Not much can beat a quiet afternoon with the house to myself, whipping up some fresh dough from scratch, smelling the truffle oil and sauteed mushrooms, and truly taking the time to welcome that moment to create and be myself. Of course, the left overs the next day weren‘t bad either.
Ingredients:
- Pizza Crust/Dough – Buy store bought or the dough from scratch below
- Truffle Oil
- 2 Tbls Butter
- 1 Cup Chopped Baby Portabella Mushrooms
- 1/2 tsp dry oregano
- 1/4 Cup roughly chopped Kalmata Olives
- 1/2 – 3/4 Cup shredded Gruyere cheese
- Sea Salt & Pepper to taste
Preparation:
- Prep all of the individual ingredients: Chop the mushrooms, chop the olives, shred the Gruyere, have your oregano, truffle oil, salt and pepper available. Preheat your oven to 425 degrees.
- Melt butter in a skillet to medium high. Add chopped mushrooms with a sprinkling of sea salt and saute until they have cooked through. A little tip with sauteing mushrooms is simply to leave them alone. Let them cook undisturbed for a few minutes on one side and flip over and let the other side cook for a few minutes.
- Assemble your pizza starting with the dough. Drizzle about a tablespoon truffle oil on top and spread around with the back of a spoon. Sprinkle the dried oregano and add the mushrooms, olives and cheese…amounts completely to your liking. Drizzle a little more truffle oil over the top of the cheese with a little sea salt and fresh ground pepper.
- Cook on pizza pan or stone for approximately 25 minutes. Note: truffle oil does have a lower smoke point, so make sure that your vents are on if there is any smoking. Make sure to keep an eye on the pizza…until it is done to your liking. Remove from oven, let cool for a few short minutes and cut. This one is soooooo worth the minimal effort.
Pizza Dough:
- 1 3/8 Cup lukewarm water (approx 95 degrees)
- 1 packet granulated yeast or 3/4 Tbls
- 3/4 Tbls salt
- 1/2 Tbls sugar
- 1/8 Cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil
- 3 1/4 Cup all-purpose flour
Preparation:
Mix water, yeast, salt and sugar in a large bowl. Mix in flour without kneading with a spoon or dough hook on a stand mixer. Cover loosely and allow to rest at room temperature until dough rises and then collapses, approximately 2 hours. You could use dough immediately or refrigerate in a non-air tight covered food container to be used over the next 12 days.
For the pizza, grab about half the dough (should be approx size of a grapefruit). Dust with flour to ease working with it and quickly and smoothly shape into a round pizza shape. As you can see from the pics, this dough likes to rise, so play with it for depth and dough size.
Variations:
- Any homemade pizza can help you clean out your cupboards, so obviously the toppings can be to your liking. Artichokes, capers, sauteed garlic or shallots and spinach could add very smoothly to this pizza.
- Use half of the dough per pizza and you could have more personalized pies. Just remember to reduce the amount of time for cooking and keep an eye on the pie to prevent burning.
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