One week ago today, when our kids were home, the two couples staged their own pizza bake-off for supper. Their creations posed for a photo shoot as they came out of the oven, and then we devoured the results. Bellies full, the cooks wrote down their recipes, so I could share them with you.
This week’s recipe comes from the southern Minnesota Philos. The dough recipe comes from an Italian Country cooking cookbook they found somewhere. The sauce and toppings are their own creations. Hiram and are now two of the recipe’s biggest fans. The Minnesota Philos even left some semolina so we can make it again. Then I’ll have to find a store around here that carries it. Any suggestions about where to look?
Southern Minnesota Pizza
Pizza Dough: Sauce:
3 cups all-purpose flour 1 can pizza sauce with three cloves of
1/3 cup semolina 3 cloves crushed garlic
2 teaspoons salt
1 1/2 cups warm water Toppings:
1/4 cup olive oil chopped mushrooms, onion, olives
2 teaspoons dried yeast
Combine flour. semolina and salt in the bowl of an electric mixer. Combine water, oil, and yeast in a small bowl and stir to dissolve yeast. Combine the two mixtures in the mixer bowl and mix with beater until smooth, then change to the dough hook and mix at moderate speed for 10 minutes or until dough is smooth and pliable. (If you don’t have a mixer with a dough hook, knead by hand for 15-20 minutes.)
Oil a bowl, place the dough in the bowl and turn over to coat all sides with oil. Cover with plastic wrap and rest in a warm place until doubled in size (45 minutes to an hour) or overnight in the refrigerator.
Preheat oven to 500 degrees. Punch down dough and roll out. (Our cooks made a thick crust pizza, but the dough could be divided for 2-3 thin crusted ones.) Transfer dough onto a heated pizza stone.
Combine pizza sauce and crushed garlic. Spread over crust. Add toppings and spread 2 cups of shredded mozzarella cheese over top. Sprinkle with Italian seasoning.
Bake at 500 degrees until bubbly in the middle. Cut into pieces and serve. Mmm, mmm.
Come back next week for the second pizza bake off recipe. It’s as good as this one, so you won’t want to miss it!
