Easy Pizza with Farmer's Market Ingredients

Pizza alla Neapoletana

I'm having some problems with my picture editing program so my posts from my Arizona trip are taking a little longer than I wanted. Sooooo...I'm posting a recipe from my weekend trip to the local Farmer's Market. It is held in downtown Omaha in the Old Market Area and I just love going on Saturday mornings....obviously we have some great farmer's here in Nebraska and this is such a wonderful way to support them and get really fresh (and often organic) veggies and meat. I bought some amazing basil, tomatoes and jalapenos so of course first thing I thought of making was pizza!!! I'm not a big fan of lots of sauce on my pizza and with all these great fresh flavors I didn't even add any meat to this pizza and let me tell you....it was just perfect! So next time you want to eat pizza....don't just think of ordering a greasy...saucy pizza over the phone....make your family a really fresh and healthy version and I promise that they will love it!

Avesta's Version of Pizza alla Neapoletana
Pre-heat oven to 450 degrees (use a pizza stone if you have one)

1 Large Pizza Crust (pre-baked) (I like thin crust so I usually use a Middle Eastern flatbread for my crust or I make my own but you can use whatever crust you like)
(12 or 14 inch)
2 garlic cloves chopped fine
1/4 cup olive oil
2 Yellow Tomatoes (or any heirloom tomato you can find) (sliced thin)
3 Roma Tomatoes (sliced thin)
1 Jalapeno (seeded and diced)
1/2 cup chopped fresh basil
fresh mozzarella (I used to large balls that I cut up in small pieces)
sea or kosher salt to taste
1-2 tablespoons olive oil to drizzle on top

Mix the olive oil and garlic and spread all over your pizza crust. Then layer the crust with slices of tomatoes, jalapenos and fresh basil. Sprinkle with salt and top with the fresh mozzarella. Drizzle the top of the pizza with the rest of the olive oil to get that golden brown effect. Bake for about 15 minutes or until it is golden and the crust is crisp.

Make sure to spread the toppings evenly over the crust.
I love fresh mozzarella but if you don't have fresh mozz you can substitute this with any shredded pizza cheese that you enjoy.

This isn't a very good picture but I hope that you can see how good this pizza was with the golden baked fresh mozzarella and all those fresh ingredients I got at the farmer's market...simple but oh so good!

Love my new pizza stone!

All you do is put this baby on your grill, close the lid and let it warm up.
It gets super hot....really fast!

So I got this Pizza Que Grill from Williams-Sonoma and though I had my doubts.......I have to say....I love....love....love it!!! I cannot believe how amazing this thing is! Our pizzas tasted like a brick-oven pizza and it was so easy! I have always wanted an outdoor pizza oven but now I may just be able to save thousands of dollars because this baby is awesome! I even used the thin crust dough recipe from Williams-Sonoma and it worked out great! I put several different toppings in bowls and let the kids make their own pizzas. They loved it....and so did my husband! He ate every bit of his pizza and he never eats all of anything! Making your own pizzas is such a great way to spend time with the family and get the kids involved.
We made smaller pizzas for the kids and let them pick their own toppings.
This is what the kid pizzas looked like....yummy!

Williams-Sonoma Thin Crust Pizza Dough

Ingredients:
1 1/2 tsp. active dry yeast
1 tsp. sugar
3/4 cup warm water (about 105°F)
1 cup cake flour
1 cup plus 3 Tbs. all-purpose flour
1 1/4 tsp. kosher salt
2 Tbs. extra-virgin olive oil

In a small bowl, whisk together the yeast, sugar and warm water and let stand until foamy, about 5 minutes. In the bowl of a food processor fitted with the dough blade, combine the cake flour, all-purpose flour and salt and pulse 3 or 4 times.

Whisk 1 Tbs. of the olive oil into the yeast mixture. With the motor running, slowly add the yeast mixture to the flour mixture, allowing each addition to be absorbed before adding more. Pulse the machine 10 to 15 times to knead the dough. The dough should clean the insides of the bowl but will be slightly sticky.

Coat the inside of a large bowl with the remaining 1 Tbs. oil. Dust your hands with flour and remove the dough from the food processor. Form the dough into a ball and place in the bowl.

Cover the bowl tightly with plastic wrap and let the dough rise in a warm place until doubled in size, 1 to 1 1/2 hours. Divide the dough in half and roll out as directed in the pizza recipe. Makes two 10-inch thin-crust pizzas.

My husbands meat lovers pizza with ground beef & pepperoni.

I also highly recommend the Bialetti Pizza Chopper! It makes cutting pizza so easy! It's so worth $12.95!

http://www.williams-sonoma.com/products/6905780/index.cfm?cm_src=rel

Hometown Pizza Love

I am working on all the pics from the wedding I catered this weekend...so those will start posting this week with some recipes.

For now....I want to talk pizza.

I grew up in a small town in southeast Ohio....Hocking Hills area. We grew up "cruising" one street and hangin' out at one pizza shop....Pizza Crossing. Every time I go back home I have to have Pizza Crossing! There is just something about that pizza...I don't know whether it's the beer in their perfectly crisp crust or the mildly seasoned sauce...the sprinkles of italian seasoning on top or the blend of cheeses that they use or maybe best of all....those little round pepperoni that curl up when baked and hold just the perfect amount of pepperoni grease in them.....YUM!
Pizza Crossing's motto is "The Best Pizza....Period" and I may just have to agree....and it's so much more than just how good the pizza is, for me it brings back all those memories of hangin' out drinking red cream soda and eating pizza...then finishing the night off with their fresh baked chocolate chip cookies......gossiping with friends and watching my friends Marisa and Tiffany do "shots" of sugar packets because they loved being hyper! I love food that not only entices my taste buds but also brings back sweet memories........
http://www.pizzacrossing.com/