Cauliflower Pizza

I do not eat bread anymore, however I really miss pizza.So, I decided to make a healthy pizza with cauliflower and it turned out great!

Ingredients

For the base

• 1/2 cauliflower
• 1 boiled potato
• 2 eggs
• spinach (optional)
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• parsley
• salt
• cumin
• red pepper
• black pepper
• oregano

For topping

• 1 tablespoon tomato paste
• Salt,pepper,oregano
• Spinach
• Onions
• Pepperoni
• Grated mozzarella

Preparation

Steam and chop cauliflowers and mix them with chopped potato, eggs, spinach, parsley, olive oil and spices. Pour it into a baking pan. Bake it in 400 F preheated oven around 30 minutes. In the mean time to prepare the sauce mix tomato paste and salt, pepper and oregano and some water. Put the sauce on the cauliflower base. Add mozzarella, onions, spinach and peperoni. Broil it 10 minutes and your pizza is ready. It will have a better texture the next day. Enjoy!

Puffy Pizza with Beef

Ingredients

For the Dough

• 3 1/2 cup of flour
• 1 cup of milk
• 1/4 cup of canola or vegetable oil
• 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
• 1 tablespoon dry yeast
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1/2 cup of olive oil
• Salt

For the Fill

• 1/2 lb ground beef
• 1 little onion
• 1 tablespoon red pepper paste
• 2 tablespoons of pomegranate sauce (optional)
• 2 tablespoons of olive oil
• 1 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 teaspoon red flare pepper
• 2 teaspoons salt
• Parsley

Preparation

Mix dry yeast with warm milk and sugar and wait until it rises. Take a large bowl and put the yeast mixture, canola/vegetable oil, salt and vinegar. Add flour slowly and knead it until it becomes a soft dough.

Keep the dough in a warm place couple of hours. In the meantime to prepare the fill take a large bowl put ground beef, chopped onion and parsley, red pepper paste, pomegranate sauce (you can find it in Middle East Shops), olive oil, black and red pepper and salt and then mix them together.

When the dough is ready take small pieces from it and with the help of olive oil, make thin square shape and then wind up all edges.

Put square shaped pieces on a glass pan and put some fill on top of it. 

Bake it in 375 F preheated oven about 40 minutes, until it gets red. Enjoy!

Puffy Pizza

Ingredients

For the dough

• 4-5 cups of flour 
• 4 tablespoon sugar
• 3 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 dessertspoon instant yeast
• 1 cup of milk
• 1 cup of water
• 1 cup of canola/vegetable oil
• 1 egg
• Sesame/black seeds

For the topping

• 1 tomato
• 1 green pepper or jalapeno
• Mozzarella and feta cheese

Preparation

Take a small bowl and add sugar and instant yeast in it. Add warm milk and water and wait until it rises. Remember milk should be not cold, but not too hot either. 

After it rises take it to a larger bowl and add oil, salt and egg white. If you do not know how to separate egg yolk and white, check it out from here http://foodrecipesaroundtheworld.blogspot.com/2013/06/cheese-bread.html. Add flour to the mixture slowly and knead it until you have a very soft dough. It takes about 4-5 cups of flour.

Keep the dough in a warm place couple of hours until it doubles its size.

Then take small pieces from the dough and make small pizza base. 

Put cheese, pepper and tomato in the middle of it and apply egg yolk at the edges, then sprinkle some sesame and black seeds.

You can use any ingredients, such as pepperoni, mushroom, olives and even cook it plain as well, it will still taste good! Cover the oven grill with aluminium foil and put all pizzas on top of it. 

Bake 40 minutes in 375 F preheated oven. Your pizza is ready, enjoy!

Tortilla Pizza

To make pizza out of tortilla is super easy, and the taste is still good. If you do not have much time you should definitely try this recipe.

Ingredients

• 10-12 tortilla breads

For the fill

• 1 lb ground beef
• 1/4 cup olive/canola/vegetable oil
• 1 tablespoon tomato paste
• 1 tablespoon red pepper paste (optional)
• 2 sweet peppers 
• 1 small onion 
• 2 tomatoes 
• 1 piece of garlic
• Parsley
• Salt
• Black Pepper
• Red flare pepper

Preparation

First chop tomatoes, onion and peppers in small pieces, mince garlic and then put all the ingredients for the fill a large bowl and knead until all of them mixed together. 

Lay tortilla breads on aluminium foil and spread the mixture on top tortillas. 

Preheat oven to 400F and bake them about 15 minutes. After you take them from oven put in a pan on top of each other and cover the pan with aluminium foil or a tablecloth. In this way they will be softer. 

If you want them to be crispy, put them on the service plate after taking it from the oven and do not cover. 

Chicken Pizza and Mediterranean pizza

Even though pizza is an Italian dish, I think most cultures have dishes similar to pizza. Traditional Italian pizza do not have a lot of toppings; at most three. If pizza has a lot of toppings they call it 'Pizza Americano', which means American style pizza. Another item inspired by American style is 'Coffee Americano' which is simply espresso with more water. For Italians it is not a good quality coffee, as it has higher percent of water in it.

Today I will share two kinds of pizza recipe. The first one is with chicken and jalapeno peppers and the other one is with pepperoni.

Ingredients

For the dough

• 3 cups of all purpose flour
• 3 tablespoons sunflower or vegetable oil
• 1 dessertspoon dry yeast
• 1/2 cup of warm milk
• 3 teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• Warm water

For the sauce

• 1/2 cup tomato or red pepper paste
• 1/2 cup ketchup
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• Red pepper flakes
• Oregano
• Water

For chicken pizza

• 1 thin sliced chicken breast
• Jalapeno slices
• Sliced black olives
• Mushrooms
• Grated mozzarella
• 1/4 onion
• Salt
• Black pepper
• Oregano

For Mediterranean Pizza

• Pepperoni
• 2 baby bell peppers
• Sliced black olives
• Mushrooms
• Grated mozzarella
• Corns
• 1/4 tomato
• Fresh dill

Preparation

To prepare the dough put flour into a large bowl, add salt, sugar, yeast, warm milk and oil and start kneading. Add water slowly while you are kneading the dough, until it become soft like earlobe. Then keep it in a warm place one or two hours until it rises.

Meanwhile to prepare the sauce, mix tomato paste, ketchup and spices in a small bowl. Add some water until it becomes liquid enough to spread over the pizza base.  

When the dough is ready, take it from the bowl and put on the counter (use some flour to prevent sticking). Cut it into two pieces. Take one piece and start to make the base with a roller. If you want a thicker pizza, you can make it with your hands without using a roller. To do that, first you need to apply some oil on the base of the pan, then put the dough on it and give the shape of pan to the dough. I prefer to use the pan with some holes under, I think it is the best kind to bake pizza.

If you made the base with roller, place it on the pan, it will not fit well to the pan, so fix it with your hands.  Push the dough towards the edges and scratch the edges with a knife, like in the picture.

Then spread the sauce over the base and add 1/4 cup of grated mozzarella on the sauce. If you do not like too much cheese on your pizza, you may not put in on the sauce, as we will add more mozzarella on the very top in the end. Repeat same steps with the other piece of dough.

To prepare chicken pizza, first cut the chicken breast in thin slices and marinate it with salt, black pepper and oregano. (you can use any kind of spices you like).  Put chicken breast on the pizza in a decorative way, then add sliced onions, mushrooms, jalapeño slices and black olives.

To prepare Mediterranean pizza, chop bell peppers, mushrooms and tomato. First put pepperoni on the base, and then add peppers, mushrooms, black olives and tomatoes. On very top spread corns and decorate with fresh dill.

Preheat oven to 425 F^o and bake the pizza for about 13 minutes. After 13 minutes check the bottom of the pizza, if it is baked well add some grated mozzarella on very top and bake 3 more minutes. Your pizza is ready.

Enjoy!

Spartan Pizza

The first recipe I want to share is one of my favorites, from a small city in Turkey which is called Isparta. Despite the similarity in the name, this city has nothing to to with Sparta. However, I have decided to call it 'Spartan pizza', as it is more pronounceable and memorable name. You can make five pizzas out of these ingredients.

Ingredients

For the dough

• 3,5 cups of all purpose flour
• 1/2 cup of plain yogurt
• 2-3 teaspoons salt
• 1/2 teaspoon sugar
• 1/2 cup of milk
• 1/2 tablespoon dry yeast

For the fill

• 1/2 lb ground meat (85%)
• 1 big tomato
• 2 sweet or jalapeno pepper
• 1 onion
• parsley
• salt
• black pepper and red pepper
• oregano

For the top

• 1/2 cup of plain yogurt
• 1/2 cup of vegetable/canola/sunflower oil

Preparation

First you need to prepare dough. To do that, heat the milk a little bit and then mix it with dry yeast and sugar in a small bowl. Wait until it rises, then put all flour in a large bowl and add yeast mixture, salt and yogurt (Actually you can mix all ingredients at once, without mixing yeast and milk first, but you need to wait longer for the dough if you do like that).  Start kneading, add some warm water if it is too hard and continue kneading until it become soft.  There are two conditions to be met for the dough to be ready; first it should be soft like your earlobe and it should not stick to your hand. If it is ready, you can wrap it, put it in a warm place and wait until it rises. It will probably take one or two hours for the dough to rise.

In the mean time you can prepare the fill. First chop the onion, tomato, pepper and parsley in very small pieces and then put them in a bowl with ground meat. Add salt, pepper and other spices you wish to add, I personally prefer oregano and red pepper and put one tea spoon for each. The important point here is the tomato should be very juicy, if you cannot find that you can use the petite diced tomatoes, as it will give almost same results. Also, you can add some water if it is not juicy enough.

After one or two hours check the dough. If the dough rises double size of its, then it is ready. Take the dough and cut it into five pieces. You need to use some flour to prevent it sticking to your hands. Take the first piece, put some flour on it and make a thin and long pizza base with a roller.If you do not use roller it will be very thick, I personally do not like a thick one.

Then lay the base on an aluminum foil, before filling it.

Spread the meat mixture on top of it, leave half inch for each sides empty.

After spreading the fill all around the base, close the empty edges on top. Combine the yogurt and sunflower oil in a small bowl and apply it to the half-inch edges that you close on top with a brush. Repeat these steps for all five pieces. Preheat oven at 450 F and cook it for 20 minutes. After taking from the oven, cut it into 5-7 pieces, put in a tray, wrap it with a cloth and wait 15 minutes to open. It is important to do this, because if you do not wrap it, the pizzas will be very hard to bite.

This recipe seems hard to do,  but  it becomes easier as you continue doing it.  If you are vegetarian or do not like ground meat,  you can put cheese,  potatoes or spinach in it. 

Enjoy!