I turned to the interwebs for inspiration, and I found it in the form of an Ina Garten recipe for Baked Fontina that I’d recently bookmarked.  One day I will work up the nerve to eat a crock of molten, herby fontina for dinner, but until that day arrives, I will stick to eating my slightly less gluttonous pizza version. For my interpretation I kept the fontina, added a few other kinds of cheese and a very thin layer of red sauce, and, in lieu of the herb combination in Ina’s recipe, I made a chimichurri sauce for either dipping or smothering on the baked pizza.  I really wasn’t sure how this would turn out, but judging by the fact that my boyfriend went from “not that hungry” to eating 2/3 of this pizza in addition to a couple of slices of another pizza (one with banana peppers!), I think it was a success.  The cheese pizza on its own was really good, and the chimichurri sauce added a nice, bright dimension to it.  Mmm…chimichurri…

Cheese Pizza with Chimichurri Dipping Sauce

For the pizza:

• Pizza dough
• 1/3 cup pizza sauce
• 2-3 cups grated cheese (I used mostly fontina and farmer cheese with a little mozzarella and parmesan)

For the chimichurri sauce:

• 2 cups flat-leaf parsley, leaves and thin stems only
• 3 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
• 1 tsp red pepper flakes
• 2-3 tbsp fresh lemon juice
• 1 tbsp vinegar (optional)
• Olive oil
• Salt

Notes:

• All measurements are approximate and should be adjusted to taste.
• Leftover chimichurri is great on eggs, meat, potatoes, sandwiches, and many other things.

Combine the parsley, garlic, red pepper flakes, lemon juice, vinegar (if using), and about 1/2 tsp of salt in the bowl of a food processor.  Process into a rough paste, then pour in olive oil while the motor runs until it thins out into a sauce.  The consistency will be similar to pesto.  Season with additional salt.  Set the sauce aside, keeping it at room temperature, while you prepare the pizza.

While making chimichurri sauce, you should not let your giant thumb get in the way of your extremely sharp knife while chopping garlic.  Because that’s what I did, and it led to the near loss of a considerable piece of my thumb, the utterance of several not nice words, a panicked series of phone calls to my dad, mom, and boyfriend, more panicking when nobody was answering their phones, the application of a lot of pressure and bloodying of several paper towels, and finally a returned phone call from my dad with his doctor’s orders of pressure, band-aids, and, eventually, super glue.  The bleeding stopped, the panicking subsided, and the cooking continued (with cleaned surfaces and a new round of garlic cloves, of course).  Whew.

Preheat your oven to 450.  Stretch the pizza dough on an oiled baking sheet.  Cover with a thin layer of pizza sauce (just like the one pictured above on the right).

Cover with cheese.

Bake for about 15 minutes, or until the crust is browned to your liking.

Serve with chimichurri sauce.

Delicious!

Pizza dough + pesto + spinach + artichoke hearts + sun-dried tomatoes + feta + mozzarella + provolone.  Bake at 450 for 20-ish minutes or until the cheese melts and the crust is crispy.

And…photos from a busy, fun-filled weekend

Tailgating on Saturday

The girls

I know.

Perfect fall day for football

Twin Cities 10 Mile on Sunday (that’s me to the left)

We didn’t get medals this year, but the nut rolls that they handed out at the finish more than made up for it.  I snagged two.  Holler!

The only problem with making it myself is that I needed to find the perfect recipe.  What makes a Malnati’s pizza great is the buttery crust – as melt-in-your-mouth as pizza crust can be.  I was fearful that I would find a recipe that sounded promising, invest a lot of time (and calories) in it, and end up with a bland, bready crust more resembling Giordano’s.  I don’t want bland and bready.  I want buttery!  Enter Cook’s Illustrated and their laminating (layering butter and dough) trick to create a close-to-Malnati’s-but-not-quite-there crust.  For a lot less than $50 I ended up with two deep dish pizzas that will tide me over until I make it back to Chicago.

One more thing: this recipe may look a little intimidating – the list of ingredients is lengthy, the dough needs to rise twice, and there are a lot of steps in general.  Do not be afraid.  The nearly two hours of rising time allow you to get the rest of the ingredients ready while the yeast is doing its thing.  I got home from the grocery store a little after 4PM and had dinner on the table at 7:15 when our friends Sam and Laura arrived.  I even managed to make a batch of fresh ricotta in there.  The only thing I didn’t have time to do was vacuum and clean up the coffee that I had somehow managed to spill all over my wall that morning, but that’s what boyfriends are for.

Deep Dish Pizza

From Cook’s Illustrated, January 2010

For the dough:

3 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup yellow cornmeal

1 1/2 tsp salt

2 tsp sugar

2 1/4 tsp instant yeast

1 1/4 cups water, room temperature

3 tbsp unsalted butter, melted

4 tbsp unsalted butter, softened

1 tsp plus 4 tbsp olive oil

For the sauce:

2 tbsp unsalted butter

1/4 cup grated onion (grate it on a cheese grater with large holes)

1/4 tsp dried oregano

2 garlic cloves, minced or pressed

1 28-oz can crushed tomatoes

1/4 tsp sugar

2 tbsp coarsely chopped fresh basil

1 tbsp olive oil

Salt & pepper

*For the toppings:

1 pound mozzarella, grated (about 4 cups)

1/2 oz. grated parmesan (about 1/4 cup)

{Olive and ricotta toppings – makes one pizza}

2 tbsp good olives, chopped

2 tbsp ricotta

{Sausage toppings – makes one pizza}

1/2 pound hot or mild Italian sausage, browned

*I made one olive and ricotta pizza and one sausage pizza.  The amounts given for the mozzarella and parmesan are enough for two pizzas of any variety.  The olives, ricotta, and sausage amounts are given for a single pizza of each kind.  So if you want to make two sausage pizzas, double the amount of sausage, but do not double the amount of cheese.

Mix the flour, cornmeal, salt, sugar, and yeast with the dough hook of a stand mixer.  Add water and melted butter and mix on low speed until combined, about 1 to 2 minutes.  Scrape down sides and bottom of the bowl as needed.  Increase speed to medium, and beat until the dough is smooth and pulls away from the sides of the bowl, maybe 4 to 5 minutes.  Remove the bowl from the stand, scoop up the dough with your left hand, drizzle a little olive oil (about a teaspoon) into the bowl with your right hand and spread it up the sides, put the dough back the bowl, roll it around to lightly coat it with olive oil, cover the bowl tightly with plastic wrap, and set it aside for 45-60 minutes.

While the dough is rising, make the sauce.  Heat the butter in a saucepan over medium heat.  When melted add the onion, oregano, and 1/2 tsp salt.  Cook for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally, then add the garlic and cook for 30 more seconds.  Add the tomatoes and sugar, and increase the heat until it simmers.  Lower the heat to maintain the simmer, and cook for 25-30 minutes.  Turn off the heat, stir in the basil and olive oil, and season with salt and pepper.  Set aside.

Forty-five to sixty minutes later, the dough should have about doubled in size.  I was actually pretty amazed and how much this grew in an hour.  The magic of yeast!

Transfer the dough to a (not floured) work surface and roll out (with a rolling pin or your fingers) to a 15×12″ rectangle.  This baking mat really came in handy with its ruler along the edge.

Use an offset spatula (a regular spatula or knife would probably work, too) to spread the softened butter over the dough, leaving a 1/2″ border along the edges.

Start at the short end and tightly roll up the dough.

Place the seam against the work surface and flatten the cylinder into an 18×4″ rectangle.

Cut the dough in half crosswise.

Fold each half into thirds, like folding a letter.

Pinch the seams together so it resembles a ball.

Return the two balls of dough to the oiled bowl (or use an oiled plate if, like me, you already threw the oiled bowl into a sink full of dirty dishes) and cover with plastic wrap.  Place the dough in the refrigerator to rise for anther 40-50 minutes.

[Now is a good time to brown the sausage, grate the cheese, chop the olives, throw together a salad, etc.]

Preheat the oven to 425 with 10-15 minutes of rising time to go (or more, depending on how long your oven takes to heat).

After the second rise.  Oil two 9″ cake pans with 2 tbsp olive oil each, making sure to oil the sides.  My pans have pretty decent non-stick coating, so I dumped out a little of the excess oil.  If you don’t have two cake pans, a springform pan will work, too.  If you use a springform pan put some foil or a rimmed baking sheet underneath it so you don’t end up with oil leaking out of the pan, creating a mess on the oven floor and a smoky apartment.  Trust me on this one.

Roll out each ball of dough into a 13″ disc.

Loosely wrap the dough around the rolling pin, and transfer it to the pan.  Press the dough in so it reaches the corners and goes about an inch up the sides.  If it’s not stretching, let it rest for a few minutes and try again.

Sprinkle half of the mozzarella (about 2 cups) over each crust.

For a sausage pizza, add the meat on top of the cheese.

Then spread with half of the sauce.  Sprinkle with half of the parmesan.

For the olive and ricotta pizza, spread the sauce over the mozzarella, sprinkle with olives, dot with ricotta, and finish with the remaining parmesan.

Bake for 20-30 minutes, until the crust is golden brown.

Let rest for 10 minutes before slicing.  Don’t skip this step – it really does make a difference!

We ate our hearty pizzas with a salad of arugula, strawberries, goat cheese, and pecans.  Delicious!

I really, really wanted to call this Rosemary Flatbread, but after some in-depth research on Wikipedia I learned that this is actually pizza. According to the almighty Wikipedia, flatbread is unleavened bread (made without yeast or other leavening agent), and you had better believe that there was yeast in my dough. I did find a few sources that say pizza actually is flatbread, but I am going to stand by Wikipedia on this one. I guess I need to make flatbread one of these days to satisfy my need to label something as such.

You might be wondering what the big deal is with calling it pizza or flatbread, and boy do I have a few things to tell you.

1. Mind your own beeswax.

2. Remember the part in The Life Aquatic when Steve and Ned are wandering around the ship arguing and end up on the deck punching each other? Ned says, “I can’t believe I asked if I could call you dad. Of course you said no,” and Steve responds, “I let you call me Stevesy. It sounds better.” That’s exactly how I feel about this. I really want to call it flatbread, but Wikipedia will only let me call it pizza.

3. Go to bed, you sons of bitches. Just kidding! That’s a Steve Zissou line that always makes me laugh, and I heard it again today when checking my quotes for accuracy. I don’t really want you to go to bed. I want you to keep reading.

Rosemary Pizza

• Pizza dough
• Cheese, grated or crumbled
• Rosemary (preferably fresh, but dried should also work)
• Olive oil
• Sea salt
• Garlic in some form (optional)
• Freshly cracked pepper (optional)

Preheat your oven and pizza stone to 400-450. I usually stick to 400 because I have a fire alarm that has adverse reactions to oven temperatures over 400, and some days I just don’t feel like setting myself up for the stress of flinging all my windows open, turning a fan on high and frantically waving a towel in front of my fire alarm. If I did not have such issues to deal with I would turn the oven up as hot as I could get it.