what vision overwhelms you when you think about it? a grease filled, thin-crusted slice folded in half new york style? perhaps an oozy, cheesy, enormous piece of deep dish pie? a cardboard box held up by a miniature three-legged table in the center of a mass produced precisely measured corporate money maker? maybe a true italian flatbread, doused in olive oil and garlic?
maybe you just gag at the thought of all that orange fat seeping onto your plate (or into your arteries). or perhaps your stomach rumbles when you think of what the gluten could do to your poor body (K, i don't envy your allergies).
maybe you see a cold glass of milk, a giant squirt of ranch dressing, an icy beer.
here's what we saw this week:
tomato, onion and goat cheese pizza; chicken and turkey bacon pizza
using the ciabatta recipe from the book we made what i would consider 3 gourmet pizzas. here's how it all came together:
1. mix part of the ingredients in the ciabatta recipe. let sit for 4 hours
to ferment. it will look like this when it's ready
2. mix rest of ingredients into fermented batter.
let sit 2 more hours
roll out pizza dough into desired shape(s).
let rise for one hour in warm place
top it off
top another while you're at it!
bake
drool
the pizza directly above this line of writing is a buffalo chicken pizza. hands down is is the least nutritious of the pizzas i made-- it was for my husband and most of it was frozen so he'd have some good food to eat when i'm gone next month for a week.
to say that pizza is the least nutritious is saying a lot. the worst part about it is probably the sodium level because of the buffalo wing sauce. but because i made every bit of this from scratch, i can control the rest of the sodium that went in. guess how much salt was added aside from the wing sauce: none.
here's the break down of each pizza's toppings:
tomato, onion and goat cheese*:
olive oil infused with garlic, oregano and thyme
thinly sliced tomatoes
thinly sliced onions sauteed in olive oil with a little white wine
crumbled goat's cheese
a little parmesan cheese
*vegetarian!
chicken and turkey bacon:
all of the above ingredients
shredded rotisserie chicken
turkey bacon, cooked and crumbled
buffalo chicken:
all of the TOGC ingredients
shredded chicken tossed in your favorite wing sauce
that's it. now, let's talk cost really quickly. one of your favorite frozen pizzas costs around $5, maybe less if you buy the super cheap small guys or the off brand ones. take out pizza is $5-$20 depending on size, delivery, toppings.
remember the cost of an entire chicken. you can make all 3 of those pizzas with the meat from one breast. if you make the dough and all you have is pasta sauce and a handful of some random cheese in your cheese drawer, you can make a healthier, larger, much tastier pizza. in fact, you can make 2 or three. if you're in a small family like we are, put all of them into the oven. slightly undercook all but one. freeze the slightly undercooked ones and treat them like you would any frozen pizza when you're ready to eat them.
let me just warn you, if you make the above mentioned pizzas, you will not be eating college frat food. this is not your party pizza. this is food that you want to savor and lose yourself in. this deserves a nice glass of wine and a good movie (or football game in our house), after the kids have gone to bed and nobody is around to threaten to steal a single bite.
the ciabatta recipe is as follows (quick warning, you need to start it 7 hours before you want to put the pizzas in the oven. i know that's a long time. there are lots of quick recipes for pizza dough online-- google it. they're all pretty darn good, but the texture and flavor in this crust made it well worth the planning it required)
paul hollywood's ciabatta bread:
about 4c flour
generous 1 1/2c water
1.5 tbsp or 2 packets yeast
1 tbsp salt
2 tbsp olive oil
thoroughly mix together 2c of the flour, 3/4c warm water and all of the yeast. cover and let sit for 4 hours. it will begin to ferment--that means it will puff and become bubbly.
add the last 2c flour, 3/4c water, all of the salt and olive oil. mix until a nice smooth dough forms. cover again, let sit for 2 hours.
take dough out and shape into pizza dough. you may divide it as many times as necessary to get the sizes you're looking for. roll the dough out to about 1/4 inch thick and transfer to a greased or lined baking sheet(s). it is going to rise, if not on the counter, then in the oven, so this will not give you a thin crust pizza. let the rolled out dough sit while you prepare the toppings.
after about 45 minutes, feel free to preheat your oven to 400 and start topping your pizzas. put the pizzas in and cook for about 25-35 minutes, until golden brown.
cut into slices and enjoy it hot :)
U BETTER MAKE ME THESE WHEN U COME
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