Spinach Artichoke Pizza

I love my cheesy artichoke dip and I love pizza. So I naturally wondered what would happened if I combined the two? HEAVEN.

I found a new pizza crust recipe too - one that I LOVE and the gives fabulous instructions (click here or you can follow mine below) and this pizza was AMAZING!

 

Pizza Dough: Will make 2
1/2 cup warm water
2¼ tsp. instant yeast - For those that buy the packets,vthis should be 1 packet
4 cups (22 oz.) bread flour, plus more for dusting - Yes, you must use bread flour. Yes, weigh it out.
1½ tsp. salt - I do 2 tsp salt
1¼ cup water, at room temperature
2 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil

Directions for Dough:

Measure 1/2 cup warm water into a 2 cup measuring cup. Add the yeast it and stir just a smidge.

In a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, combine the bread flour and salt. Mix briefly to blend.

Measure the 1 1/4 water into the 1/2 cup water/yeast mixture. With the mixer on low, pour in the water-yeast mixture. Pour in the olive oil. Mix until the dough is formed. Switch from the paddle attachment to the dough hook. Knead on low speed until smooth or roughly 5 minutes.

 

Put some oil on a paper towel and wipe the inside of the bowl. Move the dough around to oil the whole bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise for 2 hours. To make sure dough is risen, take a floured finger and poke a whole in the dough. If it the indentation stays, you're good.

After its risen

Pizza Sauce:
1/4 cup mayo
1/4 cup sour cream
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp onion salt

Directions
Mix all ingriedents in a bowl until combined. Place in the fridge.

Pizza Toppings:
Mushrooms
Artichokes in a jar
Spinach
Mozzarella cheese
Roasted red peppers in a jar

Directions:
Drain artichokes under running water and chop. Chop spinach and slice mushrooms and red peppers. Add artichokes, spinach, mushrooms and red peppers to a bowl and set aside. Grate cheese. Place in fridge until dough is ready.

I forgot the red peppers

Two hours is up:

Punch down the dough to deflate it. Transfer the dough to a lightly floured surface and form into a ball. Divide the dough into two equal pieces and form each into a smooth round ball.  If your going to freeze one ball, wrap it in plastic wrap and then put in a quart freezer bag. Preheat the oven and pizza stone to 450/500˚ F for at least 30 minutes.  For the other ball, cover with the plastic wrap from earlier and let the dough relax for at least 10 minutes but no longer than 30 minutes.

 

Roll out a piece of wax paper the length/width of your baking stone. Sprinkle that with flour and cornmeal. Transfer the dough to wax paper and shape the dough with lightly floured hands by just stretching the dough into a circle. If the dough keeps shrinking back when you stretch it, walk away. Let it rest for 5-10 min and try again. Sometimes I've had to do this and other times not - its weird but it works.

 

The wax paper is under there...

 

 

Top with sauce from earlier. Add some cheese. Add the mushrooms, spinach, artichoke and red peppers mix. Add the rest of the cheese. Move the wax paper onto the baking stone. Bake until cheese is golden brown and bubbly 8-15 minutes depending on our oven.

 

 

 

So yummy and so worth it!!!

Bubble Up Pizza

About a month or so ago my sister and mom introduced me to Pintrest. It's a neat site and is growing pretty fast so their platform is a bit slow (and annoying at times) but its great to find recipes or other decorating ideas.

Anyway, I've become horribly addicted and have found some great recipes. Here is the original recipe but I've changed it a bit. The main thing, instead of baking in a 9x13 and using two cans of biscuits, I'd use one can and bake in an 8x8 or something similar because the middle didn't get done and was still a bit doughy, yet the outside was completely done.

If you want to make a double batch, I would bake in two 8x8 dishes, rather than one 9x13 pan to ensure the middle cooks and the edges don't burn.

Ingredients (for an 8x8 dish)
1 can refrigerated biscuits
1 jar pizza sauce (15 oz) - I used 2 jars as Joe likes sauce
Mozzarella or pizza blend cheese
1/2 ground beef/italian sausage
diced pepperoni
sliced mushrooms

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375
2. Cook meat until no longer pink.
3. Slice "toppings" (mushrooms, peppers, onions - whatever you choose)
4. Cut uncooked biscuits into quarters (or smaller)
5. Combine biscuits and pizza sauce in bowl. Add meat, half of cheese and rest of toppings.
6. Transfer to 8x8 greased pan
7. Top with remaining cheese
8. Bake at 375 for  25-30 minutes or until biscuits are done

I really, really liked this recipe. I started thinking and you could totally do a taco version which I'm going to try next time.

PS - If you want an invite to pintrest, let me know and I'll send you an invite.

Homemade Pizza

Growing up we used to make homemade pizza all the time using the pizza crusts that came in a tube. I loved them and still love pizza but have always thought making any sort of dough was too hard. Kneading? How do you do that properly? How do you know when the dough is done rising?

A friend told me she uses this recipe from the Smitten Kitchen. I actually found a similar recipe from Penzy's with the only switch being beer instead of white wine. I've made quite a few pizzas now and it is so good - this will definitely be a staple during the fall/winter months when I don't mind the oven heating up my house.

The measurements below will give you one large pizza or two mediums depending on how thick/thin you roll it out. You can freeze half the dough and use at another time.

Ingredients for dough
3/4 cup warm water
1/4 cup white wine (I used white cooking wine)
1 packet active dry yeast
1 tsp honey
2 tsp salt
2 tbsp olive oil
3 cups flour

Directions for dough

1. Whisk wine, water and yeast in a bowl until yeast has dissolved.
2. Add honey, salt and olive oil and stir.
3. Add flour and work it with your fingers until it comes together. I've had to add one or two more tablespoons of water to the dough so it isn't dry
4. Sprinkle some flour on the counter and knead the dough for a minute or two.
5. Quickly wipe out the bowl you mixed the flour in. Coat the inside with olive oil. Put the dough back in and cover with plastic wrap
6. Let rise for up to two hours or until it's doubled. To tell if dough is risen: Stick two floured fingers in the dough. If the indents stayed, it's done.
7. Once the dough has risen, gently deflate dough on a floured counter
8. Roll it into a ball and sprinkle the top with flour and cover with plastic wrap again.
9. After 15 minutes, dough is ready to roll out or to refridgerate/freeze.

If you're going to roll out and cook, preheat the oven to the highest temp (I'm a whimp and am afraid to go past 475) and if using a baking stone, make sure that is heating in the oven.

Roll out the dough to your desired size/thickness. Sprinkle down flour/cornmeal before you roll out. Transfer to heated baking stone. Top with sauce and toppings. Bake at 475 (in my case) until crust is done and cheese is melted.

As for toppings, I've used roasted red peppers, artichokes, mushrooms, goat cheese, mozzarella cheese, pizza sauce, italian sausage, etc.