When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that’s amore!

Sorry about the lack of blog posts lately! Just starting out my third semester for my master’s program so it’s kind of hard to keep up with blogs and home cooked meals when I’m doing homework all the time 😦

Anyways, today’s blog post is dedicated to home made pizza! I’m not much of a baker, but one of my sous chefs suggested that we make a home made pizza dough. Since I don’t have much experience in this department, I looked up a few recipes for a good dough. I used a basic pizza dough recipe from Emeril that I found on Food Network.

Here goes:

Basic Pizza Dough Recipe

Ingredients:

• 1 cup warm water (105 to 115 F)
• 1 (1/4 oz) envelope active dry yeast
• 1 teaspoon honey
• 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• 3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• yellow cornmeal for sprinkling the baking sheet

Directions:

• In a large bowl, combine water, yeast, honey, and 1 tablespoon EVOO. Stir to combine and let sit until mixture is foamy (about 5 min)
• Add 1.5 cups flour and the salt, mixing by hand until it’s all incorporated and the mixture is smooth
• Continue adding flour, 1/4 cup at a time, working the dough after each addition until dough is smooth but still slightly sticky (you may not need all the flour – I used about 2.5 cups)
• Turn the dough out onto a slightly floured surface and knead until the dough is smooth but still slightly tacky (3-5 min)
• Oil a large mixing bowl with the remaining EVOO, place dough in the bowl and turn to coat with the oil
• Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and set in a warm place until dough doubles in size (about 1.5 hours)

The dough recipe itself is pretty easy and the website also provides variations to the dough (parmesan pizza dough and oregano pizza dough), but I just used the original recipe.

Interestingly, there were no directions for after the dough rises so I had to figure that part out by myself. Based on suggestions from the review, I decided to precook the dough for about 7 minutes (give or take a couple minutes) at 425F to get a crisper crust and avoid a doughy center. Don’t forget to add the cornmeal to the bottom of the pizza pan prior to cooking!

Next it was time for toppings, the best part! We decided to do a white alfredo sauce instead of a traditional red pizza sauce – just bought some from the store to keep it simple. Other toppings included a blend of Italian cheeses, chopped heirloom tomatoes, plenty of garlic, chopped canned artichokes, and chicken. I  cut up the chicken breasts into bite-sized pieces, seasoned them with garlic and Italian seasoning, then fried them in a pan with olive oil and some more garlic. Once the dough was precooked, I added the alfredo, cheese, chicken, garlic, tomatoes, and artichokes. I baked it in the oven for about 20 minutes, until the cheese was melted and the crust looked nice and crispy. Cooking time is dependent on toppings! The pizza turned out wonderfully – the tomatoes balanced out the white sauce, the garlic was amazing, and I just love the taste of artichokes on pizza and in pasta! Hope you enjoyed, I am off to the Taste of Madison so stay tuned for upcoming blog posts!