Slow Food Sunday

Since I am now a 8-5 Monday through Friday worker, weekends become very important. As Les Claypool of Primus said, "Funny thing about weekends when you're unemployed. They don't mean quite so much, except you get to hang out with all of your working friends."

Anyhow, Sunday to me has become the wind-down day. More often than not cooking a good meal or doing plenty of baking seems just the way to end a week and prepare for the start of the new one. Having a whole day also allows for food that requires longer preparation. I know probably anyone reading my blog is familiar with the slow food movement, in fact I did a post on slow food awhile ago. Well yesterday a simple pizza was on the menu. With it came the benefit of using some excess vegetables we had sitting around. Coming up with summer squash recipes is always a bonus.
Baby Summer Squash

Here is a quick rundown of my dough and sauce recipes;

Zucchini Pizza Dough
1 C warm water
2.5 t yeast
App 2 C grated zucchini / summer squash
salt
2 T Olive Oil
App 3 C Flour (I use a combo of white wheat, barley, and whole wheat)

*Liberally salt grated squash and place in colander for 15 or so minutes. Squeeze out excess moisture with a towel. Set aside.
*Add yeast to warm water and dissolve. Let sit about 10 minutes then add the salted, hopefully fairly dry, squash and olive oil. Gradually add Flour until it can be placed on a work surface and kneaded. Don't be surprised if you end up adding about 3.5 C of flour, but try not too add that much. The dough will be a bit stickier than typical pizza dough. Knead for several minutes then place in an oiled bowl covered with a moist cloth to rise for 1-2 hours.
*Divide in half and shape into round crusts either in a pan or a pizza peel.
Ahhh Pizza Dough

Basic Sauce

Okay I basically make-up my sauce recipe each time. Since I started with raw tomatoesyeah, these beauties, that I blanched, peeled, and cooked down, I guess I had about;

2C Chunky tomato sauce
3 cloves garlic
1-2 T chopped basil
1 T chopped oregano
2 T olive oil
salt
dash of pepper

* I generally cook the garlic,oil, salt, and pepper for about ten minutes then throw in the herbs at the end
I do love the smell of Italian herbs and garlic.

After the sauce and dough is done it's a matter of building the pizza and popping it into a hot oven (I bake mine on a preheated stone at 475 F for about 15 minutes.

The building is complete.

*note-the picture of the baked pizza had an off-colour so I decided not to post it. It really was lovely and tasty though.