Pesto Pizza

As I mentioned the other night when I made pesto from my overgrown basil plants, I had leftover pesto at the end of our pasta dish. Here’s a simple pizza dough recipe that goes great with leftover pesto and mozzarella to make delicious homemade pizza in just about the time it takes Domino’s to deliver.

Ingredients 
For dough enough for two regular crust (12 in or 30cm) or three thin crust pizzas

1 package (¼ oz.) active dry yeast (I use Fleishmann’s Rapid Rise.)

About 4½ cups or 560g all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 cups or 355ml warm water

1 tablespoon olive oil - coat the bowl during rising

For toppings:
Leftover pesto - homemade or otherwise
Mozzarella cheese - amounts will vary with taste and number of pizzas you make

Or make a more traditional traditional pizza with tomato sauce and toppings such as pepperoni, olives, etc.

Method

In a large bowl, combine yeast, 2 cups of flour and 1 teaspoon salt. In a microwaveable measuring pitcher or a saucepan, heat water until very warm (120 ºF - 130 ºF – it should be pretty hot but you should be able to hold your finger in it for a count of 10 without pain.)

With mixer at low speed, just blend water into dry ingredients. At medium speed, beat two minutes, occasionally scraping bowl with rubber spatula. Beat in ½ cup of flour to make a thick batter.

Beat two minutes more. Stir in about 1½ cups of flour to make a soft dough.

Knead dough by hand or with a bread hook for a few minutes. Pour a little olive oil in the bowl and put the dough in to rest for 15 minutes (if using Rapid Rise yeast) or to rise for 30-45 minutes (if using regular yeast – but then all promises of a 30-minute delivery are off.)

If using Rapid Rise, at this point preheat your oven to 450ºF or 230ºC.  (If you are using one, put your pizza stone in while the oven is still cold.)

Ready to rest for 15 minutes

Risen and ready to punch down and roll out

Your dough is now ready to punch down and roll out to top and make two 12-inch pizzas! (Or three, if you like the crust thin.) 

My usual instructions say to make sure to oil your pans first, to make the bottom bake up crunchy but I tried something new this time. Finally, I have a kitchen item that I have been wanting: a baker's peel. I bought it online at the Bakers’ Catalogue, which is connected to King Arthur flour and this was the first time I attempted to use it.

Add flour to the counter top and roll the pizza dough out, 

Transferred the dough by the rolling pin to the peel, which I sprinkled with cornmeal. (See note below if you don't have a pizza peel.) 

At this point add the pesto and spread it around. 

Then add the mozzarella liberally to the top.  

Very liberally

With a quick flick of your arm, quickly transfer the pizza to the baking stone that is in the preheated oven and bake for 10-15 minutes.

NOTE: If you don’t have a peel but would still like to use a baking stone, put your rolled dough on the greased underside of your baking tray so it is on a completely flat surface. Add your toppings and pop the whole thing in the oven on top of the stone.

After just a few minutes, perhaps as many as five, remove the tray from the oven and run a long knife around under the pizza to make sure it is loose, then slide the pizza off the tray straight onto the baking stone. Those few minutes of cooking harden the underside enough to unstick it from the pan. 

When your pizza crust is browned and the cheese is golden and melted, the pizza is done. Remove it from the oven and place on a cutting board. Divide into slices with a sharp knife or pizza cutter. 

We actually made three thin crust pizzas. Not all show here. 

Enjoy! 

Eggplant Something I can't pronounce (Papoutzakia)

Okay, it’s Eggplant Papoutzakia.

and that is the link to the recipe from Animal, Vegetable, Miracle written by Barbara Kingsolver, with her husband, Steven L. Hopp and, daughter, Camille Kingsolver.  I first read this wonderful book more than three years ago when I was living in Singapore.  Animal, Vegetable, Miracle is about one family’s experiment with growing their own food and living off the land for one year and only buying what they could not raise or grow from local farms in their New England area.  It is all about the advantages (personal health, earth health) of being a locavore, that is, someone who eats food found, grown or raised within 100 miles or fewer of his or her home.

If you have every lived in Singapore, you know that not much is grown on the actual island. (There is a goat farm that I could buy fresh milk from, but that is another cheesy post altogether.)  Much comes from nearby Malaysia, though perhaps not within 100 miles, so living by the Animal, Vegetable, Miracle standards was hard to achieve but it did make me more aware of produce and the distances it traveled to be on my plate and I tried to make more reasonable choices when I could.  

Fast forward three years and we are back in Malaysia. Local produce is much easier to come by, although I must confess to succumbing to the allure of the occasional golden-red-skinned nectarine or small punnet of raspberries, both of which certainly are not grown here. Once again, it’s about making better choices as much as possible.

So on to today’s recipe. Eggplant Papoutzakia.  My mom came across the recipe while flipping through my copy of the book (elder daughter was reading it and left it lying around) and, being a lover of eggplant, she asked if we could try it. My policy is that I am happy to cook anytime, anywhere for just about anyone, if they will come up with the menu.

Ingredients

2 lb. eggplant
Olive oil
2 medium onions, garlic to taste (I used four cloves.)
2 large tomatoes, diced
2 tsp. nutmeg
Salt and pepper to taste
6 oz. grated mozzarella (I used about eight ounces and sliced it into little pieces which I cast randomly and, I like to think, attractively about the top.)

Method

Slice eggplant lengthwise and sauté lightly in olive oil. Remove from skillet and arrange in a baking dish. I cut my eggplant into many slices and browned them all in a non-stick skillet with just a bit of olive oil for each batch.  I stacked them on a big platter until all were browned and I was ready to assemble the dish. 

Chop onions and garlic and sauté in olive oil. Add diced tomato and spices and mix thoroughly. My family is not a lover of onion chunks so I let this cook down like a good spaghetti sauce, until there was no crunch left at all. I also added a teaspoon of sugar to counter the acid in the canned tomato.  I let it cool for a little bit, then pureed it in the blender. 

Spread mixture over the eggplants and sprinkle an even layer of cheese over top. I oiled the bottom of my lasagna dish with olive oil and spread a bit of the sauce around first. Then, I added the eggplant, the rest of the sauce and then the cheese in the aforementioned attractive manner.  

 Bake at 350 for 20 minutes, until golden on top.

Enjoy!

If you are interested in finding locally grown foods in your area of the United States, check out this link. Buy mostly what is in season in your growing area and you are more likely to be buying local produce.