Total pizza bliss

Yesterday's pizza experiment was an astonishing success. I say "astonishing" not because I lack confidence in my/H's cooking skillz, but because the pizza far exceeded our (moderately-high) expectations. Without further ado, here's the method we followed to produce the bad boy featured at left.

First, the dough. I'd never made pizza dough from scratch before and was indeed a bit intimidated about the prospect - but, as it turns out, this fear was unfounded. The recipe I used is really quite simple:

Ingredients

1 (.25 ounce) package active dry yeast
1 cup warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
2 cups bread flour
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons white sugar

Directions

1. In a small bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water. Let stand until creamy, about 10 minutes.
2. In a large bowl, combine 2 cups bread flour, olive oil, salt, white sugar and the yeast mixture; stir well to combine. Beat well until a stiff dough has formed. Cover and rise until doubled in volume, about 30 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
3. Turn dough out onto a well floured surface. Form dough into a round and roll out into a pizza crust shape. Cover with your favorite sauce and toppings and bake in preheated oven until golden brown, about 20 minutes.
We made a few amendments to this recipe - I let the dough rise for an hour (or just over), having consulted with my mom (a pizza making veteran), who correctly advised that half an hour isn't a long enough rising time. Also, we baked the pizza at 400 degrees, but that's putting the cart before the horse...

Rather than using a tomato-based sauce, we made a fig pesto. H followed Epicurious' classic pesto recipe and added five fresh mission figs, chopped coarsely.

Classic Pesto Recipe @ Epicurious Ingredients

4 cups fresh basil leaves (from about 3 large bunches)
1/2 cup olive oil
1/3 cup pine nuts
2 garlic cloves
1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
1/4 cup freshly grated pecorino Sardo or Parmesan cheese
1 teaspoon coarse kosher salt

Directions

Combine first 4 ingredients in blender. Blend until paste forms, stopping often to push down basil. Add both cheeses and salt; blend until smooth. Transfer to small bowl.

While H made the pesto, I rolled out the dough and placed it on a greased pan. We then topped the dough with the pesto, chevre (about 5 oz.), crumbled feta (1/3 cup or so), sliced white mushrooms, sliced figs (three), a chicken breast that had been sauteed in olive oil with black pepper and rosemary and then chopped, and a wee bit of grated Parmesan. The pizza baked for 22 minutes at 400; the crust was lightly browned and perfectly chewy, and the cheese melted evenly. This was total pizza heaven and a great way of using fresh figs.

One small note: in case you're wondering, the other half of the pizza was a traditional Margherita, made with one heirloom and one Roma tomato. Why make a split pizza, you ask? Having just whipped up the fig pesto idea (and not knowing if the flavors of that pizza would complement one another), we wanted to have a backup pizza in case the experimental one totally sucked. Which it did not, but, you know: precautions.

On that note, make some fig pesto this weekend! You will be filled with so much joy.