Skillet Pizza

I love homemade pizza. I do not love eating pizza out for several reasons. First, I do not like red sauce. With homemade pizza, I put just enough sauce . . which is probably way less than others would like. When we get a pizza out and it’s swimming in the sauce, I cannot eat it. Second, Vince and I like different ingredients on our pizza. He likes anchovies and sausage on his pizza. I do not. I like onions and jalapeno peppers on mine. He does not.

I came across this pizza crust recipe and the pizza is cooked partially on top of the stove and finished under the broiler. It makes four crusts that will fit into a 12″ cast iron skillet. I actually used 8″ skillets because I had those in the kitchen (I use that size every day). The 12″ skillets were on a shelf in the garage, would have to be washed and I knew the 8″ pizzas would work better for us.

The recipe calls for a scant 1/2 cup of sourdough discard. If you don’t have sourdough starter, why not? Seriously, if you don’t have it, I’m sure you could easily add a bit of yeast, a bit of extra flour and water and it would work just fine.

This one is mine (it has onions). The one on the right is Vince’s with anchovies.

These are the toppings I used.

Ham, anchovies, sauteed onions, mushrooms and jalapeno peppers, ground beef, cheese and sauce. There was pepperoni but it must not have wanted to be in the photograph!

The ground beef is some that I had freeze dried. I rehydrated it today with a mix of water and pizza sauce. It was perfect. I’m going to get more ground beef in the freeze dryer this week. It is one of the best things I’ve freeze dried.

These pizzas were the best I’ve made in a long time. By cooking them on top of the stove, the crust gets as crispy as you want it to be. I cooked them a bit slow at first, then turned the fire up to get a bit of charring here and there, then stuck them under the broiler for just a few minutes. These could easily be finished on top of the stove without even putting them under the broiler, if the need ever arises.

I think this will be my go to pizza recipe for now. I love that I was able to make four crusts. I cut the pizzas into 6 slices. Vince ate three slices. I ate two so we’ll have enough for pizza another day for dinner and then Vince can finish off the two remaining pieces of my pizza on the day I go stitch with my friend. I froze the other two crusts and we will probably have those next weekend.