Tuesday Night Mushroom, Onion, Pepper Pizza

Why Tuesday night, you might ask? Because generally when the kids were growing up, we had leftovers till Monday night and then I threw something together for Tuesday night since pizza was really a Wednesday night meal, pretty much every week (my daughter Batya has mostly kept this tradition going). But, I find that now I look for something to eat fresh on Tuesday night. Hence the name.

Truth is, pizza is welcome mostly anytime in our house, it’s something I’ve been making for years and DH never lets me down, after his first bite (nearly 40 years worth of pizza making) he hums mmmm, your pizza is better than the pizza shop’s!

Now you understand why I make the effort 🙂 it’s such a pleasure to hear. Pizza making is really not difficult at all, especially if you cheat and buy the sauce (nearly always, it makes it so much faster) and I buy grated cheese (used to grate it myself, no more).

Although I make my dough in my bread maker, it is just as simply made in a mixer and as long as you check to make sure your yeast is fresh, should be really simple to put together.

No worries, I too do not whirl the dough above my head to make a perfect circle, I roll it partway with a rolling pin and pat and stretch it the rest of the way and it comes out a treat. So gather the ingredients and away we go.

Take the instant dry yeast (you can use fresh as well) and put it in the mixer/bread machine with the sugar and if you aren’t sure it’s fresh, add 1/4 cup of your lukewarm water to see if it bubbles (proofs).

see https://kosherfromjerusalem.com/2020/01/20/hearty-honey-multigrain-rolls/ for pictures of yeast proofing.

If you’ve used the yeast recently, carry on. Put the flour on the yeast and sugar and then add the salt – salt retards yeast so don’t let them touch preferably. Put the olive oil (here a note, I find that olive oil adds a profound taste factor to the pizza so go for it) in and give it a stir if in the mixer and a few turns if the bread maker.

Then, slowly add the lukewarm water, start with a cup and a quarter and mix the dough and see if it needs the whole cup and a half. There is a multitude of reasons why yeast dough absorb the water differently but better to put in too little and add more as needed than add too much and need to keep adding flour. If you do feel the dough is too thick/stodgy or thin after you’ve really mixed it up for five minutes, add 1/4 cup more flour or water and knead again (in the mixer or machine) and so on.

The dough should be soft and a touch sticky but not really tacky to the touch.

keep kneading and…

If you are using a mixer, simply put in the ingredients as before, adding the water incrementally till a nice dough is formed and let the dough hook knead the dough for you for about 10 minutes. Let it rest after that for 10 minutes, and knead another ten minutes. For mixer, remove dough from bowl of mixer and oil a bowl large enough for the dough to rise to double its size and cover with plastic wrap. It will take about an hour to rise.

If in a bread machine, turn it on the dough function and let it do it’s thing. After about 15 minutes I unplug the machine (it kneads too long otherwise) and keep the lid closed since it stays warm and rises merrily in there.

This is the time to preheat your oven. Turn as high as it will go. Some ovens go to 550 F some only 450 F. It just means you will have to bake it a bit longer.

Your risen dough should be divided into two.

The angle of the pic might not show it but the dough is divided evenly into two (I actually weigh it but you can eyeball it. Taking some parchment paper or a mat, shake some flour on it and use a rolling pin and form a circle, continuing by stretching a bit and patting and the dough will look like this

Then patted out.

Note that by stretching and patting the edges of the dough get that raised bit around the dough? Next take the rolling pic and fold the dough over it in half to put on the pizza pan. Just sprinkle your pan with semolina or cornmeal to keep dough from sticking to it.

This makes it easier to unfold in the circle of the pan. If it ain’t perfect, no worries, you just re-pat it into shape.

Then dollop about 3 heaping tablespoons of pizza sauce on the dough and swirl on it with the back of a spoon.

and spread all about not including your edge.

Now you can sprinkle the cheese evenly on the sauce and if you are a topping girl like me, that’s what you’ve been doing while the dough was rising.

Remember my post about basic kitchen things? Now you can whip out some basic sauteed onions. https://kosherfromjerusalem.com/2019/12/17/basic-sauteed-onions-a-kitchen-staple/ to make your life easier since you need about 3 tablespoons of sauteed onion and put that together with sliced mushrooms and peppers cooked briefly, you don’t want the mushrooms to give up their liquid, just enough to soften.

Mind you, these mushrooms were slightly wilted so it’s perfect for a quick sautee. So put in the onion first, (if you have none sauteed, do them for about 3 minutes), then the peppers for three minutes and lastly the mushrooms that need the least time about a minute or two.

Let cool and spread half the mixture evenly over the first pizza. (you will spread the 2nd half on the other pizza).

Now your oven is screaming hot (this time no fooling around, ya gotta give it a minimum of 15 minutes to reach the highest temperature – otherwise it just will not turn out right, you put in this much effort, don’t skimp now!) and place your pizza into the oven. If your oven is 550 F then between 8-10 minutes or till pizza crust is nicely browned and cheese melted and bubbly. If your oven is 450 F it’ll probably need more like 10-12 minutes just keep an eye on it. You don’t want it to burn but not to be pale and sad looking either so peek after 10 minutes and close oven door quickly if too pale and give another minute or two but don’t overdo!!

Remove your beautiful pie from the oven and using your pizza wheel, cut into eight slices. Try to save some for the others in your household if you don’t want a rebellion. 🙂 Dig in!

Tuesday Night Mushroom, Onion, Pepper Pizza

1 tablespoon instant dry yeast
1 rounded teaspoon sugar
1/2 a kilo (500 grams) or 4 cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 1/4-1 1/2 cups water, you add slowly
oil for greasing bowl
flour to dust parchment paper
cornmeal or semolina to coat bottom of pizza pan
6 heaping tablespoons pizza/tomato sauce
4 cups grated cheese

Topping:

a box of mushrooms, cleaned well and chopped
1 large red pepper, cleaned and chopped into small sticks
1 medium onion, peeled and chopped medium
2 tablespoons mild oil like canola

Directions:

In mixer or bread machine, place yeast, sugar and 1/4 cup water to proof yeast. When bubbling, add flour, salt, olive oil and get mixer stirring with dough hook while you add one cup of water slowly to the mixture, only adding additional quarter of a cup of water if flour mixture looks too dry (see pic above). Let knead for 10 minutes, turn off mixer and let rest. Then, turn the mixer on and knead for another 10 minutes, turn off machine, scoop dough into a bowl you oiled and turn to coat dough. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise for about an hour.

In bread machine add ingredients the same way and turn on the dough function, letting the water drizzle in till you see if you need the whole amount and let ‘er rip for 15 minutes and then unplug the machine. You don’t want to overknead the dough. Let it rise in the machine for about an hour. No need to remove it till risen.

While dough is rising, turn oven on to highest temperature, 450 F or 550 F depending on your oven.

While it’s rising, sautee the onion for 3 minutes in a pan with the oil, then toss in the chopped peppers and sautee an additional 3 minutes and lastly add the mushrooms and sautee no more than 2 minutes – we don’t wan’t them to render up their liquid. Let cool.

Remove dough and sprinkle a mat or parchment paper with flour and cut dough in two.

Prepare pizza pan by sprinkling with semolina or cornmeal (to prevent dough sticking).

Divide risen dough in two. Roll dough out on flour sprinkled mat or parchment paper into a circle and then pat and stretch dough and form a rim around the edge. Fold dough in half over rolling pin to put on pizza pan easily. If it doesn’t fit precisely, no worries, pat and stretch a bit more till rounded and it doesn’t have to cover the entire pan’s edges (see pic above).

Take 3 tablespoons of the sauce and dollop on rolled out dough and using the back of a spoon, slather over dough not too generously, if you do, the pizza gets kinds waterlogged in spots, not to be desired, you just coat the top (see the pic). Sprinkle generously with half the cheese and half the sauteed vegetable topping.

Put in the very very hot oven and bake for 8-10 minutes if on 550 F (peek after 8 minutes, if too pale allow 2 more minutes). If on 450, bake for 10-12 minutes, peek after 10 for doneness. The crust should be nicely browned and the cheese bubbling and melted.

Do the same for the other half of the dough. Can be frozen before baking with the topping for about a week just cover and freeze on the pizza pan and when frozen, wrap well with plastic wrap and pop back into freezer. To bake, defrost about 15 minutes on the pan and bake a minute or two longer than usual (peek in the oven to be sure).