Pizza with a Stone

Wellll helllooooo! I have been totally MIA for the past couple days, almost week actually. Holidays are crazy and time just seems to slip right on by me when the holidays are near (or here)!

I was able to spend time with loved ones and friends during the holidays and the best part was, I was able to…SLEEP IN! I love to sleep…I was so happy to be able to sleep in past 6am and to not have to hear and alarm clock for 4 days straight. Oh what joy that was for me…so nice. I say all the time that it must be awesome to be a cat because they get to sleep all.the.time. What a life!

This Christmas I was given a pizza stone and a pizza cutter (Thanks Mike and Jill!!). I must say that I was pretty excited when I opened that gift. For a few reasons..first off…pizza stones make incredible pizza. Second off, I love getting kitchen goodies as presents. Thirdly, I LOVE pizza! Especially homemade pizza! I mean how can you not love the smell of homemade pizza? NomNoms!

So I decided to make pizza from scratch including the dough and it was too yummy not to share!

Ingredients for Pizza Dough (Can also be found in my Calzone post):

• 3 2/3 cup bread flour
• two 1/4 oz envelopes instant yeast
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 1/2 cups tepid water
• 2 tbsp olive oil, plus more for the bowl

Mix together your bread flour, yeast, and salt in a large bowl. Add in your water and olive oil and mix together with your fingers until you form a ball.

Knead dough for about 10 minutes until smooth and elastic. Place it in a large bowl with just a tad of olive oil rubbed on the edges. Cover with plastic and let rise for about 2 hours, or until it has doubled its size.

Once you have let the dough rise for about 2 hours. Take the dough out and place onto a lightly floured surface. With a floured rolling pin, work the dough to start to make a large round shape. Every now and again pick the dough up and lightly stretch until you have reached the desired pizza round size.

Word of caution: this takes patience. Sometimes the dough is going to rip and sometimes the dough doesn’t want to stay in the shape that you make it into. Just be patient and keep working with it gently and it will eventually stay the size you want it to.

Now I personally love veggie pizza but I know that most people enjoy meat on their pizza. Since this pizza was not just for me I made half and half. That seems to be the best way to go when you have mixed company.

Ingredients for Pizza topping:

• Green bell peppers
• Mushrooms
• Broccoli
• Tomatoes
• Pizza sauce
• Part-skim low moisture mozzarella cheese
• Grated Parmesan
• Pepperoni
• Bacon
• Garlic
• White wine (dry)
• Olive Oil
• Salt and pepper to taste

Put about a tablespoon of olive oil in pan and heat. Place garlic into pan and brown. Place broccoli into pan and splash with white wine. Cook until bright green and tender. Salt and pepper and place aside to cool.

In same pan as the broccoli was cooked, place remaining garlic and a small splash of olive oil. Add in mushrooms and cook for 2-3 minutes until reduced in size. Add in green bell pepper. Cook for 4-5 minutes, take off of heat and salt and pepper veggies. Place to the side to cool.

A lot of people just put raw vegetables on pizza, but I feel like if you cook them just slightly before you put them on it adds more flavor and the vegetables are more savory that way. I find that if you put raw vegetables on pizza they tend to get dry when you cook them in the oven. If you cook them just a tad before putting them on the pizza I think it turns out better. Just my two cents.

Put some cornmeal on the surface you plan to put the toppings on the pizza on. After you have the pizza all spread out and ready smooth over you pizza sauce or your olive oil. That was a big thing in my household was to have “white” pizza with no sauce. If you haven’t ever had it, do try it. It really is good.

Place your toppings on the pizza however you like and then place your cheese on top. I used the mozzarella and Parmesan. I also placed little ripe tomatoes on top because I like the flavor they give to the pizza. They were called “ugly tomatoes” because they are ripe. Yummy though! 😉 After you have put all the toppings on. Fold over the excess dough to create the “crust”. Use a spoon or fork to press on the inside seam to ensure that the dough doesn’t pop back out on you.

So this was the fun part, the stone! The secret to the stone is to always let it come to temperature slowly (also never EVER wash it with soap!). You need to have your oven at 500°. If you haven’t cleaned your oven in a while you are definitely going to smell it haha. Anyways, put the stone in the cold oven with some cornmeal on the top. Start the oven and let the stone come to temperature with the oven. This will ensure your stone doesn’t crack.

*FunFact: did you know that you can season a pizza stone? You sure can! All you do is rub some olive oil on the stone and place in a cold oven and bake it at about 475°, and let it come to temperature that way again. Bake for about 5-10 minutes and then shut the oven off and let the stone cool down with the oven. Repeat this process 2-3 times and you will have a seasoned pizza stone*

Here is the tricky part. You have to shimmy the pizza from your surface, I recommend using a cutting board, to the stone IN the oven. Whew, it took me a couple tries but it ended up finally working.

Viola!

Let the pizza cook for about 10-15 minutes or until the crust starts to get nice and crunchy.

Take the pizza out from the oven and let it rest for about 5 minutes.

yummmmmm, how delicious does that look?

Transfer your pizza back onto your cutting board, you don’t want to cut on your stone especially if it is hot.

Look how golden brown and delicious this came out….I have to say it was super delicious. There was only one piece left by the time everyone got their hands on the pizza!

Pizza is one of those dinners that can be dressed up or dressed down, but you want to know the best part? It is always amazing. To me, pizza promotes conversation and especially if you are having friends or family over, why not have the conversation be about how great your pizza was? 😉

Hope you all had very wonderful and safe holidays!

Happy Cooking!