Pizza with Leftovers

This pizza was AWESOME. I made it with the left over rib meat from Jerod's lunch at The Pit. If you have not been there, you should go. Like every other Empire Eats Restaurant I've been to in Raleigh, it is good eatin! So far we've tried all but Sitti, which is Lebanese cuisine.

(Note: This was the first time I have ever tried to make homemade pizza dough. I usually get the one from Trader Joe's, but I was never happy with it.)



The dough recipe I used is from a favorite blog of mine called Smitten Kitchen. She makes a really simple homemade pizza. Here are some of her tips for pizza making that really helped me.

What went wrong? It turned out pretty well, BUT I think it would have turned out better if I had used actual plastic wrap and NOT aluminum foil. I do not think it trapped the air in the bowl, and hindered the dough from rising to its full potential. I also did not really knead the dough as much as I should have. I really did not know what it meant. But this is a great video I found later that I'll be using next time.
What went well? Well it tasted great, and I will never cook pizza unless I use the broiler EVER AGAIN. Despite my fear the dough did not turn out, it cooked up beautifully under the broiler. I may actually give TJ's dough another go, and see if this technique works. Turning on the broiler 10+ minutes before using it, made a big difference.

Pizza with Leftovers

1 C Monterey Jack cheese
1/2 Yellow Onion, sliced thin
1 Recipe Homemade BBQ sauce
Leftover meat off pork ribs, about 1 C, cut up smaller/shredded
1 Recipe Homemade pizza dough (recipe bellow) or store bought

Make the dough:

3/4 C whole-wheat flour
3/4 C all purpose flour (plus more for your counter)
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon active dry yeast
1/2 cup warm water, you do not want to kill your yeast
1 tablespoon olive oil (plus more for your bowl)
Corn meal

Baking pan
Plastic wrap

(Note about how I cook: I like to get all my ingredients out and measured for the most part before I start actually doing anything.)

PREP #1: lightly flour your work space, and have extra flour handy.
MIX: In a bowl, place flour, salt and yeast; then add water and olive oil. I used a wooden spoon to gather all ingredients together in a nice ball.
KNEAD: Dump your ball our onto your prepped work space and knead the dough for several minutes. (very important step)
RISING: I put a drop of olive oil in the bowl I used earlier, and rubbed it all over. Then, I put the dough back in the bowl. As mentioned before I put aluminum foil but you should put plastic wrap. Leave it for an hour.
Place dough back on your floured work space, press the dough with your hands and roll back into a ball. Place back under the plastic wrap and leave it along for another 20 min.
PREP #2: Prep all your pizza topping ingredients. And turn on your broiler.
ROLL: Put a little corn meal down on the baking sheet. Then roll out the dough. You will end up making a thin crust pizza with this recipe. Place your rolled out dough on your baking sheet.
I'm sure you could double it to feed more people or to have a thicker crust?
INGREDIENTS: Spread out BBQ sauce on the dough, spread onions out, shredded rib meat, then lastly, spread out shredded cheese over the top.
BROIL: I think I had it in the oven for about 10 minutes.

Everything was hot and crusty... yum! Crusty cheese is one of my favorite things :) The crust was cooked all the way through and not soggy! I wish I had a picture for you but before we thought about it, we had eaten it all! All in all I would call it a semi-success but worth trying again to perfect it! What a great date night this would make though? I always love cooking with Jerod. You can also adapt this in anyway. What I love about cooking is how the better you get, you don't need to panic when you do not have a particular ingredient, you take the basic techniques you know and build on them. Enjoy!

dmj.