Yesterday I had a craving for pizza, and since I had a box of baby arugula, yes,
I found organic baby arugula at the local Target (did I mention how much I love
Target?) and my latest favorite thing to do with pizza is piling a whole box of
arugula on top of pizza dough, then planting fresh mozarella on top of that before
baking it to a crisp, golden yumminess!
And I did not come up with pizza night on my own. My good friend, Malinda, gets
the credit for that declaration of having a special night centered around a fun food
that most everyone loves! Malinda and her daughter, Claire, make a homemade
dough and create different pizzas based on whatever sounds good to them. There
is something nice about having a food ritual every week to look forward to, but
vary it in ways that will keep it fun. Pizza is the perfect food for this. The dough
is easy to make, easier with a kitchen aid mixer, but very doable with your hands.
And think of all of the calories you will burn kneading the dough! Happy pizza
night!
Pizza dough:
2 tsp. yeast
1/2 tsp. sugar
1 cup warm water
4 cups unbleached all purpose flour
2 tsp. salt
2 tbsp. olive oil
Stir yeast into warm water, then add sugar. Let sit 5 minutes, until it foams.
Mix salt into flour, then add yeast mixture and olive oil. Stir with a wooden
spoon, unless using a kitchen aid mixer with the dough hook, adding more
warm water as needed if too dry. Knead 4-5 minutes and cover with a kitchen
towel and place in a warm area and let rise (at least 30 minutes).
Topping for arugula and blue cheese pizza:
1 small can tomato paste
salt and pepper
1 box arugula (organic baby arugula if you can find it!)
2 balls fresh mozarella
2 wedges blue cheese (total 8-10 oz.)
salt and pepper
Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Grease a large baking sheet with sides using
olive oil. Flour a surface to roll out the dough. Remove dough from bowl
and flatten with your hands, then use a rolling pin and roll out dough to a
bit larger size than the baking sheet. It helps to fold the dough in half and
drape it over baking sheet then unfold and voila you are halfway there!
Fold over the edges to form a neat crust, then spread the tomato paste
(I like to use the back of a soup spoon) onto the rolled out dough.
Season the tomato paste with 1 tsp. salt and 10-12 grinds fresh pepper. Now
for the fun part, pile the arugula onto the tomato paste 
and don’t worry it
will flatten while it bakes. Cut the cheese into pieces, just into chunks, no
need to be fussy about the size and place them on top of the arugula. The
cheese will not cover the arugula completely. Season again with about
1 tsp. salt and freshly ground pepper. Bake in the middle of a 450 degree
oven for 25-30 minutes, until the crust is golden! Enjoy! This pizza serves
4-6 or is really good as a leftover. I made this pizza on Thursday and am
reheating the leftovers tonight (Sunday) but first adding sauteed eggplant
slices and a bit of asiago cheese. Hopefully, yum!
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