Before we get started, I just want to give a word of encouragement for anyone who has come to today’s post interested in pizza but intimidated by making a sourdough pizza crust. Although I think this is hands down the best pizza crust, you don’t have to go there if you don’t want to. If you bake bread and have a good recipe for a white or whole grain loaf, you can flatten that into pizza crust. Before I dabbled in sourdough, I used to make a whole grain dough in my bread machine and use it for pizza. Very simple! You don’t bake bread? If you have a Trader Joes, they sell a fabulous fresh pizza dough for pennies. Most well stocked groceries have frozen pizza dough. Better yet, there are precooked crusts such as Boboli. Pita breads, lavash breads, naan or even flour tortillas (just be frugal on toppings) can all be toasted lightly and then baked as pizza crust. But if you are with me on making the best crust, read on…
After looking back at my previous blog posts (Chicken Basil Sausage Pizza and the last 2 for 1 post about Salmon and Beet Greens Pizza and Canadian Bacon and Pineapple Pizza), I realized that my crust has slightly changed. Here is the current instructions for the crust which I am now rolling on the edges. A slight roll gives the crust a bready edge. If you just roll the crust flat, it will be more cracker-like which is also quite tasty.
1 cup warm water (105°F to 115°F)
3/4 cup sourdough starter
1/4 cup buttermilk
2 cups unbleached white flour
1 cup stone ground whole wheat flour
1/3 cup rye flour
2 teaspoons salt
Nonstick vegetable oil spray
Cornmeal for dusting peel
Mix first 3 crust ingredients in bowl of heavy-duty mixer. Add 2 cups unbleached white flour; stir to blend. Cover bowl with a kitchen towel. Let the sponge ferment in a warm draft-free area for about 1 1/2 hours.
Using a dough hook, mix in the stone ground whole-wheat flour, rye flour and salt at lowest setting. Increase speed slightly; knead dough 5 minutes, adding more whole wheat flour by the tablespoonfuls if the dough sticks to sides of bowl. Let dough rest 15 minutes. Knead on low 5 minutes. Scrape dough from the hook into the bowl. Remove bowl from stand. Coat a rubber spatula with nonstick spray. Slide spatula under and around dough, coating dough lightly. Cover bowl with a clean kitchen towel. Let dough rise until doubled in volume, about 1-2 hours.
Turn dough out onto a floured surface. Flatten the dough into a rectangle and then fold it like you are folding a letter (be careful not to press too hard and deflate the dough). Divide in half. Roll each half of the dough into a ¼” thick round and transfer each round to a pizza peel or baking sheet coated in cornmeal. Roll the edges over once to create a crust. Cover with a clean kitchen towel. Let rise for at least a half hour.
An hour before making pizza, place a baking stone in your oven and preheat to 450°F.
Top the crusts with the toppings of your choice.
Bake pizza one at a time for 13 minutes each. Cool for a couple of minutes before cutting into slices.
And now for the ingredients we used this week. The lists below are in order of how they should be added to the pies:
This pizza is the best use for the small amount of leftovers from a homemade roasted chicken or a store bought rotisserie chicken. I removed the meat from a leftover leg and the carcass of our leftover chicken. I got around a cup or slightly more of meat which I chopped and then marinated in barbeque sauce. Both pizzas were delicious but we loved this one the best with it’s south of the border flavors. Top the pizza in this order:
Muir Glen cabernet marinara or your favorite pasta sauce (approx. 4 tbsp or more)
Chopped cilantro
4 oz mozzarella
2 oz Quattro Fromaggio four cheese blend (Italian 4 shredded cheese blend)
2 oz grated sharp white cheddar
Chopped fresh garlic (about a tablespoon)
Sliced zucchini
Red onions, sliced
Thinly sliced heirloom or beefsteak tomato
1-2 fresh jalapenos, dry roasted in a cast iron pan, peeled and diced
Sliced black olives
1 cup or more diced cooked chicken marinated in a couple of tablespoons of barbeque sauce (I used Annie’s smoky maple barbeque sauce)
Sautéed greens, earthy mushrooms, black forest ham and figs. It’s like a grown up version of Canadian bacon and pineapple but oh so very much more subtle and delicious! Top the pizza in this order:
Muir Glen cabernet marinara or your favorite pasta sauce (approx. 4 tbsp or more)
Half a bunch of chard, triple washed, chopped and sautéed with garlic and olive oil
4 oz mozzarella
2 oz Quattro Fromaggio four cheese blend (Italian 4 shredded cheese blend)
Chopped fresh garlic (about a tablespoon)
Sliced red onion
½ cup sliced cremini mushrooms
½ red pepper, diced
Sliced black olives
8-10 fresh mission figs, sliced in half
9-10 deli slices of black forest ham cut in thirds
There you have it. Sophisticated pizzas that are so much better than takeout and cost so much less than takeout pizza. This makes two large pizzas so that you can eat to your heart’s content the night you make them when they are fresh and delicious and you’ll still have leftovers for breakfast (I know I’m not the only one guilty of pizza for breakfast!)
Delectable Tidbits 
Health alert: the dangers of excess sugar
August 25, 2009 at 2:19 am (Bad for you, Commentary, Corporate Food, Healthy Habits, Special discussion topics)
I’ve wanted to talk about this for some time. Please bear with me as I may seem a little hypocritical when you consider the percentage of recipes on this blog that are sweet. What I want to make you aware of is the fact that excessive amounts of sugar are bad for you. You may already know this. Maybe you don’t. Maybe you don’t really care. Maybe you should care. It is really important for your well being.
Tonight, the American Heart Association came out with a warning that we need to cut the amount of sugar in our diets. They say the average American adult consumes 22 teaspoons of added sugar a day. The average American teenager consumes 34 teaspoons of added sugar a day. When they say “added” they mean on top of the natural sugar we are eating from fruits and other carbohydrates. What does 22 teaspoons of sugar look like? I couldn’t resist finding out. See the picture above. That is an eight inch diameter plate. The pile was about 2 inches high! To put things in perspective, the AHA recommendation is that women should eat no more than 6 teaspoons of sugar a day and men should eat no more than 9 teaspoons per day.
Where is all of this sugar coming from? It could be coming from soft drinks and sweets but it is likely coming from processed foods. In my opinion, I eat a healthy diet, but there are a few processed foods in my home for convenience. I get these products from health food stores and stores like Trader Joes that don’t use a lot of processed ingredients. Here is what a quick perusal of my pantry turned up:
Trader Joes brand spaghetti sauce: evaporated cane juice.
Pitted kalamata olives packed in extra virgin olive oil imported from Greece: glucose.
S & W organic tomato sauce: organic sugar.
Hain all natural Canola mayonnaise: dehydrated cane juice and honey.
Milton’s multi grain baked snack crackers: sugar and invert cane juice.
Doctor Kracker organic artisan baked spelt crackers: agave syrup, molasses, and barley malt syrup.
Kashi go lean hot cereal: evaporated cane juice, brown rice syrup and honey.
The AHA is concerned for us because the extra sugar likely means we are unconsciously consuming extra calories. A lot of us have inactive lifestyles and if we do not get extra exercise to burn off the extra calories, we gain weight and risk heart disease and diabetes. These concerns while valid don’t tell the entire story. Sugar also prematurely ages us. An article in Prevention magazine talks about the damage sugar does to the proteins in our skin. If this is happening to our skin, the biggest organ in our bodies, I wonder what it may be doing to our other organs!
What can we do to protect ourselves? First off, read labels and be aware of what you are buying. Second, cook as much of your own food as you can. It is the only way to really know what is on your plate. As the cook, you can reduce the amount of sugar in your food by adjusting it downward as low as you can tolerate it and as low as a recipe can stand without ruinous results. Know your sugars. While all sugar is bad in excess, some sugar such as honey or molasses have trace nutrients and while they are not exactly health food, you will get a little more added nutrition than if you used processed granulated sugar.
Please let me know your thoughts on this matter. Have you been aware of this issue already? What do you do to reduce the amount of sugar in your diet? Do we as bloggers have a responsibility to show our readers a healthy diet or are we just a tourist stop on the internet foodie trail?
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