Culture Crawl Gourmet Pizza

Yesterday I spent the afternoon speeding along chilly sidewalks from one warm little East Vancouver art studio to another for the Culture Crawl. The last couple studios we stopped at as the dark clouded sky let a few intense blues through the setting horizon, were painting studios with great depth in terms of both colour and subject. They also happened to be right beside a funky little pizza joint, whose large windows displayed crowded tables of other culture crawlers. However, having enjoyed so much buck-a-slice pizza, I have difficulty paying an entrée price for bread with tomato sauce and cheese.

So, inspired by both the creative warmth of the studios as well as the clean bright pizza studio, I went home to my own kitchen.

I found this pizza dough recipe given to me years ago by my sister. And then, because I didn't really have any veggies in the house, except an eggplant and some fresh garlic, I kept it quite simple. But really, simple is as simple does and it was delicious!



Pizza Dough Recipe (I halved this and made two generous personal sized pizzas):
Ingredients: 
2 cup warm water
2 tsp sugar
2 tbs yeast
2 1/2 cups flour
3 tbs oil
1 tsp salt
squirt lemon juice (optional)

Directions: 
Combine Water, sugar, yeast and lemon juice, let stand 'till frothy (5 minutes). Add remaining ingredients and knead dough.

My water/yeast mix did not look very frothy (possibly due to the old expiry date on my yeast) so I added a sprinkle of baking powder to my dough. I kneaded the dough maybe 10 times in the bowl, adding a bit of flour to keep it from getting too sticky, then just stretched the dough out flattish as I was too lazy to get my table messy with flour and rolling pin. I put the dough on an oiled cookie sheet.

Toppings:

• Crushed tomatos (tinned)
• 1/2 a 340 gram block of Italian style mozzerella (the kind that comes in a smaller package than the big block), grated
• Thin sliced garlic (I had some great sized purple garlic from the Armstrong Farmer's Market)
• Diced eggplant, fried 'till soft
• Dried (or fresh) oregano

Spread a layer of crushed tomatoes on the pizza. Add garlic slices, cheese and eggplant. Sprinkle generously with oregano.

Bake in HOT oven (450 degrees) until edges just start to turn gold (I think it only took about 15 minutes in my oven).

Tasty $4 gourmet pizza!