Pizza with Friends

As much as I love to cook for my friends, cooking WITH my friends is always a laugh, and Saturday night was no different. Debbie and I, after taking a pizza making class a few weeks ago, decided we would make pizzas for Ladies Poker Night at, our friend, Sharon's house. Since we had some trouble with the store bought pizza dough in class (from Trader Joe's) and found working with homemade dough much easier, we opted to make our own dough, which meant heading over to Sharon's early to get the dough rising, and ingredients cut.

We used the recipe from our pizza making class, listed below, which we found easy to make and work with. We started around 4pm, making 4 batches of dough, since there would be 8 people coming over (each batch of dough made 2 personal pizzas). Thankfully all of our yeast was alive and active, which kept us on target for the party. Once the yeast was activated, after about 4-5 minutes, we slowly mixed it into the flour mixture until it was combined. We then floured our boards and hands and started kneading. From there we let the dough rest, and had a well earned glass (or 2) of wine.


After the dough had risen, we started the prep work. We had cheese, peppers, garlic, mushrooms, shallots, olives, sweet Italian sausage, and pepperoni to prepare. Once it was all sliced, chopped, cooked, and organized in an assembly line fashion, we started arranging our pizzas. I had remembered that rolling out the dough was not easy, but needless to say, I didn't think it would be THIS difficult. We had a lot of trouble making the dough round...


But regardless of the shape, they all tasted oh so good. The crust was crispy and light, and the toppings were cooked to perfection. At the end of the night, we all voted that Debbie's pizza with garlic, shallots, mozzarella and Parmesan cheeses, a pinch of salt and a drizzle of olive oil, was the best of the bunch. . Here it is before it went in the oven..

Needless to say, I do not have an after photo, since we were all too busy eating the pizza to remember to take a photo.. Whoops... :-)

As always there are lessons learned when cooking. Here are ours..

1. Do not knead the dough for a 3rd time before rolling it out. It condenses too much and makes it even more difficult to get into a beautiful round shape.

2. Sprinkle a bit of good olive oil over the pizza to give it a nice sheen and flavor

3. Finely chopped garlic is a fabulous addition to ANY pizza.

4. Put basil leaves on the pizza AFTER you bake it, not before.

5. If you are cooking your pizza on a pizza stone, assemble pizza on the pizza peel with a lot of cornmeal to ensure the dough dough does not stick when trying to put it in the oven.

6. If you are cooking your pizza on a pizza pan, be sure to use plenty of cornmeal on the pan prior to putting your pizza dough on it, or it will stick to the pan once it's finished.

Here are some more photos from our pizza making experience....

Basic Pizza Dough
From Cooks Boulevard cooking class
2 personal sized pizzas

Ingredients
1 package active dry yeast
3/4 cup warm water, about 110 degrees F
1 teaspoon sugar
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour,plus extra for kneading
1 teaspoon salt

Instructions
In a small mixing bowl, whisk together yeast, warm water, sugar and olive oil. Let sit for about 3 minutes to fully dissolve and activate the yeast. In a large mixing bowl, whisk together flour and salt. With a rubber spatula, gradually mix the yeast mixture into the flour until just combined and dough barely holds together.

Turn the dough out onto a clean counter surface dusted with flour. Knead the dough with flour-dusted hands until the dough has become smooth and elastic, about 10 minutes. The surface should be tight and silky and bounce back slightly when pressed. Lightly grease a large mixing bowl with olive oil and place the dough in it. Cover the bowl tightly with plastic wrap and set in a warm place to rise until doubled in size, 1 to 2 hours.

Once doubled, punch the dough down and divide it into 2 equal pieces. Knead each 1 slightly to form a uniform ball. Set aside and cover them with a kitchen towel or plastic wrap to rest for 30 minutes.

Note: Dough can be made the day before and refrigerated overnight once it is divided. Keep covered tightly in plastic wrap or in a sealed food storage bag.

Variations: Whole wheat dough: Replace 3/4 c of the four with whole wheat flour. Garlic and herb dough: Add 1 tsp dried basil, 1 tsp dried oregano, and 1/2 tsp granulated garlic to the flour mixture

Marinara Sauce
From Cooks Boulevard cooking class

Ingredients:
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
3 large cloves garlic, minced
4 cups tomato puree
1 tablespoon chopped fresh Italian parsley leaves
1 large fresh basil stem with leaves removed
1 teaspoon sea salt, preferably gray salt
Pinch light brown sugar

Heat the olive oil in a large non-reactive pot over moderate heat. Add the garlic and saute until caramelized, about 5 minutes. Add the tomatoes to the garlic and bring to a simmer. Add sugar. Add the parsley and basil and simmer until reduced to a sauce-like consistency, about 15 minutes. Remove the basil stem before serving.