Ned counsels his friends to make their own pizza, and it's not as hard as one might think. The "trick" is to buy premade organic pizza dough, roll it "out" and put whatever one wants to eat, on the crust. Ned is very fond of organic whole wheat crust, but will gladly buy all-spelt crust from his local whole foods eatery. Here's what you do.
Preheat your oven to 450. Heat is essential.
On a baking sheet, rub a little olive oil. Then roll out the pizza dough, making sure it is not too thick. Turn up the edges a bit. On the dough, sprinkle a bit of extra virgin olive oil and some finely chopped basil oregano and rosemary, fresh of course if you can get it. Add your ingredients. Ned is partial to marinated mushrooms, roasted red pepper, artichoke hearts, black olives, and marinated garlic. But readers may want to add seafood or meat. Ned avoids most meat that is suitable for pizzas, especially "pepperoni," which he considers similar to cyanide in its effect on the human body.. He then adds dollops of soft goat cheese. Avoid the faux parmesan and mozzarella. Then he adds slices of fresh tomato, and presses the tomato into the existing ingredients. Note that he uses no "pizza sauce." Purists may want to drizzle a bit more olive oil, then bake at 450 for 15-20 minutes.
"You'll never go back,baby."
I decided to give Ned's pizza recipe a go, having located a package of pre-made organic whole wheat pizza dough at the local MegaHealthCo Engorgium.
ReplyDeleteI use a small toaster oven. Covered the cooking surface with foil and gave it a bit of olive oil coating. Pressed the dough out. I had very little in the way of toppings save for some mushrooms. So, following the directions on the dough label and letting the rolled out dough bake for five mins, I nosed around looking for other ingredients. My neighbor has a large herb garden and offered whatever in there I wanted.
I went out and plucked me a bit of this and that and came in and rinsed it, then pinched and snipped it up. About that time the dough was ready to come out of the oven so i removed it, added a bit more olive oil, plus the herbs, the mushrooms I'd sauteed a few mins earlier, plus some red sauce I made using garlic and honey and pepper sauce and tomato paste. (Ned will spare us the lecture on using sauce on pizza we hope.) I added a bit of fresh parmesan and some grated other cheese.
After about 15 mins I removed it and a picture of finished product, though not a good likeness, can be viewed here:
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4134/4770976469_504a833f5f_m.jpg
(Blogger doesn't want to let me insert the html image tag that would display the picture.)
Concluding Unscientific Postscript: Between the herbs and the garlic it sure smelled good and it tasted as good as it smelled.