Greek Pizza

Welcome one and all to my new Food/Cooking blog!  I consider this my first OFFICIAL post.  So there's that.  I suppose it's only fitting for my first official post, I present my first completely original, cooking-related idea.  Usually, I find a recipe that sounds rl rl good, and I follow it with a few personal flares. But today is different my friends, today I present to you:

My Greek Pizza.

First up, I'll start with the crust.  I don't mind saying that I love the recipe from Say Yes to Hoboken.  For the most part, the recipe is pretty standard, it is worth noting that the dough will take an hour to rise, so be prepared for that.

Kneading dough is very cathartic

I've found that while you're waiting for the dough to rise, it is an ideal time to start preparing your sauce and toppings.  I'm not a huge fan of using the pizza sauce from a can (or a squeeze bottle, gross) and instead I like to mix my own from no-sodium-added tomato products.  I haven't perfected my sauce recipe yet, but for this pizza, I sauteed up about half of a white onion and two cloves of garlic.  I then added 1-16oz (Salt added) can of crushed tomatoes, and 1-8oz can of NSA tomato paste and half of a 16-oz can of sliced olives, drained.  I let that stand over medium heat for about 20 minutes and it cooks down nearly perfectly.

And now the good part - the toppings!  I sliced up some tomatoes and used some shredded mozzarella.  I added crumbled feta and the other half of the olives for a little bit of greek flavor and some italian sausage from Gene's Sausage Shop in Lincoln Square.  If you're in the area, I highly suggest stopping in.

Okay, I know that italian sausage isn't even remotely greek. Truth is, I wanted to get some gyro-style lamb to throw on there, but I didn't do my research before heading over to Gene's, and was at a loss for how to make that happen.

I threw the pizza into the oven at 400° for about 10 minutes, and then, I added the experimental topping - skinned and sliced cucumbers.  I was worried that they'd become too dry if I left them in the entire time.

I let all of this bake for another ten minutes, and the result was rather encouraging

I also added a bit of crumbled feta after I took it out of the oven.

So when I thought of making Greek Pizza, besides the gyro-style lamb, the other signature thing I wanted was a tzatziki sauce.  I wasn't sure that using the tzatziki sauce as the base for the pizza was a good idea. I'm not sure what would happen if I cooked that for 20+ minutes at 400°.  So instead I used it to drizzle onto the pizza afterwards, or as a dipping sauce.  Not knowing the first thing about what goes into a tzatziki sauce, I took a trip to allrecipes.com and found this lovely little guy that I highly recommend.  Definitely read the comments about how to thicken up the sauce as it turned out crazy runny, BUT delicious.

Well, there you have it, my first OFFICIAL post on my brand new food blog!  Over the next couple of days I'll be posting some recipes I've made in the past, and announcing a contest for my readers!  

Until next time y'all, peace and love.