Pizza!
Last week-ish (maybe) I made some pizza dough and dined in my favorite way ever, which is having people over (in this case, my cousin Sally) and having everyone make their own dinner. :) I'm so nice.
Well, it was a hit and since I'm now armed with two (2) - count them, TWO! pizza stones, pizza is going to have to be, at the very least, a weekly occurrence.
I even bought a little wooden peel!
I used Bobby Flay's recipe for the dough and it was perfect! I didn't follow his instructions though. You can, but I'm a bit of a rebel and I don't have the patience to watch my dough rise for two hours, so I made mine the night before and slept on it (not literally).
You Will Need:
3 1/2 to 4 cups bread flour (or all-purpose flour)
2 teaspoons salt
1 1/2 cups water (110 degrees F)
1 teaspoon sugar
2 tablespoons olive oil, plus 2 teaspoons
Directions:
Put flour and salt into a large bowl and mix to combine.
In a separate bowl, add water, dry yeast, and sugar and let sit for 5 minutes. If the mixture does not foam, start over.
Add yeast mixture to the flour along with 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Mix with a fork to incorporate all of the wet ingredients into the dry. When the mixture starts to become tough, use your hands.
Turn dough onto a floured surface and gently knead into a smooth, firm ball.
Use remaining 2 teaspoons of olive oil to coat the large bowl and place dough back in to bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate overnight.
When ready to use, remove bowl from fridge, cut into four portions and gently stretch it out in to desired shape, using cornmeal to keep the dough from sticking. Add desired sauce and toppings and bake!
If you're using a pizza stone (way recommended!), make sure you preheat your oven with the stone in it for at least 30 minutes before you're ready to bake. I heat mine up to 450 degrees, which may sound high, but some of those wood-burning brick ovens that produce those super crispy pizzas you love go up to 900 degrees!
So the point of this story (and recipe) is that I've made the pizza dough again tonight and will be doing a repeat performance tomorrow with the fam.
On top of that, I bought some phenom blueberries and strawberries today and was thumbing through my Bon Appetit for some ideas when I happened upon this:
WHAT. The prettiest thing I've seen all day (and a perfect light dessert to go with pizza!).
So I tweaked the recipe (because I don't know that I would appreciate fennel seeds in my pavlova) and have one of these bad boys in the oven working overnight:
Mmm... meringue...
I remember having a dessert like this at a previous [insert whatever label you want to put on it because we were too immature to define our relationship]'s grandmother's house. She had had a nice dinner party and made some super classy bouillabaisse and had served these perfect meringue nests with strawberries for dessert. I immediately decided she was the classiest person I've ever met because she made it look so effortless. I guess meringue kind of is effortless though. :/
Dreams. Crushed.
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