T water
2 T olive or vegetable oil (I used extra virgin olive oil)
3 cups Gold Metal Better for Bread Flour (I used 2 cups Better for Bread and 1 cup whole wheat flour)
2 T grated Parmesan cheese, if desired (I did'nt desire)
1 1/2 tsp. Italian seasoning, if desired (I did desire)
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. sugar
2 1/2 tsp. Fleischmann's Bread Machine Yeast
Measure carefully, placing all ingredients in bread machine pan in the order recommended by the manufacturer.
Select Dough/manual cycle.
Move oven rack to lowest position. Heat oven to 400 degrees. Grease 2 cookie sheets. Divide dough in half. Pat each half into 12-inch circle on cookie sheet with floured fingers. Add pizza topping.*
Bake 18 to 20 minutes or until crust is light brown.
*I bake the pizza shell for 8-10 minutes before I put the toppings on. I decided to do this after making several pizzas the way the recipe suggests, and not getting perfect results. The crust would not get as crispy as I like and the cheese would always end up getting too brown.
After the initial baking of the crust, I assemble pizza with the toppings and bake just until the cheese melts.
Pizza Topping:
Enough for one pizza**
1 1/2T Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
6 ounces shredded Scamorza cheese
1 package frozen Spinach (sauteed in garlic infused oil-recipe follows)
1/2 cup Sliced black and green olives
1/4 cup thinly sliced portobello mushrooms
6 Sun-dried tomato (cut into small pieces)
Brush the dough with about 1 T of the olive oil, add the Parmesan cheese and Italian seasoning. Add the scamorza cheese, spinach, olives, mushrooms and sun dried tomatoes. Drizzle the remaining olive oil over the top.
Garlic Infused Oil:
Add about a 1/4 cup of extra virgin olive oil and 4-5 crushed garlic cloves to a cold saucepan and heat slowly on low for around 20-25 minutes. Check on garlic every so often, to make sure it is not browning; a little little light brown color is o.k. Remove garlic from oil and set aside. The oil can be used immediately if desired or let cool and store in the refrigerator upto 1 week.
Sauteed Spinach:
Thaw spinach in microwave as directed on package. Drain and squeeze out excess water. Chop reserved garlic and add back into infused oil (if desired) in pan. Add spinach and saute on medium low heat for about 2-3 minutes.
**For the second pizza, I decided to make a focaccio.
Focaccio
-Pat the dough into a circle about 1/2 inch thick onto the prepared pan.
-Brush with olive oil and sprinkle with dried herbs (I used Rosemary and Italian Seasoning), and Parmesan or Romano cheese.
- Push your fingertips into the pizza to make indentations.
- Let dough rise for 15-20 minutes. Bake in 400 degree oven until golden brown (about 15-20 minutes).
I let it cool, double wrapped it in foil and froze.
I hope this post was'nt to overwhelming. I know there is a lot here, but you don't have to make your own dough. Buy the dough or even a prepared pizza crust to save time. It's fun to make pizza and it is so versitile. If you don't like some the toppings I used, by all means use what you like. Try it!! Go ahead you can do it.
How often do you eat pizza? Do you ever make your own?
13 comments:
At 8:04 PM, Claire said...
I rarely eat pizza, but there are a couple of local eateries with REALLY good pizza. However, the best pizza is my dad's. I have recently learned how to make his crust; so, YES, I make my own pizza. This pizza looks good, although I'll leave off the olives. Another good one to try is chicken, mushroom, and tomato pizza.
Oh, what kind of cheese is it that you used? I've never heard of it before. What kind of flavor does it have?
Claire, I looked online to help me explain what Scamorza cheese is like.
This is what I found on Cheese.com:
Traditional, creamery, stretched, curd cheese made from cow's milk. It is smooth and shiny, traditionally made in a money-bag shape. This cheese resembles Provolne. It is rubbery, with a stringy texture and is drier than mozzarella. Sold young, within two or three days of making, it has a bland, milky taste. The smoked version, Scamorza Affumicate is more popular than the plain and is often used in pasta dishes. It is also served with ham, mushrooms or vegetables. The name of this cheese has somewhat macabre overtones: scamozza is an expression in southern Italy which means "beheaded", it is meant here to describe the cheese's appearance (tied in a rope bag).
I also found this on alibaba.com:
The scamorza cheese is a typical italian cheese. It's a very firm, slightly salty mozzarella like cheese. Packaging of scamorza cheese: Scamorza cheese tied in pair or individually sold. Scamorza - ingredients: Pasteurized cow's milk, milk-rennet, salt, dairy ferments. They can be singularly vacuum packed if requested by the customer. Scamorza cheese formats:250 grams or 350 grams. Scamorze, which contains about 44 percent milk fat, has a creamy white color and a mild, nutty flavor. It's sold in small ovals or gourd shapes and can be smoked. Scamorza cheese is chewier than mozzarella and not as moist. Scamorze can be used in much the same way as mozzarella generally as a table cheese or in cooking.
Man...EVERYONE is pizza blogging these days!
I LOVE spinach on pizza.
Yum yum yum.
j
I like white pizza
do a white pizza post
go - start making one
hurry
Annie - If you checked the link on my Newk's post, it was the wrong address. I still don't think there's a Newk's near you, but the link is now corrected.
the only pizza I make is with foccacia, and that is Panera bread foccacia not homemade. And I am mad, simply mad for white pizza.
We have pizza every Friday for dinner (and we eat the leftovers all weekend). I use my bread machine to make the dough too. I've experimented with several doughs but lately I've been hooked on this recipe that was posted over on The Baking Sheet.
That's one heck of a pizza! I just started liking olives, so it would probably be a bit too much for me.
Yeah, we are pizza addicts, but not as bad as we used to be. I think we probably have it or a version of it once every 2 weeks. We rarely do delivery pizza anymore and stick to Trader Joe's crusts with fresh mozzarella, tomatoes and basil.
I want to make an artichoke spinach pizza - I made a spinach one before, but no artichokes.
-Crystal
That is a gorgeous pizza. As a matter of fact, I had pizza for lunch today. We made little mini vegetable pizzas after dinner last night.
Wheresmymind, I noticed that too!
Jasmine, I know me too. It's a match made in heaven.
Jen, This is white pizza, it just happens to have a lot of veggies on it. Plus, it's better for you than just cheese, cheese, cheese!
Claire, I will check it out again. Thanks.
Doodles, I'm sure the foccocio is awesome. They have great bread.
Paula, Thanks so much for the link. I have questions though, about the process. I'll ask you on your site.
Crystal, The fresh mozzarella, tomato and basil sounds so fresh and simple. I'd love it. Although, the spinach and artichoke sounds equally enticing.
Sara, Mini pizzas for lunch...sounds good to me!
Annie,
I've used both the bread machine yeast and regular yeast and I really don't think there's much of a difference, as far as making pizza dough in my bread machine goes (it may certainly make a big difference in other uses).
I bought a huge bag (1 or 2 pounds - I forget) of regular active dry yeast in Costco for about 1/3 of what one of those tiny bottles of bread machine yeast costs in the grocery store. I may never get through all that yeast but even if I only use a small portion of it, I'm ahead. I did freeze some of it because I heard yeast keeps longer in the freezer but I haven't made it to that frozen yeast yet. The stuff I kept back in the fridge has been good for quite a while.
I add the ingredients in order of what my bread machine calls for in the recipes it came with. Basically I put in the water, salt, sugar and oil (if the pizza dough recipe calls for oil but that one I linked to doesn't). Then I put the flours and then the yeast on top.
I made pizza on the grill Saturday night with the America's Test Kitchen recipe. I should have a post on Monday.
Your's looks yummy and more toppings than mine. The recipe warned against it because of being done on the bbq. I'll be making it again with some variations.
I stay away from tomato sauce so white pizza is perfect.
I adore good pizza and have not found one in my town that is more than passible that's why I make my own. I like lots and lots of cheese.
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