May 4, 2009

Garden Pizza

Digging into the freezer for more garden goodies again! I made a simple pizza sauce by combining some of our frozen roasted tomatoes, a portion of frozen pesto, and a little dash of balsamic vinegar to give it a boost. Summer tomatoes and basil in November just about makes you forget how much work it took to get those tomatoes and basil in the freezer in the first place!
I use a homemade pizza dough - recipe below - tossed into my 11-year-old Zojirushi bread maker on the dough setting - easy stuff. My recipe makes enough for two pizzas and the second half goes into the freezer to save for another quick meal - either pizza or calzones, or even bread sticks. The first picture here, is of the raw dough with only the wonderful sauce so far, and it's sitting on my well worn baking stone from Pampered Chef, which is nice and dark now and missing one corner - but it still works great!

The toppings for this pizza were organic Italian turkey sausage, red and yellow pepper slices, red onion, and mozzarella cheese. Parmesan cheese is always the final touch when it comes out of the oven.

Mmmm...finished product. Fast food at it's best.

Whole Wheat Pizza dough for the bread machine:
2C warm water, 2 tsp. honey, 1 Tbs. olive oil, 1 tsp. salt, 4 C whole wheat pastry flour, 6 tsp. vital wheat gluten/dough conditioner (optional), 3 tsp. yeast. Add these in the order that your bread machine directs. I put mine on the dough setting and that's it. I always watch to make sure the dough is of the correct consistency, and then add a little more water or a little more flour if needed. It shouldn't be too sticky or too rock hard. BTW, you can easily add Italian seasoning, garlic, or whatever else you like.
These recipes will hopefully give you some ideas about how to use produce from your garden or farmer's market. There are also other recipes that are simply here because they are our favorites, or someone made a request at the last church lunch! I'd like to encourage you to alter these recipes to suit your own tastes, your family's needs, and to use what you have on hand. Therefore, some of my recipes will not have exact measurements. So...if any of the recipes leaves you scratching your head, just send me an email and I'll try to answer your question. HappyGrowing@eatingfromthegarden.com