Yesterday Joe posted on Facebook about the pizza I made for dinner. People were all "wow!" over how good it looks. But really no need to "wow" this one, guys! Quick pizza is so easy if somebody else makes the dough, and my grocery store happens to have a great ready made pizza dough in the deli section.
I wrote up a Quick Version of a garden pizza, and further down there's a more detailed explanation if you've literally never thought about making your own fresh pizza at home. We do this once a week, and we almost always make a Garden Pizza. It's especially great when everybody's gardens are busting out in tomatoes and peppers. Last night's had a purple bell pepper that Sue gave us.
PIZZA GEAR MAKES IT EASIERGarden Pizza: Quick Version
- Pizza stone or pizza pan (read what prep it needs to make sure dough does not stick)
- Pizza cutter wheel thing
- Oven mitts (I feel like I shouldn't have to say this, but I have stories about certain friends...you know who you are...)
INGREDIENTS
A ball of fresh dough
A little bread flour or white flour
Olive oil
Shredded cheese (a blend of Mozzarella with other Italian cheeses is great)
A variety of vegetables
1. Prepare the dough first by warming it.
2. Preheat the oven.
3. Slice all the vegetables.
4. Lay out the dough on your pizza pan or stone.
5. Top the pizza.
6. Bake at °425 for 12 minutes.
Garden Pizza...Unabridged
Most grocery stores have fresh pizza dough either in the deli area or bakery area, even might be in the freezer with the pie crusts.
Make your own dough?
Pizza dough is easy, it's just sooooo messy. But if you are up for it, you can make a lot of it all at once and have it ready in the freezer in separate sealed bags. Dough freezes great, and you'll only have the one mess to clean up. If you freeze it, think it takes about a day to defrost, then you're halfway to pizza. Make sure it's defrosted before you prep the dough.
Warm cold dough first
It's not the worst thing in the world if it's still cold to the touch before you begin, but I think warming the dough serves well both the taste and the ease of handling it.
I've warmed my dough two ways. Both are fine. You can warm the oven to °350, then turn it off. Put your dough in there (in an oven-proof dish) for about five minutes. Make sure the oven is OFF. The goal is to take away the chill of the refrigerator, not cook the ball of dough.
OR...
Take the dough from the fridge a few hours ahead, and take it out of its plastic bag. Use a glass or ceramic bowl. Dust the dough with some flour, put it in the bowl and cover it with a warm dish towel. You can wet the dish towel with hot water, wring it out, and place it over the bowl. Leave it on the counter for a few hours.
Preheat the oven to °425.
The vegetables: select and prepare
My favorites for pizza are:
- Onions
- Scallions
- Bell peppers
- Mushrooms
- Zuchhini
- ...and don't forget jars: black olives, Kalamata, artichoke hearts, etc. Technically that starts to get a little too Garden & Antipasto Pizza, but I'll allow it.
Knife cuts are important. Everything needs to cook at the same rate, so you don't have crisp mushrooms and hard onions. So think of the finished pizza as you slice onions and peppers thin. Slice mushrooms a little thicker, but portabella mushrooms thin. Slice zucchini and eggplant very thin, and so on.
I would definitely steam, boil or roast anything harder like broccoli, but I never use those things since the pizza only happens when I don't want to spend a lot of time.
Roll it?
You can get out a rolling pin if you want, and flour your counter and roll out the dough. But you don't have to, actually...
The less you futz with the warmed dough, the fluffier the crust. I used to roll it out every time, but found that I can get a ball of dough flat and ready in no time. I've done this so many times that it takes me about ten seconds now.
I like to work from the center out, so I hold the dough like a steering wheel at 10 and 2. Just keep rotating the dough, letting it elongate as you go until it starts to become thinner and wider. Every now and then gently make a soft fist and roll the dough around it -- you've seen movies. The goal is to have a flat circle that fits on your pizza stone or pan.
Do not throw it up in the air.
Lay it flat on your pan and dab a little sheen of olive oil on it.
Now it's ready for toppings.
Top the pizza.
Lay your toppings in such a way that every slice has good bites. You can do it any way you want. Do half-and-half if you like, but place everything flat and even all around.
Make a design. I like to mix orange, green and yellow peppers. I always lay down tomatoes first, then onions and peppers, then mushrooms and olives. I've experimented and that's a good order.
Top it with cheese, as much or as little as your diet tolerates. I've done no-cheese.
Rookie Mistake
Don't "make" a crust according to your mental image of what a pizza looks like
when it's done cooking.
The pizza does that on its own.
So you can put toppings on all the way to the edges.
Top shelf of the oven for 12 minutes. Take it out when the timer beeps, and let it cool for about five minutes before transferring it to a plate and slicing it up. Enjoy!
