New Year’s Eve Pizza, New Years Day Pizza Rolls, and Peas For Luck

My darlin wife loves pizza and every so often she requires a fix and such was the case on New Year’s eve so she decided to whip one up.  She has made them by enhancing a frozen pizza, using a refrigerated pizza dough, and making the crust from some of her normal bread dough, but for this one, she opted to make the dough from scratch using Regal00 Pizza Flour that she bought from WebstaurantStore.

Bev used a dough recipe Sally’s Baking Addiction called Basic Pizza Dough For Beginners and she followed the recipe as written and shown below.  Sally's site has the recipe, pics, and a how-to video.

Basic Pizza Dough – makes two 12” pies

Ingredients:

1 1/3 cups warm water (between 100-110°F)

2 1/4 teaspoons instant yeast (1 standard packet)*

1 Tablespoon granulated sugar

2 Tablespoons olive oil

3/4 teaspoon salt

3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for hands and surface

sprinkle of cornmeal for dusting the pan

Instructions:

Whisk the warm water, yeast, and granulated sugar together in the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with a dough hook or paddle attachment. Cover and allow to rest for 5 minutes. *If you don’t have a stand mixer, simply use a large mixing bowl and mix the dough with a wooden spoon or rubber spatula in the next step.

Add the olive oil, salt, and flour. Beat on low speed for 2 minutes. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface. With lightly floured hands, knead the dough for 3-4 minutes (for a visual, watch me do it in the video above!). The dough can be a little too heavy for a mixer to knead it, but you can certainly use the mixer on low speed instead. After kneading, the dough should still feel a little soft. Poke it with your finger – if it slowly bounces back, your dough is ready to rise. If not, keep kneading.

Lightly grease a large bowl with oil or nonstick spray– just use the same bowl you used for the dough. Place the dough in the bowl, turning it to coat all sides in the oil. Cover the bowl with aluminum foil, plastic wrap, or a clean kitchen towel. Allow the dough to rise at room temperature for 60-90 minutes or until double in size. (Tip: For the warm environment on a particularly cold day, heat your oven to 150°F (66°C). Turn the oven off, place the dough inside, and keep the door slightly ajar. This will be a warm environment for your dough to rise. After about 30 minutes, close the oven door to trap the air inside with the rising dough. When it’s doubled in size, remove from the oven.)

Preheat oven to 475°F (246°C). Allow it to heat for at least 15-20 minutes as you shape the pizza. Lightly grease baking sheet or pizza pan with nonstick spray or olive oil. Sprinkle lightly with cornmeal, which gives the crust extra crunch and flavor. Highly recommended.

Shape the dough: When the dough is ready, punch it down to release any air bubbles. Divide the dough in half. (If not making 2 pizzas, freeze half of the dough for another time– see freezing instructions below.) On a lightly floured work surface using lightly floured hands or rolling pin, gently flatten the dough into a disc. Place on prepared pan and, using lightly floured hands, stretch and flatten the disc into a 12-inch circle. Lift the edge of the dough up to create a lip around the edges. I simply pinch the edges up to create the rim. If using a pizza stone, place the dough directly on baker’s peels dusted with cornmeal.

Cover dough lightly with plastic wrap or a clean kitchen towel and allow to rest for a few minutes as you prepare your pizza toppings. I suggest pepperoni & green peppers or jalapeño slices, extra cheese pizza, Hawaiian pizza, classic margherita pizza, spinach artichoke white pizza, or homemade BBQ chicken pizza.

Top & bake the pizza: To prevent the filling from making your pizza crust soggy, brush the top lightly with olive oil. Using your fingers, push dents into the surface of the dough to prevent bubbling. Top with your favorite toppings and bake for 12-15 minutes.

Slice hot pizza and serve immediately. Cover leftover pizza tightly and store in the refrigerator. Reheat as you prefer. Baked pizza slices can be frozen up to 3 months.

One of the thing I like most about Bev’s pizza is that she is not stingy with the toppings and this time was no exception as this one included pepperoni, salami, onions, peppers, mushrooms, sun dried tomatoes, and olives.  Rather than pizza sauce, she used our favorite Rao’s Marinara Sauce and for cheese, it was fresh sliced and bagged shredded mozzarella and Parmesan.

The dough recipe made enough for two pizzas, one of which is pictured above, but for the other dough ball, Bev opted to make pepperonipizza rolls using another recipe from Sally’s.  Rather than reproduce it here, just click on the link for the recipe and pics – note the recipe makes two pizza rolls but Bev made just one.

They were very good and I think I may prefer them to my beloved pepperoni rolls plus they are easier to make.

At 8 pm on New Years night, we realized we had not eaten our black-eyed peas for good luck and after experiencing 2020, we didn’t want to take any chances.  Bev found a can of them in the pantry, nuked them to get warm, and we all had a small bowl, so we should be safe for another year.

Photos can be enlarged by clicking on them and the blue words are links.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry

12/31/20- 1/1/21 event date