Pizza!

I made pizza from scratch for the first time yesterday. I love pizza. It is easily my favorite food, but it's always seemed like too much work to do at home. Now that I have the bread machine, however, I decided to give it a try. I would start earlier next time because the pizza dough cycle is 55 minutes long and it has to rest another 30 minutes after that, but other than that it was really easy. Plus, the dough recipe makes enough for two crusts. We are having either another pizza or making focaccia tonight for dinner. I went with the basic white pizza crust for my first time, but I am planning on experimenting with whole wheat and maybe even other grains in the future. I had some eggplant-tomato sauce leftover from pasta on Saturday, so that was the sauce we used. You can see in the picture that the basil got pretty wilted. I will probably put it on at the very end next time, as I indicate in the recipe. We ate this out by the pool with St. Arnold's Spring Bock and a bulgur salad, which Jon might post about later.

Evelyn's first pizza recipe:
1/2 recipe of pizza dough* or prepared pizza dough
cornmeal for the pizza stone
1 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 cup eggplant-tomato sauce**
2 small-ish balls of fresh mozzarella, sliced
black pepper
2 tbsp grated parmesan cheese
10 leaves fresh basil

Preheat the oven to 400 F.
Roll or toss the pizza into a nice round. Mine wasn't that round. Oh well. Sprinkle cornmeal on pizza stone and transfer the dough to the stone. If you've got a pizza peel, you'll probably do a better job than I did. Brush dough with olive oil and then with tomato sauce. Place cheese rounds on top of pizza and bake for about 15 minutes. Add black pepper and parmesan and cook until parmesan is slightly brown, about 5 more minutes. Remove from oven and throw the basil leaves on. Enjoy responsibly so as not to burn your tongue on molten cheese.


*Pizza dough recipe (from bread machine manual):
1 cup tap water
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp powdered milk
1 1/2 tbsp butter
1 1/2 tsp dry yeast (I used 2 tsp because I have old, stale yeast)

Put the ingredients in the bread machine and set it for "pizza dough". Wait 55 minutes and retrieve the dough. Put it in a large bowl and cover with a damp cloth. Wait 30 minutes.

**Eggplant-tomato sauce recipe (I made this one up, so amounts are my best estimates):
1 tbsp olive oil, not extra-virgin
1/2 medium onion, diced
2 cloves of garlic, minced
3/4 lb eggplant, cut into 1-inch cubes
1/2 green bell pepper, diced
1 tsp Italian seasoning (or a blend of any or all of the following: basil, oregano, marjoram, thyme, rosemary)
1/4 cup red wine
1 14-oz can whole tomatoes with juice
black pepper

Saute onion, garlic, and eggplant over medium heat until onion starts to turn translucent. Add pepper and Italian seasoning and cook until eggplant is soft. Add red wine and let it simmer for about a minute. Add tomatoes. If your tomatoes are salt-free, add maybe a teaspoon of salt. Otherwise, they have enough salt. Cook for a few minutes so the sauce reduces slightly. Transfer to a blender or food processor, or use an immersion blender, to puree the sauce. Add black pepper to taste. This recipe probably makes 2 cups of sauce.