Homemade Pizza

Finally, something that is not from the Food Network Cookbook.  We decided to make homemade pizza.  And by we, I mean me.  This turned out really well and the best part is you can do whatever toppings you feel like.  Mushrooms, chicken, green peppers, carmalized onions, whatever.  For this one I decided to do sause and carmelized onions.  I know...you are thinking that I don't like onions.  Well, I don't like them when they are raw, but cooked is OK.  For starters, I went to Sur La Table and got some King Arthur's Pizza flour.  If you aren't going to do that (and you probably aren't) then just google a pizza yeast crust.  It is pretty easy- just flour, yeast, water,  pretty much.  Anyway, for this crust you need the perfect pizza flour, olive oil, salt, warm water, and I used the rapid rise yeast.  The directions are on the back of the flour package.

Put the flour, yeast, salt in the big mixer with the dough hook, or you can mix it up by hand and knead it.  This is actually the first time I used the dough hook.  The water should be warm enough to activate the yeast but not hot or you will kill it.  I just go by feel and it works.  I would call it "very warm."

Dump the mixed dough onto a big surface.  Mush it together until it forms a ball.  I actually forgot at first, but you should put a little olive oil on the ball all over so it won't stick when you take it back out of the bowl.

I let it sit for awhile- maybe 1/2 hour and look how big it got!  I had to move it to a bigger bowl because I wasn't ready to make the pizza yet and it kept getting bigger!

If you guessed that this is the shot with the Miller Lite, then you are correct.  It is sitting on my brand new pizza stone.  I was confused about this whole concept.  Do I need a pizza paddle?  A pan?  What?  It seems that you can free form make the dough, put it on the pizza stone with either cornmeal sprinkled under or parchment paper so it won't stick, and that's it.  My pizza stone has handles.  You preheat the oven to 500 degrees with the stone in there.  The stone makes the crust simulate the big pizza ovens at the pizza places. 

If you guessed that Scooter looks even more interested than usual, you would be right again.  Apparently he was willing the sausage to fly towards him. 

Oh, yes she did.  My daughter got the All-Clad Saucier for me for Christmas!!  It is one beautiful pan.  But of course, you can use any.  Put some butter and olive oil in on a very low heat.  The butter is nice for flavor but the olive oil stays around longer.  Apparently the two together are a dream team.

At the same time, start your sausage.  We don't generally eat a lot of real sausage so this is a roll of soy sausage.  We liked it.  My brother didn't.  You can use real sausage.

Slice some tomatoes very thin. 

This next shot shows the onions carmelizing.  I sliced some Bermuda onion because it is sweet.  Very thin.  I used the scary mandoline.  Cook them really slowly. It takes awhile.

After putting the dough into the larger bowl, it still kept growing.

I decided to use vodka sauce instead of marinara.  I love that stuff.  I could drink it.  I used to use Paul Sorvino which was really, really good, but I can't find it anymore.  This is a new one that I am trying. 

Put a couple of pieces of parchment paper on your work surface.  If it is too sticky, you can stick your hand in the flour mixture and dust some onto the dough.  Make it so you can work with it.  I tried using just my hands to shape it, but that didn't work for me.

Next, I tried the rolling pin.  I have a french one- fancy.  I like it because it doesn't have the handles on the ends.  Roll it out until it is the size of your pizza stone.  Then slide it onto the pizza stone and bake for around 8 minutes, until the crust is starting to look a little golden.

I didn't have quite enough mozzarella on hand, so I pulled out some Swiss-Gruyere blend that we needed to use up.

I have never actually carmelized onions before, but these looked done enough to me.

Take the crust out of the oven.  Make sure the pizza stone doesn't hit any cold surfaces or it will crack.  I just put it on the stovetop.  Put on the vodka sauce, then the cheese, then I did tomatoes, onions, sausage.  Bake around 10 minutes or until it looks melted and done.