Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Artichoke Heart, Mushroom, Goat Cheese Pizza

I'm back again. I don't know if anyone follows my off-again on-again website, but it doesn't matter. I need to keep track of some of my recipes.

Last night I made an artichoke heart and mushroom pizza. The sauce and the crust were my own. The results were tasty!

Pizza Crust
2 cups white flour (give or take some)
3/4 cup water
1/4 cup olive oil
some salt
1 teaspoon yeast
drizzle of honey, maybe 1 tablespoon worth

Sauce
1 can tomato sauce
garlic (to taste)
salt (to taste)
basil (to taste)
dash olive oil

Toppings
2 tablespoons olive oil
7-9 white mushrooms, chopped
1 spoonful of crushed garlic
drizzle of balsamic vinegar
3 or 4 canned artichoke hearts, chopped
goat cheese (3 ounces?)
shredded mozarella, 1 cup or less
red pepper flakes

Instructions
I began by mixing the ingredients for the pizza crust in the food processor and leaving the ball of dough on the counter in a bowl to rise, while the oven preheated to 450 degrees.

While the dough was rising and the oven was heating up, I combined the ingredients for the sauce in a pan on the stove. You'll notice that I don't give very specific amounts; I do a lot of seasoning "to taste". I heated the ingredients for the sauce on a low temperature and let it cook.

When the oven was preheated, I shaped the dough into a thin, flat round on the pizza pan. I have a baking stone but for this project just used the round metal pizza pan with holes in it.

I baked the crust for around 7 or 8 minutes, until parts of it were bubbly and the highest parts were browned. Then I took the crust out of the oven and allowed it to cool and took the sauce off the stove and allowed that to cool. I prepared the sauce and the crust the night before; this worked just fine.

The next morning, I prepared the toppings and put them on the crust. I cut up the mushrooms and sauteed them in the olive oil and garlic. I drizzled a little balsamic vinegar over the mushrooms at the end, sauteed them until the balsamic vinegar was just absorbed, then took them off the heat. I chopped the artichoke hearts while the mushrooms sauteed.

I spread the sauce over the crust, then the artichoke hearts and mushrooms. Finally, I sprinked the pizza with the cheeses and red pepper flakes. This then sat in the fridge most of the day and we baked it at night at 400 degrees. Baking took a long time (16 minutes or more!) but the crust was crispy and the results were delicious!

This could easily all be done in one day, it does not need to be prepared the night before.