We are a family that loves pizza. Cheese pizza is a favorite of all of my kids so when I saw the day 8 recipe on the calendar, I felt pretty optimistic. And while the pizza recipe wasn't a traditional one, in the back of my mind, I knew I could sell it to the kids pretty easily if there were dissenters. The result? Check out the smiling faces on my two youngest kiddos!
Like most make-from-scratch pizza recipes, day 8's recipe, Prosciutto Pizza with Corn and Arugula from Eating Well, constructing the meal didn't take long but since I was making my dough from scratch, it does take a span of time. My total active time for this meal was probably only 15 minutes. But my total time was around 2.5 hours after proofing, pizza building, and cooking. If you are adding this to a weeknight meal, just make sure you allot enough time or buy pre-made dough from the grocery store.
I have a bread maker that I love. I guess I should say I have a dough maker I love. I am not great at actually making bread in my bread maker but use it quite often to easily make and proof dough recipes. There is an easy pizza dough recipe in the little cookbook that came with it so I dumped in the six required ingredients and pressed the magic GO button. Ninety minutes later, I had beautiful, fluffy pizza dough.
Because my recipe makes two 14-inch pizzas, and we only need one, I divided the dough in half and put the second portion in the fridge to use for cinnamon rolls in a few days.
Next, I slowly worked the remaining dough into a circle to fit on my pizza pan. Since we do pizza at home quite a bit, I've learned a few tricks to stretch the dough.
Your dough has to be room temperature. You cannot stretch cold dough. The molecules (or proteins or whatevers) are too tight and just rip when you stretch. Or they annoyingly pull back to the same exact shape they were in before you started stretching. If your dough is cold, set it down and walk away. Come back in 15 minutes and check if it's ready.
Use your fist to stretch the dough. Fingers are long and pointy. It's easy to poke a hole in your dough when stretching with your fingers. If you make a fist, and then roll that on the inside of the dough you are stretching, it is much less likely you will cause a tear.
BE PATIENT. This is the hardest one for me. Let gravity do a lot of the work. No need to stretch too hard. The weight of your dough will win out.
Once the dough was stretched out, I put it on my pizza pan and began assembly. With only a handful of ingredients, the pizza came together really fast. I first mixed the garlic and olive oil together and spread it on the pizza. I tried spreading with the same spoon I used to mix the ingredients but it wasn't working so great, so I pulled out my cooking brush and used that. Much better.
Next, I ripped up the prosciutto into smaller pieces and randomly dropped it all over the pizza. I had thawed frozen corn earlier in the day so I sprinkled a good portion of those on the the pizza next. Lastly, I topped with the shredded mozzarella. Full transparency, after the oil and garlic, I really didn't measure any of the toppings. I just put them each on until I thought it was enough. It is pizza after all - no measuring necessary.
The pizza went in for 18 minutes. Easy peasy.
The recipe calls for topping with arugula when it comes out. I had purchased arugula earlier in the week but didn't pay attention to the sell by date. So when I pulled out the bag to top it, the arugula was slimy. Luckily, I had a baby romaine mix in the fridge, so the pizza got topped with that. Not quite the same flavors but still the green veggie I wanted on top.
Everyone killed the pizza. Now as you may have guessed, not everyone (Bennett) ate it with the salad on top but everyone ate at least two pieces. Given the new prosciutto topping and non-traditional "sauce", I was very happy about the amount everyone ate. Joel has historically said he doesn't like prosciutto so I was very happy he gobbled it down. And I'm pretty sure if I had attempted to introduce my kids to prosciutto in a different form, they would have turned their noses up at it. But since the foreign food was introduced via a food they were already extremely comfortable with, the new topping combo was easily accepted and enjoyed.
Highs:
EVERYONE enjoyed the prosciutto and corn on top of the pizza.
Parker gave this recipe his highest rating yet and has already asked to have it again.
Bennett gave it a 4!
Lows:
Since I chose to make my own dough, this recipe required a lot of plan ahead time. If I had been late or delayed in getting the dough started, the meal wouldn't have worked in our timeline.
The Scores
Joel: 4
Allison: 4
Parker: SOLID 4
Lucas: 5
Bennett: 4
Ashlynn: 4
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