Pizza!!!

Decided to make some homemade pizza last night. Not the deep dish type, but the thin crispy crust, petite little ones served up on a wooden platter for appetizers. So I figured the crust would be the hardest part. Dough is often my difficulty. You never know where that "warm" place is in the house to let it rise or even after it rises, will it deflate? I found "My Favorite Pizza" recipe on the Pioneer Woman's website and although it called for yeast, there was no period to allow for rising. Score! After mixing the dough in my KitchenAid mixer, I followed the directions and placed it in the fridge, covered. The recipe said you could allow it to sit up to 4 days before use; I had a couple hours. When I was ready to roll out the crust, I pulled the glass bowl out of the fridge only to realize the explosion of dough which had occurred! It had doubled in size and was pushing out the plastic cover! Pizza stones were preheated and a little cornmeal tossed underneath the rolled out crust. After a lot of extra flour for rolling, the doubled batch made six 9-10" pizzas. Toppings were:

-Hawaiian (pineapple, Canadian bacon, Roma tomatoes, red pizza sauce) and fresh mozzarella
-ground beef, sauteed Cremini mushrooms, Roma tomatoes, red sauce, mozzarella
-Margherita (fresh basil, sliced tomatoes, olive oil wash, mozzarella)
-and my favorite!--sliced pear, pancetta, fig spread, shaved parmesan, pepper, olive oil wash

I could not get enough of the fig, pear, and pancetta pizza; luckily made two of those. I found the fig spread (like a jelly) at the Nugget in the specialty cheese section. The fresh Mozzarella made a difference too, melted and browned nicely.


The Pioneer Woman's pizza dough

• 1 teaspoon Active Dry Or Instant Yeast
• 4 cups All-purpose Flour
• 1 teaspoon Kosher Salt
• ⅓ cups Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Sprinkle yeast over 1 1/2 cups warm water.

In a mixer, combine flour and salt. With the mixer running on low speed (with paddle attachment), drizzle in olive oil until combined with flour. Next, pour in yeast/water mixture and mix until just combined.

Coat a separate mixing bowl with a light drizzle of olive oil, and form the dough into a ball. Toss to coat dough in olive oil, then cover the bowl tightly with plastic wrap and store in the fridge until you need it. ***It’s best to make the dough at least 24 hours in advance, and 3 or 4 days is even better.

Preheat oven to 500 degrees.

Drizzle olive oil on a large baking sheet (or flour) and use fingers to coat thoroughly. Remove HALF the pizza dough from the bowl. Stretch pizza dough into a large rectangle, pressing with fingers to finish forming. Dough will be very thin. Top with toppings and cheese and bake about 9 minutes or until crust is browned.