Pesto Sausage Pizza

If you ever tire of pasta and pesto (who could tire of that??) then try this--it is a delicious use of pesto! (It is also an excellent way to have pizza!)

Pesto
Pizza Dough
Olive Oil
Mushrooms

Cherry Tomatoes
Purple Onion, diced
Sausage
Goat Cheese
Shredded Cheese








Sprinkle and spread corn meal on the pizza stone and distribute it evenly. Place pizza stone in oven, on the middle rack and preheat the oven to 375.

Flour your working service and roller pin. Roll out the pizza dough into a circle. Give the dough a 1/4 turn clockwise every couple of rolls, in order to get a round, even pie.

Sprinkle corn meal on your pizza peel. Gently transfer the rolled pizza dough onto the pizza peel, laying it on the roller for easy transport.

Once on the pizza peel, drizzle a layer of olive oil over the top and spread around with your hands.

Spread the pesto over the dough in a thin layer.

















Add your toppings, making sure to put the cheese on last.

Transfer the pizza from the pizza peel to the pizza stone.

Bake at 375 for 20-30 minutes.

Thai BBQ Pizza

I am not a big fan of fusion food. I never thought Thai food and pizza would go together. My fiancee and I went to California Pizza Kitchen one time in Hawaii (CPK as it is called in Hawaii). Their Thai chicken pizza turned out to be quite tasty, although I didn't like the crust too much.

I used that recipe as my inspiration for this thai bbq pizza dish. I must say, it is very tasty! This recipe is for one pizza, but it can easily be doubled!

I will usually make this dish after roasting a chicken, using the leftover meat from the bird on the pizza.

Ingredients
Freshly made pizza dough (1 round)
BBQ sauce
Cooked chicken, chopped or shredded from a roasted chicken
Purple onion, cut into slivers
Red bell pepper, cut into dice
Shredded Mozzarella cheese

Spicy Peanut Sauce
Freshly cut cilantro



Sprinkle and spread corn meal on the pizza stone and distribute it evenly. Place pizza stone in oven, on the middle rack and preheat the oven to 375.

Flour your working service and roller pin. Roll out the pizza dough into a circle. Give the dough a 1/4 turn clockwise every couple of rolls, in order to get a round, even pie.

Sprinkle corn meal on your pizza peel. Gently transfer the rolled pizza dough onto the pizza peel, laying it on the roller for easy transport.

Once on the pizza peel, drizzle a layer of olive oil over the top and spread around with your hands.

Next, take the BBQ sauce and spread it around the pizza, leaves a half inch to an inch untouched (you will roll that part of the dough inward to create the crust).























Add whatever topping you want to your pizza. Put the cheese on last, as this will help seal in all the moisture.

Finally, pour a little olive oil in a cup, dip a pastry brush (I prefer one with plastic bristles) in the olive oil and paint the outer crust of the pizza with the olive oil. Drizzle a little olive oil on top of the pizza too.

Place the pizza peel on the pizza stone in the oven, and angle the peel upwards so the pizza slides off the peel and gently onto the pizza stone. Do this gently, as you do not want to have the pizza dough fall off the pizza stone.

Bake for 20-30 minutes at 375, or until done.

Garnish with a dabble of the thai peanut sauce and freshly cut cilantro! Delicious!

Berber Pizza

This is a delicious recipe I got from David Tanis's A Platter of Figs


Ingredients
1 recipe for pizza dough (makes 2 pizza rounds)
4 medium white or yellow onions, thinly sliced
1 Tablespoon butter
1 teaspoon cumin seeds, toasted and ground
1 teaspoon coriander seeds, toasted and ground
1 teaspoon powdered hot red chile
2 teaspoons harrisa or Paprika
2 teaspoons black pepper
Salt
2 tablespoon chopped parsley
2 tablespoons chopped cilantro



In a wok or heavy skillet, add a swig of oil and some butter. Stir fry the onions for 2 minutes, letting them color a bit but leaving them a little crunchy.

Add the cumin, coriander, red chile, harrisa and black pepper. Season well with salt. Taste, the onions should be rather spicy. Remove the onions to cool, sprinkle with chopped parsley and cilantro.

Preheat the oven to 400 F. Place pizza stone in the oven, dusted with cornmeal flour.

Dive the dough into 2 balls: one for the base of the pizza and one for the top. Roll out into 8 inch rounds on a pastry sheet. Dust a pizza spatula with corn meal. Pick the pizza dough up and lay it upon the rolling pin. Transfer the pizza dough to the pizza spatula.










Spread some olive oil out on the bottom layer of the pizza dough. Spread the onion mixture around the bottom pizza dough, leaving a good inch or so around the outer edge of the pizza bare.

















Place the second pizza dough on top of the onion mixture, forming a cover for the pizza. Take the outer edge of the dough and tuck it in towards the center, forming a crust for the pizza. Pinch the edges together with your fingers. With the palm of your hand, press down on the package to flatten it. The pizza should look like a dish. Gently  roll out the filled dough to make a 12 inch circle.


















Using the pizza spatula, transfer the pizza to your preheated oven. Place on the pizza stone.

Bake the pizza for 20 minutes at 400 F. After 10 minutes, use the pizza spatula and flip the pizza, to ensure even browning.
















Paint the tops of the pizza with a little olive oil and sprinkle with salt. Cut and serve!

Pizza Dough

I love homemade pizza! It is much tastier and cheaper than your local pizza shop and it really doesn't take that long to prepare!

Equipment
There are a few key pieces of equipment you need to really make excellent pizza:

• Ceramic Pizza stone, La Cloche or brick oven
• Pizza Peel

The key to really great pizza is a brick oven. Camino, a local restaurant here in Oakland, has a wonderful brick oven and very lovely things comes out of his oven.

If you happen to be one of the millions of Americans who does not have a brick oven in their backyard, don't despair! I don't either! A ceramic pizza stone or a La Cloche for deep dish pizza works equally well. Using la Cloche is excellent for deep dish pizzas, while a ceramic pizza stone is better for thin crust pizzas.

You can purchase a Pizza stone at most grocery stores and kitchen specialty shops:

Bath Bed & Beyond
Williams-Sonoma

I actually got  mine at the local Safeway. It works fantastic. I usually just keep the stone in the oven, this way, it reduces the chance that the pizza stone will break. If I need to use the oven for some other dish, I take the pizza stone out and place it on the counter for an hour or however long I will be using the over for.

The other key piece of equipment is a a pizza peel. It is essentially a giant spatula that you can sneak under the pizza dough to transport it easily. You can get away without having one, but it really helps when you need to transfer your pizza dough with all its lovely fillings from work surface to oven, and from oven to work surface. I got mine at Bath Bed and Beyond and it works great!

Ingredients
Obviously, the fresher your ingredients, the better the pizza. Having fresh active yeast really helps out, it will give your crust the light fluffy consistency. I use commercial yeast that comes in those packages of 3. They work great. Be sure to check the expiration date: the closer it is to the expiration, the less active your yeast will be, and they less fluffy and light your pizza dough will be.

I prefer to use chicken fat or duck fat to pork lard. Either will do, but I find that the duck fat lends a delicious quality to the dough. I will usually collect duck fat from a duck I am cooking and save it in the freezer. I also will collect and strain bacon fat when I am making bacon and use bacon fat. Chicken doesn't have much fat, and I usually collect chicken fat when I am making chicken stock. You can also purchase good duck or chicken fat from specialty stores, like Marin Sun Farms. The good thing about using Marin Sun Farms fat is that it is already rendered for you...you just need to melt it. It's also good to support a local company like Marin Sun Farms-they make good honest cuts of meat!

If you want to make it all vegetarian, substitute 1/4 cup warm water for the fat.

The more you bake with yeast the more spores will come into your kitchen and your oven. I am not really sure about the science behind it, but I find the more often I make pizza, the fluffier my crusts turn out.

Ingredients
Corn meal
1 package active yeast
2 teaspoons sugar
1 cup warm water
1/4 cup of chicken fat, duck fat or pork lard
3 to 4 cups of flour
2 teaspoons salt
Olive oil

Makes 2 pizza rounds

Directions
If you have an electric mixing bowl, now is the time to use it. I got a Kitchen Aid Mixer for Christmas. It works miracles, and it even comes with a dough hook! If you don't have a Kitchen Aid or an electric mixing bowl, you can do it all by hand, and it will come out just as tasty.

Whisk the yeast, sugar and fat or lard together with a whisk until the yeast and sugar dissolve, and the lard is evenly distributed. If you would like to make this vegetarian, just substitute a 1/4 cup of warm water for the lard.













Add the flour and salt and mix, using the dough hook, until the dough crawls up the dough hook. Remove the dough from the bowl. Grease the bowl with olive oil. Replace the dough. Cover with saran wrap or a clean kitchen towel, until the dough doubles in size, about 1 hour.















Roll the dough into 1 or 2 balls. Cover and let the
dough rest for an additional 20 minutes.
The dough is ready to be shaped.                              

When you are rolling out the dough, be sure to rotate the dough as you roll it out. This will help you get a nice round pizza dough.

When you get your dough rolled out, dust some corn meal on a pizza peel and transfer the dough to the pizza peel.

The best way to transfer the dough is to hang it on your rolling pin.

Then add your toppings. Then transfer the pizza peel to the oven and let the pizza slide off onto your hot pizza stone.