No kidding. Chicken Carbonara Pizza this time. See, I'm pretty sure it's not a rut if you make a different kind of pizza every day.
Plus, as Dr. Goddard would say, 'We learned things today.'
One of the things we learned: don't pile the toppings on so damned high. I had the same problem last night but I didn't learn from it. No matter how careful you are transferring peel to stone, two inches of topings jiggle and topple, and you end up with a few bites of topping coming off on the stone. Where they burn, and there's nothing to be done but keep the attic fan going to evacuate the smoke after the pizza is done and there's still a strip of chicken and some cheese stuck to the 550ºF stone. The corn meal that burns on the stone is bad enough, so go easy. And/or make the pie lopsided so when things shift forward (toward the back of the oven), they shift onto pizza dough instead of the stone.
Other than that, this turned out great. Batch #7 dough, the one with a quarter cup of plain yogurt instead of some table sugar to feed the yeasties.
Hand-stretched quite successfully this time. Though batch #8, gotta tweak and experiment after all, omits the extra wheat gluten I've used the past few batches.
Latest Pizza Dough
3 cups bread flour
1-3/4 cups warm water
1 tbsp. yeast proofed in said water
3 tbsp. olive oil
1/4 cup plain yogurt
2 tbsp. wheat gluten
Mix for a minute on low, then beat the hell out of it for eight minutes. Let rise in a covered bowl for three hours, punch down and bag it. Stick it in the fridge for one to six days.
The recipe for this pizza, then:
Chicken Carbonara Pizza
2 grilled chicken breasts (I grilled on charcoal and mesquite last night and put them away) cut into strips
4 strips applewood smoked thick-cut bacon, cut into quarter-inch pieces, fried crisp and drained
1/2 onion caramelized with 2 bay leaves in 2 tablespoons butter
1 tsp. minced garlic
1/2 cup sliced baby portobello mushrooms
1/4 cup Alfredo sauce
2 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
shredded mozzarella (not sure how much, though I probably used too much)
1/4 cup or so shredded parmesan blend (the 5-cheese blend Wal-Mart sells)
After the onions are most of the way there, turn off heat and add garlic, olive oil and mushrooms, toss to coat and leave in hot pan (I have an electric stove, so I left it on the hot burner to finish the job without scorching the garlic). Stretch your dough, thinly coat with Alfredo sauce, put the caramelized onion/mushroom mixture down, followed by the mozzarella, bacon, chicken and parmesan blend. Bake on 550ºF stone for seven minutes, let rest 10 minutes on rack before slicing, then brace yourself for some seriously good eats.
Some fresh rosemary might have been a nice touch, too. Also, for presentation, I'd have served it with salad and veggies. But I ate all that stuff while I was cooking.
This whole Pizza Diet thing is running around in my head lately. I wonder how terrible a diet it really is or isn't. After all, there are plenty of veggies and even some fruit that makes its way onto my pizzas. And while it's not exclusively all I eat lately, it's the bulk of it. Make a pizza, have two or three slices for dinner, have a couple slices for breakfast on the way to work (I love cold leftover pizza straight out of the fridge), and finish the rest off for lunch.
I tend to think bacon is pretty deadly, and there's bacon in this. Though according to the package, two servings of bacon on this pizza. 180 calories, 120 from super-deadly saturated fat, spread out over three meals isn't the worst thing I could do.
You'd buy a diet book from me, right?
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