Pizza Challenge-Round-Up!

Hello!

My belly is full of pizza and that is a good thing.  The pizza I made was pretty ok, too.  Which means I’m heading in the right direction figuring out this xgfx pizza puzzle.  I don’t know what it is with me and pizza, but It’s been the hardest thing for me to adjust to.  I mean there are PLENTY of  pizza doughs out there that are just fine–good, crunchy, and tasty.  Even the pizza mix from Bob’s Red Mill can be good, especially if you doctor it up a little bit, but it just doesn’t SING.  That’s what I’m looking for, y’know, musical pizza.  Anyway, I figure if I keep trying one day something will pop and I’ll figure it out.  In the mean time, the teff and sorghum based dough I made yesterday is my best effort to date.

Teff & Sorghum Spring Pizza

I don’t think the recipe is quite ready to share yet, but it was crunchy (a little too crunchy) and had air pockets.  The air pockets were so crazy, I’m wondering if I should try making pita bread with some of it?  One of the things I did in this was experiment,  that may have set me back a bit was pre-baking the bread, then topping it and baking it longer.  I sorta think it would have cooked better if I’d  just topped it and baked it straight away.   I’ll try at least one more time, before I give up on it though. This was made from teff,* superfine sorghum**, the regular starches, salt, some ground flax and a little olive oil.

I felt like making the toppings a bit different than the standard tomato gravy and vegan cheeze, so instead I spread a hazelnut pesto all over the top, then layered on quickly sauteed veggies we had in the fridge from the FarMar last weekend–slivered fennel, shiitake mushrooms, asparagus and a pepper, since we had that lying around, too.  Yummy stuff.

*Did you know you can find teff flour at affordable prices in Ethiopian grocery stores.  If you have a Little Ethiopia in your city, it’s totes worth checking it out.  We found an 5 pound bag for 8 bucks.

**Authentic Foods’s Superfine Sorghum flour is super fine.  Get it?

Amy from Tahinitoo and one of our regular contributors, also joined me in this challenge!  She is my good friend and so i know first hand how addicted she is to pizza.   I was super glad to hear she was gonna hit this with me.  Since she is AOK eating gluten, this was her first attempt at making xgfx pizza.  I think she did an awesome job.  Her pizza is gorgeous.

Amy's First Attempt = Gorgeous.

You can read all about her pizza here.  Her dough was also yeasted and made from brown rice, sorghum, gf oats and millet and a little almond meal.  The nut meal concept intrigues me, especially in a savory pizza dough, so I’m definitely going to have to experiment with that–IN MY MOUTH.  She also added herbs to her dough, which was a bold move, in my opinion and one that makes her a fine culinary challenger.

Thanks for participating, Amy!  I’m not sure when the next culinary challenge will be, but check back here for it on Fridays, since that’s the day they get posted.

xo kittee