Provolone Pizza; Tri-Color Pepper Pizza; Bebbo

                                      

TRI-COLOR PEPPER PIZZA (a.k.a. Olive Pizza)

Adapted from James McNair's Vegetarian Pizza

3/4 cups warm water
1-1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast
1/4 teaspoon sugar
1-3/4 cups bread flour
1-1/4 teaspoon salt


¼ cup plus 1 tablespoon olive oil, divided
1 cup of yellow pepper strips (membrane and seeds removed, sliced into thin, long strips)
1 cup of green pepper strips (membrane and seeds removed, sliced into thin, long strips)
1 cup of red pepper strips (membrane and seeds removed, sliced into thin, long strips)
1½ cups of thinly sliced onion (about one large onion)
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
2 tablespoons minced garlic
½ teaspoon minced dried bay leaves
½ teaspoon dried summer savory
1 teaspoon dried basil
½ teaspoon dried oregano
½ teaspoon crushed dried rosemary
salt
freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
1 pound shredded Fontina cheese, divided
1 cup pitted assorted oil-marinated olives

Combine the water, yeast, and sugar.  Set aside for at least five minutes or until mixture becomes foamy on top.  Stir together the bread flour and salt in the bowl of a mixer fitted with a dough hook.  Add the yeast mixture and stir at a low speed until dough forms a ball around the dough hook.  Place in a greased bowl.  Cover with a towel and place in a warm, dry place for at least an hour or until dough has doubled in size.

Preheat oven to 500º F with a pizza stone inside (if using).  Roll, stretch, and shape dough into a 15 inch 
circle on a corn-meal dusted pizza peel or board.

Heat ¼ cup of olive oil in a sautè pan over medium-high heat.  Add the onions and peppers and cook over a medium-low heat until the vegetables have become soft and are starting to brown up.  Add the balsamic vinegar, bay leaves, savory, basil, oregano, and rosemary.  Add salt and pepper to taste.  Cook for an additional 15 minutes at a low heat.

Brush one tablespoon of olive oil over the dough circle.  Spread the Dijon over this.  Sprinkle 8 ounces of cheese over the mustard.  Arrange the pepper mixture over the cheese.  Slice the olives in half and distribute evenly over the peppers.  Top with remaining cheese.  Cook in preheated oven for about 5 minutes or until crust is golden brown and the cheese has melted and is beginning to develop some brown areas.

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PROVOLONE PIZZA

Adapted from All the Best Pizzas by Joie Warner

3/4 cups warm water
1-1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast
1/4 teaspoon sugar
1-3/4 cups bread flour
1-1/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon olive oil

1 cup slow-simmered pizza sauce (see Nov. 3, 2011 for recipe) 

3 ounces shredded Provolone cheese

1-1/2 ounce shredded mozzarella 

1 teaspoon dried oregano

Combine the water, yeast, and sugar.  Set aside for at least five minutes or until mixture becomes foamy on top.  Stir together the bread flour and salt in the bowl of a mixer fitted with a dough hook.  Add the yeast mixture and stir at a low speed until dough forms a ball around the dough hook.  Place in a greased bowl.  Cover with a towel and place in a warm, dry place for at least an hour or until dough has doubled in size.

Preheat oven to 500º F with a pizza stone inside (if using).  Roll, stretch, and shape dough into a 15 inch 
circle on a corn-meal dusted pizza peel or board.  Brush the crust dough with the olive oil.  Spread the tomato sauce over the dough, leaving a half inch border. Mix the cheeses together and cover the sauce with it.  Toss oregano evenly over the cheese.  Bake on pizza stone (if using) for 5-10 minutes or until the cheese starts to brown.

     When I started working on these recipes Thursday afternoon, I was already behind the eight-ball.  Apparently, when I went shopping for the ingredients, I somehow missed that I needed Provolone for the Provolone pizza.  I had intended on stopping at Cub on my way home from class Thursday, but I had (of course) forgotten and had to venture out again.  I purchased my Provolone, got home and realized I was out of onions, and the Tri-Color pizza had onions in it.  I really didn't want to go to the store, so I called my sister, Jennifer, who lives two blocks away.  Thank goodness she had one to spare! 

     She asked me if I needed anything else or if one onion was enough.  I told her I was sure I only needed one onion, even though I hadn't double-checked the recipe before I came over.  I couldn't imagine there would be any call for more than one onion on a pizza.  When I got home with my newly acquired onion, I read the recipe again, and it called for two cups!  I knew I was going to get close with the one onion, but it wasn't quite going to be 2 cups.
     When planning this week's menu, I bumped the Tri-Color Pepper pizza recipe up a week, because I had peppers NOW, and they weren't going to last much longer.  However, I didn't have any yellow peppers and it seemed like that was important to the aesthetics of the recipe.  I ended up buying those.  The size of the two yellow peppers that I purchased at Lund's put my little red and green peppers to shame.  They were twice their size.  When it actually came time to cut up the peppers, one of the yellow peppers was the equivalent of two of my home grown peppers, so I decided to leave one of them out.

          The peppers and onions practically overfilled my 12 inch sautè pan, but I was confident that they would cook down to half their size.

     My assumption was correct, but once they had cooked down, and I added the balsamic vinegar, garlic, and spices, they barely resembled their original color and brightness.  I think I could have done without the yellow peppers and it wouldn't have been noticed.

     I was pretty excited about the olives I had found at Lund's.  There were some varieties in the mix I had never seen before.

     The original recipe had called for 4 cups or 20 ounces of Fontina.  I cut that down to an even pound, because it just seemed like an inordinate amount of cheese.  It still looked like (dare I say?) too much cheese.  I wasn't sure if it is possible ever to have too much cheese, so I kept with the entire pound.

     Jennifer arrived just after I had finished loading all of the ingredients for our drink into the shaker.  I added ice, shook it up, and poured it out.  It was a beautiful light orange color, and it tasted like summer in a glass (or is it considered a bowl?).  It was all of the flavor and joy of freshly squeezed juices, but without the cloying sweetness that lingers on your tongue.

BEBBO

2 spoonfuls runny honey

2 measures gin

½ measure freshly squeezed orange juice

1 measure freshly squeezed lemon juice

Stir the honey and gin together in a shaker until honey is dissolved.  Add ice, gin, orange juice, and lemon juice.  Shake.  Strain into a chilled cocktail glass.  Float a thin slice of lemon on the surface of the drink.

     I promptly put her to work assembling the Tricolor Pepper Pizza.  We debated about the placement of the cheese.  The directions said to put it on first with the remaining ingredients on the top of the cheese.  We recalled the irritation of having to continually pick up our sun-dried tomatoes last week that fell off, because the cheese wasn't holding them on.  We decided that the cheese should be split into two applications - half before the onions, peppers, and olives, and the remainder after to hold everything in place.

     Meanwhile, I worked on assembling the Provolone Pizza.  I had found some slow-simmered tomato sauce in my freezer that we used instead of the recommended sauce for the pizza.  It was a little zippy, but it was nice.
     The amount of cheese called for in the recipe wasn't enough.  I briefly thought about taking some of the Fontina designated for the pepper pizza and putting it on, but thought better of it.  If I had done that, it really couldn't continue to hold the title "Provolone" pizza - we might have to change it to "Three Cheese Pizza" or something like that.  I had already pumped up the amount of mozzarella a little before adding the Provolone and sprinkling it over the pizza, but there were still some bare spots that I couldn't tolerate.  I shredded an additional couple of ounces of the Provolone and filled in the gaps.

     Both pizzas were assembled and ready for the oven.  Our first batch of Bebbo had disappeared somehow, and I was just mixing a second one when Pam arrived.  She took a sample sip and decided she needed one of her own, which we promptly provided.

     When the Tri-Color Pizza came out of the oven, it was gorgeous!  Unfortunately, you couldn't see any of the colors of peppers, but the colors of the exotic olives bled right through all of the cheese.  The oil from the olives and probably some from the cheese had crisped up the crust and made it a lovely golden brown.

     The Provolone Pizza was no slouch in the looks department either, but it really did seem ordinary looking once we had already been graced by the reds and purples of the pepper pizza.

     Just as we were sitting down to eat our creations, Jeff came home with some wine that we were required to sample.  He wanted our opinions on them, because he was thinking about carrying them in his wine shop.  We begrudgingly obliged.

      The Tri-Color Pepper Pizza was the star - not only in looks but in taste as well.  I propose changing the name to Olive Pizza, though because the olives truly dominated the flavor.  Yes, we could taste the wonderful carmelization of the peppers and onions, but they were just background noise for the olives.  They provided a nice, warm, almost-sweet base to the rich, salty, tangy flavors of the olives.  I am not a huge fan of olives, but this pizza may have converted me.
     Unfortunately, this overshadowed the Provolone Pizza.  It had great flabvor, mind you, but it had been dwarfed.  I couldn't appreciate the subtle tang of the provolone with the underlying sharpness of the sauce.  It was there, and I did like it, but I was only thinking of my next bite of olive pizza.


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