Bay House Pizza

My husband and I received a pizza stone for our wedding. Well, three to be precise. One went to my sister and we kept two - you know, in case we have a party and need two. That's reasonable, right?  

Anyway we've made homemade pizza a few times since then and are learning to master cooking on a pizza stone. The first few times we used cornmeal on the bottom of the pizza dough and tried to push it onto the stone from a cookie sheet. It was really messy. Cornmeal everywhere. And the pizza usually ended up in really weird shapes or folding on itself. Not awesome when you're sliding it onto a sizzling hot surface. The next time we decided to make pizza I decided it was time to splurge on some parchment paper. It made things so much easier and cleaner. Parchment paper is worth it, even if you only use it for this. Trust me.

Now for the name of the pizza. The ingredients don't necessarily scream bays or oceans, there's no seafood on this pizza. But we call it Bay House pizza because the flavors remind us of this amazing pasta we had at the Bay House restaurant in Lincoln City, Oregon, on our honeymoon. That place was so good, we went twice in the five days we were there. The pasta had a smoked tomato sauce with basil, scallops, thinly sliced garlic and Kalamata olives. The flavors were beyond amazing and we still dream of that pasta. And their cantaloupe sorbet.

I first made the pizza just with the tomatoes simply because I had some that needed to be used. But it didn't have as much flavor as I wanted. I saw a handful of chopped Kalamata olives leftover from our salad and decided to try a bite with the olive. That was exactly what it needed. It had become Bay House pizza on accident. A very happy accident that we will keep repeating.

Bay House Pizza

Crust (from Simply So Good)

3 cups unbleached all purpose flour

1 3/4 teaspoons Kosher salt

1/2 teaspoon Instant or rapid-rise yeast

1 1/2 cups water

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together flour, salt and yeast.  Add water and mix until combined.  Cover bowl with plastic wrap and set aside for 12 - 24 hours.

Slow Roasted Tomatoes:

Put 3 c. cherry tomatoes in a loaf pan and toss with 2 tbs. olive oil, 3 tsp. balsamic vinegar, and a pinch each of salt, pepper and garlic.  Bake in oven at 400 degrees for 20 minutes or until burst.  Refrigerate, if needed, until ready to use.

This is a great thing to do when your tomatoes are about to go bad and you don't want to waste them. Once their roasted they can live in your fridge for about a week. What a great way to extend tomatoes shelf life! Plus they are delicious!

Pizza Toppings:

1/2 c. olive oil
2 tsp. oregano
4 tsp. basil 
4 cloves of garlic thinly sliced
1 1/2 c. mozzarella cheese (I used an Italian blend of Asiago, Mozzarella, Provolone, Romano, Parmesan, and Fontina)
1/4 c. finely chopped red onion
1/2 c. coarsely chopped Kalamata olives
3 c. oven roasted cherry tomatoes

When ready to make pizza, preheat pizza stone to 500 degrees for 1 hour.

Generously flour a piece of parchment paper a little wider than your stone.  The dough is very sticky and will stick if not floured well.  

Divide the dough into two pieces.  This will make 2 medium sized pizzas.  

Roll dough out with a floured rolling pin to desired size (just make sure it will fit on your pizza stone)

For each pizza brush on ¼ c. olive oil.  Sprinkle with 1 tsp. oregano, 2 tsp. basil (or put fresh on at end) and a sprinkle of salt and pepper.  Evenly distribute the sliced garlic cloves over both pizzas.

Sprinkle cheese on, you can use more or less as desired.

Sprinkle on the red onion, olives and tomatoes.

Carefully put pizza and parchment paper onto the stone and bake for 10 minutes or until bottom is golden brown. Slide out the pizza and parchment paper onto a cookie sheet or cutting board. Enjoy!

If you want really awesome instructions on how to cook a pizza go to Mel's Kitchen Cafe. This page tells you how you can bake this without a pizza stone. If you don't have a stone yet, I highly recommend paying the bit of money for one. They make pizza so much better! You can even reheat pizza on it by putting the pizza on the stone in a cold oven and letting the pizza and stone warm up together at 350 degrees. Take it out when it's warm and it will be much better than if you heated it in the microwave!