Veggie Deep Dish

So as I mentioned before, I have a springform pan now - and this means, I can make deep dish pizza. Last night, I did! It was, I have to tell you, really awesome.

I found this recipe for deep dish and followed it pretty closely. I also used the bread & honey pizza dough recipe that I love, but tweaked it a little (not too successfully, unfortunately. Oh well).

You Need
For the crust:
1 cup warm water
1 1/2 tablespoons sugar
1 (1/4 oz) packet of active dry yeast (the book says "not the rapid-rise stuff!" but that's what I used and it was fine.)
2 tablespoons olive oil (and more for drizzling)
3 cups flour (I used 1/2 cup cornmeal, 1 1/2 cups bread flour, and 1 cup whole wheat pastry flour. It was kind of a Frankenstein's Monster, and was kind of the wrong consistency, but tasted yummy)
1 teaspoon salt

For the innards
1 (28-ounce) can crushed or diced tomatoes (the chunkier the better)
2 tablespoons tomato paste
2 tablespoons red wine
2 teaspoons Italian seasoning or 2 tablespoons fresh, chopped Italian herbs
1 1/2 teaspoons dried onion (I used fresh)
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 medium zucchini
1 bell pepper
½ teaspoon salt
Fresh ground pepper to taste
Throw some smoked paprika in there if you have it. Duh.

Cheese
2 cups shredded/grated mozzarella
2 TBSP parmesan or romano cheese

You Do
Preheat oven to 400.

Crust
Make your pizza dough (using b & h's instructions). Give yourself enough time; this will take at least an hour, and ideally a few hours. You definitely don't need as much of it as the recipe gives you; I used all of it and it was too crusty. I'd guess probably 3/4 of the ball you end up with should do the trick, but I'll get back to you when I try it again. Anyway, take your springform pan and pour a TBSP of olive oil in the center. Place your dough in the middle of the pan and press it down with your fingers toward the edges and about halfway up the sides. Prick it with a fork. Bake the crust for 10 minutes, then remove from the oven.


Innards
Saute your garlic and onion, add your zukes and pepps, saute for a bit. Then add all the other jazz, bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for about 10 minutes.

Puttin' it all together
Take your pre-cooked-a-little-bit crust and layer 1 cup of mozzarella on the bottom. Add as much of the sauce as will fit, like so:


... then throw the rest of the cheese on top (including the parm/romano) and dust with some oregano. Bake for 35-40 minutes, rotating every 15. The pizza is done when the crust is browned and the cheese is bubbly and delicious-looking.


I invited some friends over, so I really had to be successful, or they would have been angry and hungry. Luckily, they were pleased:

Calzones

With inspiration from bread and honey, I decided to embark on a calzone-making adventure. It was really successful! Yum yum. I made the pizza dough a day early, using another b & h recipe. There's actually a funny story about that -- I knew I wanted to make the calzones the next day, so I just wrapped the dough up in saran wrap and put it in the fridge. HILARIOUS mistake, as when I opened the fridge the next morning, the dough had continued to rise and these bulbous, crusty growths had popped through the wrapping! I decided it probably wasn't a big deal and just ripped off the growths and used the dough as normal. Wish I'd thought to take picture of them -- maybe I'll do it again one of these days just to have the photographic evidence. The pizza dough was seriously the bomb, though, and perfect, so use it!

Here's what I did.


Ingredients
You can really use whatever you want. I used my favorite pizza toppings!
1 green bell pepper
black olives
pepperoni
tomato sauce
fresh mozzarella
pizza dough

Process
Preheat oven to 500 degrees (I KNOW- don't do this in the summer unless you live in San Francisco!)

Chop up the bell pepper, olives and pepperoni. You'll have to use your best judgment on ratios, but if it looks delicious you've probably pretty much done it right. So you'll chop them all up and put them in a bowl, then add your mozzarella (also either grated or in small chunks) and tomato sauce. A word on the sauce: don't add too much! It'll get fairly watery inside the calzone, so you don't need as much as you think you do. Trust me.

Ok, so you have your awesome-looking mixture of calzone innards. Put that aside. Take your pizza dough and tear or cut off baseball-sized pieces to roll out into calzone casing. Lightly flour your rolling surface and roll out a piece of pizza dough until it is very thin and circular. Add your calzone filling onto half the rolled-out dough, fold over the other half and pinch the sides so they stay put.


Once you've made a few, you'll be ready to put your first batch in the oven. I used the amazing cast iron grill pan I splurged on in the fall, and it worked really well! I found that I could cook about 3 at a time, so I lightly dusted my pan with cornmeal and laid the calzones on the pan. Put 'em in the oven for about 5-7 minutes, then flip them over and cook for another few minutes.


Let them cool a little on top of the stove after you take them out, then eat like crazy!


Yum!!