Pizza!

To avoid sounding like a five year old, I usually refrain from telling people my favorite food is pizza.  In all seriousness pizza is so phenomenal I can hardly contain myself.  Also, there is some flaw inside my stomach that has no recognition of “full” when it comes to eating pizza and its extremely hard for me to refrain myself from eating less than 5,000 calories in one sitting. This said, I am very particular about my pizza and tend to prefer the nontraditional approach.  Learning to make pizza that was exactly what I loved was the most disastrous thing to happen to me from a health and wellbeing standpoint.

Precautionary note: I cannot condone continuing on without a pizza stone.  This is really the secret to making pizza.  I’ve also heard there is a direct correlation with cost of equipment and quality of crust and judging by how much I doled out, I believe it.

Crust (conveniently can be made ahead of time)

1 cup brown rice flour

2/3 cup potato starch

1/3 cup tapioca flour

2 tsp xantham gum

1/2 tsp yeast

1 tsp salt

1 cup cold water

1 tbsp olive oil

Mix the water and yeast first and let stand for a few minutes, then add remaining ingredients. Kneading doesn't really work to do anything, so just mix well and let the yeast do its thing for 20 or so minutes (the longer the better). This should make about 3 pies, so split the dough up as such.  Flatten it out on corn meal by pressing it out with very wet hands.  If you want to use them later, you can toss the dough, in balls or flattened in the freezer, or the refrigerator if you think you’ll use them in a week or so.  If you choose to freeze, be sure to take them from freezer to refrigerator at least 24 hours before you plan to use them.  When you do end up using them, let them sit out for a few hours at room temperature.

While you let the dough sit out, it’s wise to start the stone heating.  Put your pizza stone in BEFORE starting the oven, which should be set for as high as your oven will let you go (for mine it’s 550).

Transfer your flattened pies to a pizza peel.  You can either cover the peel in corn meal, the little balls act as dynamic rollers to slide your pie nicely onto the stone or you can cut a pizza sized piece of parchment paper that you will slide onto your stone.  I prefer the latter, and you can reuse your parchment piece for each pizza.

Now for toppings, the following have been EXTREME successes, but really you can do whatever you want.  Don’t overload it, it just complicates things.  Bake each pie for 8-10 minutes.

Pizza Toppings!

Base: Olive oil and garlic

Figs

Goat cheese

Caramelized white onion

Arugula

Balsamic reduction

Base: Almond butter, ginger, lime, apple cider vinegar, honey

Mozzarella

Sliced carrots

Red onions

Cilantro

Red pepper flakes

Base: Hazelnut arugula pesto (will later post recipe)

Mozzarella

Tomato slices

Parmesan mostly, and Romano

Base: Pesto

Three cheese blend

Roasted beets

Arugula

Caramelized onions

Goat cheese

Balsamic vinegar

(This next one is pretty exceptional)

Base: Gluten free BBQ, preferably lacking in high fructose corn syrup

Mozzarella

Tofu

Cilantro

Red onion

Bell pepper

Cheddar cheese

Base: Green Chile

Cheddar cheese

Black beans

Cilantro

Red onion
Corn

I know you'll enjoy, so I hope you'll try!