Farmers Market Fabulous

If you don't know much about making ass-kicking homemade pizza, you're about to learn.
What I'm talking about is not the Pillsbury pizza dough in a tube type. No, what I'm talking about hardly even involves mozzarella cheese blankets or sugary red sauces.

That crap is for amateurs. Even Domino's admits so.

image courtesy of andjuniorshakers.com

After mastering the art of the dough-- and yes, it does involve more than pouring yeast into flour, letting it rise, then pummeling it into shape-- you can move onto fanciful tricks like GRILLING your muthafuggin PIZZA.

And that is some crazy ass shit, son.

For now, here's the most delicious homemade dough recipe from a most delicious man:

Tyler Florence, Ultimate Pizza Dough

1 ounce fresh yeast

1 cup warm water (110 to 115 degrees F)

1 tablespoon maple syrup

3 cups flour

1 tablespoon sea salt

1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil

Pour the yeast in a small bowl then add 1/4 cup of warm water and the syrup. Stir together and leave for 5 minutes to dissolve.

Put the flour and salt in a mixer fitted with a dough hook and give it a quick spin to mix. Pour in the yeast mixture, the remaining warm water and the olive oil at the same time

Spin on low until the flour and water come together and the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl. Put the ball of dough in a large bowl and drizzle a few drops of olive oil on top to keep it from forming a skin as it proofs. Cover with a towel and leave in warm place for 30 minutes to let the dough proof. When the dough has proofed it will double in size and look spongy.

*Bloggers Common Sense Note: This can positively be done without the jumbo KitchenAid stand mixer and its 17 attachments you don't know how to use. You'll just have to use your noggin and a little bit of good old fashioned sensibility when mixing. Typically, I find that all is as directed above, but mixing by hand uses slightly less flour*


Now, once you have this Ultimate dough, do me a fracking favor and don't try to force it into a circle. I find a jelly roll pan to be prime.

Oil the bottom lightly with olive oil, dust with yellow cornmeal, then proceed to spread dough. Dividing the dough in half and forming two individual, hand pressed ovals works well around here since Chris is such a patsy-ass and refuses to touch my "ONION JAM" pizzas.

Then you'll need some damn toppings for this uncooked slab of carbs. Bobby Flay is a pizza phenom, but he of course GRILLZ his. So save that recipe for when no one is waiting on you to feed their bellies. Rest assured, you will dump half of the pizza in between the grill grates at least the first three times you try. So worth it once you pull your act together though.

Another pizza I'd be willing to have an affair with comes from Cooking Light, volume 13. Which was about 11 volumes more than necessary, but never the less...

Farmers Market Pizza

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
2 cups thinly sliced onion
2 cups thinly sliced red bell pepper
1 teaspoon fresh chopped thyme
5 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
1 cup fresh corn kernels
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon black pepper
1 pound refrigerated fresh pizza crust dough
Cooking spray
5 ounces thinly sliced fresh mozzarella cheese
1/3 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved
1/3 cup fresh basil leaves

Blacken the corn. Season. If you cannot handle these two steps, do not pass Go, do not proceed to the remainder of the recipe. If you can handle charring corn, move along.

Set corn aside, add oil to a skillet and saute onion and bell pepper together until onion appears translucent. Add garlic and thyme or even Herbs de Provence if you're feeling sexy.

Add previously burned blackened corn to the onion jam. Scatter over dough and top with mozzarella. Dust with parmesan glitter, season with S&P. Bake at 425 damn degrees for 20 minutes. Remove pizza and add halved tomatoes. The recipe says do this "evenly" but I think that's some real contrived bullshit. Toss those bastards on, bake another 5-10 minutes.

SHAZAM. Sprinkle with fresh basil and devour.

There you go. Legit homemade pizza.

YOU'RE WELCOME.