Pirate Pizza

In Hopkinsville Ky, near Fort Campbell there was a place called Pirate Pizza.  I used to drive by it all the time on the way to visit my brother and always wanted to stop there, but we never did and now its closed.
This recipe has nothing at all to do with that place except I dedicate this pizza recipe to them just because it's pirate themed and I appreciate that.

I plundered this recipe like most things from the internet.  I believe I can give most credit to Tyler Florence from http://www.foodnetwork.com/  his basic dough recipe is what I use.  I'm pretty sure he stole it as well because if you search for pizza dough recipe you will find a kajillion similar recipes.  Yes kajillion is a real number...it's a lot of those O's when you search on Google.com.

Friday night is pizza and movie night at our house.  I make the dough and everyone gets to choose thier own toppings.  This recipe will make aprox. four 8 to 10 inch pizzas depending on how thin you make the dough. I've stretched it to 5 when we have company and no one noticed their pizza being smaller. 

My friend John is obsessed with his pizza's, he's a real artist. The man can teach us all a thing or two about pizza and his endless pursuit for the perfect pie. I admire him for that, especially when he invites me over. I do not have the patience and foresight to make my dough 24 hours ahead of time and let it rise in the refrigerator though. I have a hard time waiting the hour this requires. Once I smell the yeast fermenting I want pizza NOW!

This is my version of pizza that you can make with little trouble that is cheap for the whole family. The most expensive part is the toppings. If you want the best pizza, I suggest you talk to John. but this one is pretty good. You can use the bread flour if you have it...it does make a better crust, but the regular all purpose flour works just fine.

I use my lovely red kitchenaid 5qt mixer fitted with the dough hook, you can mix this by hand, but I'm lazy. also the kitchenaid is the way blackbeard did it back in the old days. You do want that authentic cannon fired crust, right?

2 cups warm water
2 packages active dry yeast
1 tsp sugar (regular or brown)
2 TBS kosher salt
2 TBS olive oil
5-6 Cups All purpose flour (or bread flour)

Pour the warm water (not too hot or you'll kill the yeast) into the mixer's bowl.  Add the yeast and go do something for about 5 minutes to give the yeast time to wake up.  It will start forming little bubbles when its awake.  Sprinkle the sugar into the mixer bowl to feed the little suckers.

Pour in the salt and olive oil. Add half the flour.  Attach the dough hook and turn the mixer on low.   As the flour gets mixed in,  turn the mixer up to speed 2.

This is where I used to mess up my dough, I just dumped all the flour in at once.  Depending on humidity, the alignments of the planets, what angle your head is tilted and other factors, your dough could take 5 cups of flour or more.  Just keep adding it slowly till the dough comes off the bottom of the mixing bowl and no longer sticks all over your hands when you touch it. See the pictures below.

Once the dough is ready, turn off the mixer and unceremoniously dump your dough onto a lightly floured surface.  Knead the dough a few times till it's just a tiny bit sticky.  You want the dough a bit on the tacky side if it gets too dry it won't work properly.  Knead until smooth.

Spray a large bowl with cooking spray.  Roll the dough into a giant ball making sure it's as smooth as possible on the top. Place the dough into the bowl and spray the top with more cooking spray.  Cover the top with plastic wrap or a wet towel.  Place the bowl in a warm place.

While your dough is rising you have about an hour to pre-heat your oven, grill, cannon or whatever else you want to cook it in.  If you have a pizza stone (I HIGHLY reccomend one) place it in your cooking device and crank the hell out of the temperature control.  You want to cook your pizza anywhere from 500 - 600 degrees.  I like my grill the best, but the children think the crust gets burned on the bottom.  Adults call this delicious. 

Aside from pre-heating your oven and fending off questions like "Are we having pizza for dinner???" , "When will it be ready?" ,  "is it ready yet?" and "when do you plan on cleaning up that mess you made?" you can use this time to cut up your toppings.  You don't want to go too overboard on the toppings or it won't cook right. Also make sure all your meat toppings are pre-cooked.

After an hour your dough should be ready. Dump it out on the counter and punch all the air out of it. flatten it out and knead it a few times.  Cut the dough into 4 (or more) pieces and roll these into little balls.  Set them aside on the counter and cover them with plastic wrap or a wet towel. 

Grab a dough ball, and start flattening it out, tossing it up in the air, use a rolling pin if you have to. Make it as thin as you want.  It doesn't have to be round, it's your pizza.

I use a pizza peal to get my pizza into the oven.  You can probably use a flat cookie sheet with similar results.  Sprinkle a LOT of corn meal on the pizza peal...seriously, if you think you have enough, add more.

place the pizza dough on the peal and shake it around a bit to make sure it moves.  Put your sauce on the pizza and then toppings and load it up with cheese. If you need a sauce recipe I will post one soon.  It's good for pasta or pizza. The jar sauce works well too.

Once you have your pizza ready, put it in the oven for 6-10 minutes...keep an eye on it till the crust has risen on the edges and the cheese is brown. With my oven I have time to make the next pizza and then I just trade them out.

Sice your pizza and enjoy! Ya scurvy dogs!

Mixed Berry Crisp

Really this whole thing is my wife's fault.  While I'm the one that enjoys cooking and baking...she enjoys trolling blogs and recipe sites for new things for me to cook.  A few days ago she came accross  this Strawberry-Rhubarb crumble from Smitten Kitchen.  Go on click it. Doesn't that look wonderful? 

We didn't have any rhubarb, not that I'd want any sort of veggie sneaking into my dessert anyway. What we did have were some strawberries, blueberries and blackberries. Same thing as rhubarb, right?  I thought so.

The Recipe:

Filling
3 containers of fruit
1 -2 TBS Sugar (depending on how sweet you want the fruit)
3 TBS Corn Starch



Topping
2/3 cup all-purpose flour
2/3 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 cup butter


Pre-heat your oven to 350. Cut up the strawberries into chunks, slices, ribbons, whatever.  You can leave the other berries alone, I think they've learned their lesson from seeing thier friends chopped up. Sprinkle the sugar and corn starch onto the fruit and then mix it all up.  It should look like this:

The topping is a recipe I plundered from allrecipes.com, but you can find these sort of toppings everywhere. The reason we like this one is because of the addition of rolled oats.  The oats give it a nice crisp texture plus it turns into to BREAKFAST!  especially if you replace the obligatory ice cream topping with yogurt.  See, now it's helathy. You're welcome.

To make the topping, I reccomend using a food processor.  Cut the butter into small chunks.  Dump all the ingredients into the food processor and pulse a few times till the butter is all mixed in.  You will still see a few small bits of butter, that's ok.

pour the fruit mixture into your baking dish and then sprinkle the topping over it.  Bake for about 30 minutes until the topping is golden brown. 

Serve with ice cream (or yogurt).

Welcome Aboard Me Hearties

So what is pirate baking?  I'm sure we've all done it, whether it be with baking or cooking...its borrowing little bits of a recipe here, plundering some tips there, and coming up with our own versions of other people's hard work.  Anyone who denies doing this is a liar, so you can start ignoring everything they say from now on.  There, that should save you some time from listening to their endless yammering.  You're welcome.

So on this blog, I'm going to share some of my super secret recipes that I've worked on over the years, they are all my own work, and not stolen from anyone else. WAIT!  Where are you going?

OK, so they are recipes I've stolen (there I said it), most of them will be baking, but sometimes they will just be dinners that I make for my family.  I'll try to give credit to the original recipes, when I can remember where I found them. Along the way, I'll make all kinds of innapropriate comments about things and reference pirates a lot.

I'l be posting my first recipe soon, its a Berry Crisp that I found on a Spanish treasure ship along the coast of South Carolina...it be true, me lads!