While making a deep dish pizza the other day I got to the point in the recipe for the dough where it says "let dough rise in a warm spot." I don't know about you - but I've always been a bit unsure as to where my "warm spot" was. I saw a tip on a cooking show the other day that I thought I would try out. You preheat your oven to 200-250 degrees while you're making the dough. Once it's time to let the dough rise - you turn the oven off and put the (oven safe) bowl with the dough covered tightly in plastic wrap in your oven. It works wonders!
Little ball of pizza dough all wrapped up and ready to grow!
My, how you've grown! (time lapse: 1 hour)
And, speaking of the time lapse - I will not be making this again for QUITE some time as it took HOURS. That's way too long to wait for a pizza. It was REALLY good though:
Yum!
The pizza I made is a recipe from America's Test Kitchen. As you know I like to honor their copyright since I feel like they actually do work to get these recipes and they belong to them - and I was wishing that all of you could have the recipes too (even this way-too-time-consuming pizza dough recipe). It occurred to me that that makes a GREAT idea for my first-ever give-away.
So, up for grabs here is winner's choice of one of the following America's Test Kitchen Cookbooks:
ATK Family Cookbook (This is the one I own)
The Best of ATK 2009ATK Family Baking Book
Just a little something to say, "Thanks for reading!"
Rules: Leave a comment to enter. (One comment per person). Stealing from the playbook of The Pioneer Woman Cooks - in your comment answer the question: What are your favorite pizza toppings?
I have some ideas for others give-aways brewing in my head now - so, since I don't have that large of a readership - I'm going to make a "you can't win twice in a row!" rule. Hopefully that seems fair to everyone.
Deadline to enter: 9:00 p.m. EST Sunday, March 8, 2009. Winners will be announced either Sunday night or on Monday.
I'll number the comments received up to that time and then use a random number generator to come up with the winner!
My, how you've grown! (time lapse: 1 hour)
At the time my friend worked for a pizza place, I got hooked on chicken, bacon and zucchini as toppings.
ReplyDeleteOoo! I've been wanting one of their cookbooks for years! I watched some of their TV shows one summer during college when I was in the states. There's a recipe for cooking asparagus they aired that I've been trying to find ever since but can't. I tried making it by memory the other day and it didn't turn out so well. :P
ReplyDeleteWhen it comes to pizza, I am a meat lover. No veggies, fruit, fish, etc. Just meat. Pepperoni, sausage, ham, bacon, chicken, etc. The more of it the better. ;)
As for the crust, I like the thick, puffy edge, but I like the texture of the crispy thin-crusts. So which I get depends on who I'm with and how much they care what we get.
Oops, forgot to mention: I saw this oven trick suggested elsewhere, too (forget where though). They said to put the oven on "warm" or the lowest temperature offered, and to cover it with a kitchen towel (the non-fuzzy kind).
ReplyDeleteI forget what made me try it, but I had diced tomatoes on a pizza once and they were wonderful! So the old standby is pepperoni-tomato. Although things like mushrooms or onions or bacon sometimes show up as well.
ReplyDeleteHowever, my all-time favorite is Stevie B's potato! Yum.
This pizza looks amazing. Friday I made pizza for the kids I was watching but I used the Jiffy crust *blushes* Anyway my favorite pizza topping are fresh veggies. I LOVE mushrooms, spinach, feta cheese, red onions and tomatoes. They are just so good. It's like the ultimate veggie lover ( I like black olives too but my husband doesn't).
ReplyDeleteYummmmmmmmm
ReplyDeleteI like onions, green peppers, black olives, mushrooms & pineapple. I'll usually get some kind of veggie lovers pizza, minus tomatoes (i love tomatoes, but not on pizza) and add pineapple! lol
getting out of more traditional, i really like the spinach/chicken/feta/white sauce sort of combos. yummm. There is a Hot Pocket flavor that's like chicken, spinach and artichokes and I'm addicted to it.. yeah I know, it's Hot Pockets, but oh well.
If I had to pick ONE topping, it would be mushrooms. I used to get mushroom personal pan pizzas from Pizza Hut from Book-It, and they always commented how I was the weirdest kid ever getting mushrooms.
Now I'm starving.. grrr.
Pepperoni is usually my must-have topping, but I am partial to mushrooms and black olives as well! I like chicken and bacon pizzas, too. Other veggies are fine...but please no sausage or anchovies! :) In Vienna, they made pizza with baby corn, and one with tuna and brussel sprouts. (I kid you not.) Blech.
ReplyDeleteMmmmmmm pizza- one of my favorite foods! When I was in Venice, Italy, in college, we went to a place called Zodiac that tried to have pizza toppings keyed to all the different sun signs!
ReplyDeleteMy favorite toppings: pepperoni,as many types of cheese as possible, and pre-cooked bacon. I also like chicken BBQ pizza. It's tough in my house because my husband likes feta cheese, olives, banana peppers and other nasty goodies on his pizza!
I'll bet you could hear the angels singing with each bite of that delicious pizza. You just can't beat homemade pizza dough. The next best thing, though, is pizza from a non-chain pizza parlor. I had high hopes for the pizza place near GHS, but I have been rather disappointed in the pizza. I have never bought a Boboli crust from the supermarket, but I think the pizza at the place by GHS tastes like what I imagine a Boboli crust would taste. There I go being verbose again.
ReplyDeleteAnyhow, I have three responses to your essential question. First, I am a self-described purist much of the time, and I only want cheese and extra sauce. Second, I am a traditionalist other times, and I want pepperoni, extra cheese, and extra sauce. Third, I am a gourmet occasionally, and I want sun-dried tomatoes, artichokes, and feta cheese.
By the way, when I went through a pizza-making phase in college, I always used the 200-degree oven trick; worked without fail every time.
ok, so i'm too late for the contest, but just so you know i read it, i like the plain ol' boring pepperoni. the one you made looks very good by the way, but it is a long time to wait for pizza.
ReplyDelete