Pizza

It's a new pizza night around here!  I haven't gotten around to posting this and really wanted to share this.  

Building our pies 

The pizza man who always slides the pizza into the oven perfectly!

The yummy, oh so yummy goodness of almost-brick oven pizza.  Baked at 500° for 7 minutes.  And, yes, the pizza peels and stone are a must!

This is probably our favorite - bbq chicken



We really, really like pizza at our house.  I have been making pizza since I was old enough to cook.  In fact, here is a previous entry on pizza and a journal entry from high school on making pizza:

http://melissasmaniacalmortality.blogspot.com/2008/09/friday-night-tradition.html

I have been making the pizza in the above entry for 20+ years and eating it longer than that.  I got a new neighbor last year and was excited she had pizza nights too.  So, I invited her over for pizza night.  Then she invited the kids and I over for pizza night (this was when TJ was still deployed, so he wasn't invited).  Holy smokes, I was BLOWN away by her pizza!  I was embarrassed to have fed her my pizza the week before.  Her pizza wasn't just better than mine - it made mine taste like some kind of gas station-grab-a-slice and go pizza!  Seriously.  Once again I am reminded of how grateful I am for the new places we go and all the great new people we get to meet.  Not only do I gain lots of new friends who are like family because of all we go through, but I get some really great recipes too!!  So, Beth - thanks for enlightening me on the joys of how to really make pizza ;)

Pizza dough:

Mix 1TBS instant yeast, 1 cup hot water, 1 tsp honey - let stand for 10 minutes

Mix in 2 cups flour, 1 tsp. olive oil, and a pinch of salt.

Knead for about 10 minutes

Lightly oil a bowl and place dough in bowl.  Cover and let rise for 1 - 1.5 hours

The other essential to this pizza is heating your pizza stone in your oven for 1 hour at 500° prior to baking your pizzas.  I roll my dough out on my counter, then place it on the pizza peel that has been covered with cornmeal.  Then when it is on the peel, I place the toppings on it.  Then slide it in the oven and bake for 7-8 minutes. 

Our favorite pizza - the BBQ chicken pizza:

Spread bbq sauce on dough, top with cooked chicken that has been sitting in bbq sauce for about an hour, top with a sliced jalapeno, red onions, some crumbled blue cheese and mozzarella.  We love this one - it's our very favorite!  The blue cheese really makes the pizza and cools down that jalapeno.

One of our other favorite pizzas is the mushroom truffle pizza.  Sautee shitake mushrooms in a little bit of olive oil and truffle oil.  Use garlic infused olive oil as the sauce on your dough, place sauteed mushrooms on that, place some mozzarella cheese on top and drizzle with more truffle oil.  OH MY!  I could give you a lesson on truffle oil - but don't want to type it all out.  Just google truffle oil - or truffle mushrooms.  It's interesting.  And, please make sure if you do buy truffle oil that it is infused - not an essence!  Essence is cheaper because it's not the real stuff - and doesn't taste near as good.