Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Daring Bakers October Challenge is PIZZA!


Pizza dough from Peter Reinhart's Baker's Apprentice book was the recipe for this month. You can see a modified copy of the recipe at this month's host's site. The recipe requires making a little bit of dough, letting it sit overnight and then incorporating it into the dough you make the second day.

We were excited to make some pizza, as pizza was Kevin's summer grilling experiment. He's quite the conceptual cook. That is, he thinks up stuff and I do most of the execution. For the pizzas this summer, I was his prep cook and he worked the grill and did a terrific job. We used a recipe right from the King Arthur flour website, and we didn't notice a flavor difference between the KA recipe and the Reinhart recipe. In fact, the KA recipe was nicer to handle and didn't need to rest so much, held it's shape, etc.

For our DB pizzas we were to toss the dough as part of the challenge. That's a challenge indeed- how do you take a picture while tossing?? You get help, that's how. Kevin was willing to fling the dough in the air and wasn't so sure he could take a good picture, so he is pictured with the dough almost in the ceiling fan. What a tosser!

We made a traditional mushroom and black olive pizza, and a plain cheese with LOTS of cheese. They were both yummy.






We also made one of the stars of the summer grilled pizza line up, a "southwestern" pizza. It has some marinated and grilled chicken, a corn relish (from Trader Joe's), and a mild cheese blend (mozzarella, jack), and it's topped with a squeeze of lime, sour cream and cilantro. The corn relish really makes it- the stuff is awesome right from the jar.

The pizza that Kevin has been dying to make, it's the one that actually got him interested in trying out pizzas in the first place... drumroll please...is jambalaya pizza! We finally gave it a try. I made some jambalaya from a really good recipe from a cool place in New Orleans. Kevin put a little cheese on the dough, topped it with jambalaya and baked it. I assembled the one pictured below with a little sauce, jambalaya, then topped with cheese. He was pleased with the outcome. I was a little put off by having rice on pizza, but maybe I'm just being narrowminded. This is one pizza that we haven't seen the last of, I am sure.

Another fun challenge- thank you Daring Bakers!!
-Janet

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

wow both of your pizzas look o cheesy and delicious!

~Amber~ said...

Look at the height on that dough. Your pizzas look incredible. Great job.

Anonymous said...

You were really ambitious. I am impressed. Love the toss picture. Wonderful post.

Jacque said...

Oooh, Jambalaya pizza sounds over-the-top delicious! Great idea.

Great tossing too, although I'm giggling as I picture pizza dough hanging from the ceiling fan, lol.

Harmony said...

Great pizzas, I would choose the mushroom and olive. Yummy!

adli said...

owh wow! that's a high toss! if only I could get someone else to take my picture~ hahaha..

loved that you bake for birthdays. I'm trying to do something like that too :)