Monday, March 1, 2010

Making pizza

I don't know about you, but when I have three cups of homemade cheese staring me in the face, I think pizza. Luckily some people are open to everything I suggest and just roll with it once I arrive at my latest destination/plan/scheme/recipe.
The ready made pizza dough at Whole Foods was actually really good and easy to use, though not whole wheat. :o(
Sorry South Beach - it's full fat cheese too.

Two bags of dough and a couple other odds and ends and I was ready for one of my favorite savory pizzas, and a just made up sweet pizza. I swear, some day I'll photograph my food with something other than my iPhone, but until then. . . .

Prosciutto and Arugula Pizza with Homemade Mozzarella
Sauce:
one small can of San Marzano tomatoes
1 clove of garlic, crushed
2 tsp dried basil (fresh would be awesome if you had it)
Open the can of tomatoes into a bowl, add the crushed garlic and basil and then squeeze with your hands to make a sauce.

Pop your pizza stone into the oven and head it up. Roll out the dough, sprinkle the stone with cornmeal and drop the dough onto the hot stone.
Spread the sauce all over, and top with mozzarella and prosciutto (I used just under 1/4 lb). Bake until done.

Toss the arugula (around 2 c) with basil oil or olive oil (1 tbsp) and salt, and top the hot pizza with it. Let pizza sit for a moment before cutting, and then whammo - enjoy your insanely yummy pizza.

Pear & Ricotta Pizza with Balsamic Onions
Thinly slice one onion and set about caramelizing that bad boy. Once the onions are cooked through and sweet and yummy and brown, stir in 1-2 tsp of balsamic vinegar (I used a fig balsamic) and set aside.
Thinly slice a pear - I recommend bosc over d'anjou since I think the bosc just has better pear flavor.
Again with the stone and rolling out of the dough and the placing of the dough onto the hot stone.
Top with 1 - 1 1/2 c of ricotta and drizzle with honey.
Spread the balsamic onions on top - quite honestly, if you wanted to go with two onions and spread them on first like delicious onionjamsauce, you'd probably be a very happy camper.
Lay out the pears and drizzle with a little bit more honey. Bake, nom, repeat.


** an interesting bit of trivia thanks to Wikipedia. . . . even though the bosc pears taste more like what I'd call "juicy pear jelly belly," it's actually d'anjou puree they use to make that flavoring. Who knew?? **

No comments: