Stress Pizza and a Chance to Use Extra Sourdough Starter

I am always trying new recipes for pizza, striving to find the best one. So far this is it. I am also having trouble bringing myself to throw away sourdough starter which you are supposed to do each time you feed it. This pizza dough uses starter so I think we will be eating a lot of pizza around here. This was also unplanned pizza. For those of you not consumed with the NFL playoffs, we are in the midst of them. These games make me very nervous and the only way I can calm myself down is to cook. I was such a ball of tension just before the games this past weekend that I had to make something. This is the result.

3 cups sourdough starter

8 T. olive oil

2 tsp. salt

3 cups flour

mix this all together and knead until you have a smooth ball of dough. This is meant to be a crisp thin crust pizza so no reason to make this rise. Split the ball into 4 pieces and place each piece on a piece of parchment paper sprinkled with four.

Preheat your oven to 500 degrees with a pizza stone in it

Shape each piece into a flat disk.

Push the dough into a thin sheet using the tips of your fingers.

Brush each one with olive oil and bake them for 7 minutes.

I made a simple sauce by using 2 large cans of crushed Muir Glen Fire Roasted Tomatoes and 1 large can of tomato paste. I added some granulated garlic and onion (2 T. each), 1 T. black pepper, 2 T. dried oregano, 1 T. sugar and 2 T. Italian seasoning. Not need to cook this.

Spread the partially cooked crust with some of the sauce. Top with some sliced mozzerella and provolone.

Sprinkle with some grated asiago cheese.

This one was topped with halved, seasoned, green olives and then sprinkled with parmesan cheese.

This one was topped with shaved fresh mushrooms.

The pepperoni pizza was topped with fresh basil after it came out of the oven.

I called the Blog Tech and told him I was making stress pizzas and that he should call his friends. He said he was relieved when he picked them up to find that their were only 4 and not the 20 he expected.

Teddy is the best pizza helper in the world. She is always glued to my feet when I make pizza because she knows with all the grating and slicing of cheese that the chances are very good some will hit the floor. She does an excellent job of cleaning the floor after me. And she is a bit of a pizza crust addict!