This evening for dinner since we had some left over veggies in the fridge I decided that it would be a good night to make pizza. I started with making the dough this afternoon after work, when starting any new project (not that pizza is new to me) I tend to got Alton Brown for recipes. They tend to be well researched and usually require little if any tuning. My pizza dough recipe is a derivative of this recipe from the Flat is Beautiful episode of Good Eats. The few modifications that I make are

• I dissolve half the sugar and all the yeast in the water before adding to the mixer
• I added about a half of a cup more flour as the dough tends to be too sticky
• I add only 1.5 teaspoons of salt instead of 1 tablespoon

After mixing and kneading I also deviate from the recipe, I tend to want pizza now instead of tomorrow so the dough just rises on the counter for a couple hours before I use it.

I then split the dough and round it out with some flour into a pizza shape and lay it out on the peel ready for topping.

Todays pizza was going to be mixed veggies so I just cut them all up to relatively equal pieces and sauteed them quickly to free some of the moisture and pre-cook them a bit since the pizza bakes hot and fast.

Then it’s a simple as laying out the toppings
Sauce first (less is more here one or two spoonfuls tops)

Then the toppings (veggies in this case)

Finally the cheese (I was being lazy today and just bought a package of pre-grated pizza cheese)

While all this is happening I have my oven getting roaring hot (500˚F with the convection fan on) with my pizza stone on the rack

Pizza goes on to the stone,

and bakes for 5-7 minutes once the cheese is melted and browned on the top and the crust is a nice golden brown it’s ready to go.

Let the pizza rest for 3-5 minutes to let the cheese set up a bit and then slice and consume.

Categories: Culinary Experiments
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