Pizza Dough and Pesto Pizza

Pizza Dough

4 cups flour
2 Tablespoon sugar
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 cup water
3 Tablespoon olive oil
2 1/4 teaspoon of yeast
corn meal

Mix all together.  I use a bread machine.  Let rise for at least one hour.  Roll out to about one half inch.  Dust pizza pan or baking sheet with corn meal.  Place the crust on top of the corn meal.  Cover with toppings, and bake at 400 degrees for fifteen minutes.





My favorite thing to put on this dough is pesto.





I top it with a couple different kinds of cheese.





Looks like I'm running low on romano cheese...





No worries.  Steve brought me back another wedge from Anchorage.





Top it with some mozzarella.





Bake and enjoy.

Bruschetta

Whenever I get fresh tomatoes I make bruschetta.  It's one of my favorite things in the world.  My initial attempts at bruschetta were inspired by these recipes, but now I just throw the ingredients together without measuring anything.  I taste it and add more of whatever I think it needs.



For this batch, I used half of a large tomato.






Chop the tomato into small pieces.





Fresh basil (significantly less than we needed for the pesto).





I rolled the basil up and sliced it into tiny pieces with my kitchen shears.





If you don't have fresh basil, you can use the dried stuff.





One clove of garlic.  I like mine garlicky.  If you don't, choose a small clove of garlic.





I grated the garlic into the other ingredients.





Extra-virgin olive oil (use the good stuff because it's not going to get cooked)...





And two splashes of white wine vinegar.





Stir it all up.





Slice some baguettes (I'll post my baguette recipe when I figure out how to make nice looking baguettes. Mine are fine for slicing, but they're kind of ugly by themselves).  I used eight slices.





Toast the baguette slices lightly on both sides.  I used a toaster oven.





Drizzle the toasted slices with extra-virgin olive oil...





And top with the tomato mixture.  Sprinkle with salt, and you're ready to enjoy!  I eat these as a meal, but they're also great as appetizers.

Pesto

This is basil.  It came in my Full Circle Farm box.  I like to preserve the basil for use during the winter.  My favorite way to do that is by making pesto.  The internet is awash with recipes for pesto, and I thought I would add mine.  :)





You can make pesto from lots of things, but I always use pine nuts.





A healthy dose of garlic is always a good idea.





And you can never go wrong with olive oil.





Everything needs to get chopped and mixed together.  I use my food processor.





Process it until it's about this consistency.  Then taste it.  If it's kind of blah, add more garlic.  If it's kind of dry, add more olive oil.





The pesto freezes great in an ice cube tray.  The possibilities are endless from there (well, so I hear.  Steve and I are boring and always eat it in pasta).