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Showing posts with label pizza. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pizza. Show all posts

Literary Lunch: Billy's Pan Pizza

Comments (0) | Friday, April 15, 2011

For our Literary Lunch this month we chose to focus on a series that we both just finished listening to on audiobook—The Millennium trilogy by Stieg Larsson, which is comprised of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest.  Stieg Larsson’s eye for detail, skill at creating believable characters, and intriguing plot lines have a way of completely immersing the reader in a world that is familiar because of its extremely realistic feel, but also driven by larger than life characters.  The protagonists of the series are Lisbeth Salander, an oft-persecuted and socially awkward computer hacker, and Mikail Blomkvist, a moralistic journalist with whom Lisbeth gets entangled in the course of the first novel.   
The series is as much a critique as it is a thriller, exploring how easily modern society, when unaccompanied by a sense of equality, can be set loose against women in a nightmarish barrage of bureaucratically-sanctioned and medically-backed physical and mental torture, a veritable hell of misogynists and sadists administering what they dub as justice under the pretext of reason but ultimately driven by the need for dominance over women, very often in the form of sexual violence.  And this would all be too much to take if not for the clearly delineated good characters, who go to unheard of lengths before the series concludes to fight back against a conspiracy designed to keep the systems of control firmly in place. 
Along the way we watch this cast of mainly Swedes (Larsson was Swedish, the series itself was written in Swedish and then translated into English by Reg Keeland) doing a lot of normal, everyday things.  Larsson especially likes describing what the characters are eating and drinking, which is what gave us the idea to include this in our Literary Lunch. 
If you’ve read any of the books, you might think we’d post about some sort of sandwich, as Swedes, according to the books at least, seem to eat sandwiches morning, noon, and night, along with a fresh brewed cup of coffee.  It’s conceivable that the series could be cut down to a single book if Larsson had simply not included coffee breaks in the narrative flow.  But these details are exactly what make the books so compelling, and each time a new pot is brewed and a sandwich is prepared, we get to sit back along with the character and dwell on recent developments in the story.   
But as far as blogging goes, sandwiches are pretty boring fare, so we decided to go  with something that pops up almost as often as sandwiches in the story—pan pizza.  Specifically, Billy’s Pan Pizza, one of the foods Lisbeth Salander is so fond of buying from the convenience store (she has a horrible diet!).  Although we’ve never tried Billy’s Pan Pizza (yes, it’s apparently a real product), we imagine that it’s similar to other frozen pizzas, and so decided to honor one of our favorite literary characters by making a pan pizza worthy of writing home about, although Lisbeth would probably just shrug if we served it to her and say it was ok.  

We decided to make a sausage pizza since most of Lisbeth's choices usually included some sort of meat.  You can choose your own toppings, but we wanted to share the whole wheat pan pizza dough recipe because it really turned out great.  We used to be fans of thin crust pizzas, but I think from now on we will be making pan pizzas instead.   

Whole Wheat Pan Pizza Dough
Adapted from Vegetarian Classics by Jeanne Lemlin
Makes 1-2 medium pan pizzas (depending on how thick you want the crust). 
1 c. warm water, divided
1 t. evaporated cane juice
2 1/4 t. yeast (1 packet)
3 c. whole wheat flour (white wheat works best)
1 t. salt
3 T. olive oil, plus more for greasing

1) Combine 1/4 c. of the warm water and the evaporated cane juice.  Stir until the cane juice is dissolved.  Sprinkle the yeast on top of the water and let it sit for 1 minute.  Stir the yeast in and let it proof for 10 minutes.

2) In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook add the flour, salt, remaining 3/4 c. water, olive oil and yeast mixture.  Knead on medium for 10 minutes.  Remove the dough and set aside for a moment.  If needed clean out the bowl of the stand mixer.  Oil the bowl and press the dough into the bottom.  Flip the dough over and so both sides are covering in the oil.  Let rise for 30 minutes.  
3) Roll dough out to desired thickness.  For our pizza above we used about 2/3 of the dough for the 1 pan pizza and made a small thin crust pizza with the rest.  Place the dough in a well oiled large cast iron skillet.  Cover the pan with a tea towel and let rise another 30 minutes.  

4) Bake dough in a preheated 450 degree oven for about 5 minutes.  Top with desired toppings and then bake for an additional 8-12 minutes until your cheese is brown and bubbly.  Slice and enjoy. 


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Bacon, Fig and Balsamic Pizza

Comments (2) | Thursday, November 4, 2010

As we've posted before, pizza is probably our favorite thing to cook.  When we have dinner guests, especially for the first time, we usually bust out the old reliable pizza, because almost everyone likes it, you can feed quite a few people for very little money, and a well planned and executed pizza is just impressive.  Not everyone is as crazy as we are about pizza, and a lot of people would consider what we put on them to be unacceptable, not because it's not good, but because it sounds sort of bizarre.  We usually save our pizza experiments for when we're not expecting anyone over, so as not to offend anyone with our sometimes crazy notions.  A few weekends back we experimented with bacon, fig and balsamic vinegar.  It was absolutely fantastic, so we thought we'd share.





Toppings (for 2 pies):
10 fresh figs
1 onion
7 or 8 large mushrooms
4 strips of bacon, cooked
Fresh basil
Balsamic vinegar

Begin by following our basic pizza recipe for the crust and sauce.  Thinly slice the figs, onion, and mushrooms.  Leave the basil leaves whole and crumble up or slice the bacon.  Place half the cheese on the pizzas, then the toppings, and then the rest of the cheese.  Drizzle a little vinegar over each of the pizzas and put them in the oven.  Cook for 12 minutes at 450 degrees or until the cheese is brown and bubbly.


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Pizza!

Comments (0) | Monday, May 10, 2010

Pizza is one of our all time favorite foods! We could eat it almost every night and not get sick of it. Our quest to be more healthy eaters hasn't made us give up on pizza, but we have had to make some changes to our recipes. By using homemade sauce, whole wheat crust, loading it with vegetables and going light on the cheese you come out with a delicious, but healthy alternative to your normal take out. Also pizza is easy! It does take some planning because you need to allow the dough to rise, but the steps involved aren't too difficult. OK Let's get this started with the dough.

Whole Wheat Pizza Dough
2 1/2 c. whole wheat flour
1 packet active dry yeast (or 2 1/4 t.)
1 t. sugar
1 c. warm water divided
1 t. salt
3 T. olive oil plus more for greasing

Combine a 1/4 c. of the warm water with the sugar. Make sure sugar is dissolved. Pour the yeast on top of the water mixture and let sit for 1 minute. Stir the yeast into the water/sugar mix and then let rise for 10 minutes. Combine the yeast mixture with the flour, salt, olive oil, and remaining water. Knead dough for about 10 minutes (a stand mixer with a dough hook is a great help for this step). Press dough into the bottom of a bowl lightly greased with olive oil. Turn over and cover in bowl and let rise for 90 minutes.

This will make enough dough for about 2 medium pizzas.

About 30 minutes before the dough is done rising you will want to start making the sauce and toppings for the pizza. When we make sauce it tends to be a "little of this, little of that" process, but here is the basic recipe. You can adjust the seasonings to fit your taste.

Tomato Sauce
2-3 c. canned crushed tomatoes
1 T. olive oil
2-4 cloves garlic minced or crushed
1/2 t. red pepper flakes
1 t. oregano
1 t. basil
salt and pepper to taste (I usually don't add to much to keep the dish low in sodium).

Heat the olive oil over medium high heat. Add the garlic and red pepper flakes to the oil and let cook for about 1 minute until fragrant. Add the rest of the ingredients and let simmer for about 15-20 minutes.

At this time you should also pre heat the oven to 450 degrees.

Toppings
6 oz. of cheese
3 c. fresh spinach (washed and dried)
1 c. diced onions
1 large tomato seeded and chopped.

To assemble the pizzas you will first need to divide the dough into 2 equal parts. Use non-stick canola spray and spray your 2 pizza pans. Roll each part into a large thin circle to fit your pizza pan. The dough should hang over the edge of the pan. Roll the edges to create a crust. Poke holes in the dough with a fork to keep the crust from bubbling up. Top the dough with as much or as little sauce as you want. Add the vegetable toppings divided among the two pizzas. Cover with 3 oz. of cheese per pizza.

Bake pizzas in oven for about 16 minutes. Switch positions (from bottom to top rack and top to bottom) of pizza about half way through to make sure both get cooked evenly. The cheese should be light brown and bubbly. Slice pizzas into 8 slices.

Each slice of pizza has 132 calories.




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