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Category: cooking

Recipe: Cast Iron Skillet Pizza

Published April 26, 2022

Ever since we moved to the country, I’ve been refining my home-made pizza process. I’ve finally documented the recipes and instructions for making dough, sauce, and cooking it all up to perfection. I hope you enjoy making and eating it as much as we do!

DOUGH INGREDIENTS

  • 5 grams (2 tsp) dry active yeast
  • 625 grams (4.5 Cups) all-purpose flour, plus extra for kneading
  • 5 grams (2 tsp) salt
  • 2 tablespoons (30 milliliters) olive oil
  • Extra olive oil for coating dough

COOK INGREDIENTS

  • Finely chopped or sliced garlic
  • Olive Oil for coating pan and drizzling on dough
  • Pizza sauce and toppings

DOUGH STEPS

mixing and kneading in the stand mixer
dough consistency before kneading by hand
dough in the fridge (before rising)
  1. Put 1 3/4 cups lukewarm water in a stand mixer bowl. Sprinkle yeast over water and let dissolve, about 2 minutes.
  2. Add flour, salt and olive oil and mix/knead in a stand mixer for about 5 minutes.
  3. Lightly dust a work surface with flour. Turn dough out onto surface and knead lightly until it looks smooth, a couple minutes.
  4. You have a choice at this point to either cut the dough to weight before putting in the fridge, or putting all the dough in the fridge and cutting to weight after it’s risen. Your total dough weight for this recipe will be around 1000 grams.

    Dough weight per pan size
    • 12″ pan – 350g
    • 10.5″ pan – 260g
    • 9.5″ pan – 210g

  5. Lightly coat dough (or individual dough pieces) in olive oil and place in a sealed container with room to double and refrigerate for several hours or (for best results) overnight.

PIZZA SAUCE
For pizza sauce, I either buy a jar at the store or make something really simple by mixing up something like what’s below and heating it up, simmering a bit.

  • 6oz tomato paste
  • 15oz tomato sauce (pasada, etc)
  • 2 tsp olive oil
  • 1-2 Tbsp oregano
  • 2 Tbsp italian seasoning
  • 1 tsp garlic powder
  • 1/2 tsp onion powder
  • crushed red pepper to taste
  • salt to taste

PIZZA COOKING STEPS

  1. Take dough out of refrigerator for 1-2 hours before cooking. (2 hours if you didn’t cut it to weight before refrigerating – cut to weight after it’s warm).
  2. Put iron pans in the oven and heat to 450°F. When pans are hot, put a bit of olive oil in the pan, and take the appropriately-sized dough ball and form the dough into its matching pan. Drizzle olive oil and some fresh garlic and a bit of salt on top of dough and cook in oven for about 5 minutes, or until the top of the dough is no longer doughy (has formed a “shell”).
  3. Pull pizza pan from oven and top with toppings. Be sure to put a fair amount of mozzarella cheese around the edge of the dough where it meets the iron pan. This will become caramelized and will be delicious. Advice: don’t overdo the cheese, it’s the mistake we make most often.
  4. Cook the pizzas until the top cheese is golden brown all around and edge cheese is caramelized. Pizza should be firm enough to slide out of the pan onto a cutting board or plate to cut and serve.
dough after refrigerating overnight
forming the dough into the hot skillet
dough with olive oil drizzle and garlic
topped and ready to go in
cooked and ready to cut
delicious!

OUR FAVORITE PIZZA TOPPINGS

  • Fresh Basil
  • Italian sausage crumbles (cooked)
  • Pepperoni
  • Sauteed shrimp (olive oil, garlic, smoked paprika, salt)
  • Fresh garlic
  • Bacon bits
  • Ham bits
  • Olives
  • Mushrooms (fresh or sauteed)
  • Mozzarella
  • Crushed red pepper
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Recipe: Collard Greens with Ham Hocks and Beans

Published January 11, 2022

The first time I ever tried making collard greens was in 2008. The recipe and my process have evolved a lot since then, and I figured it was time to write it all out. I use a pressure cooker, but i’ve included instructions for stovetop or pressure cooking.

Ingredients:

  • 2 Smoked Ham Hocks
  • 2-3 boxes of chicken broth/stock
  • 1-2 Tbsp smoked paprika
  • 1 onion, diced
  • 3-6 garlic cloves, chopped
  • 1/2 tsp or more crushed red pepper
  • 2-3 Tbsp bacon fat/olive oil/lard
  • Ham, cubed (optional)*
  • Collard Greens (4 typical grocery bundles, maybe 2 pounds?), washed, cut, dried**
  • 2 cans Pinto or White beans, drained and rinsed (or home cooked equivalent)

If you’ve got a pressure cooker, this is REAL easy. If not, it’s still easy but it’s a long long simmer to get the base broth done. I’ll give instructions for both.

Phase 1, broth it up

Over medium heat in a stock pot (or saute setting in your pressure cooker), heat the bacon fat, then add the onions, paprika and crushed red pepper, then cook until onions are soft. Add the garlic and stir continuously for a minute or so (don’t burn the garlic), then dump in one box of chicken stock. Mix/stir this mess up, then put the ham hocks in.

If pressure cooker: 90 minutes pressure

If stovetop: Add box #2 of stock. Bring to a boil, then low simmer for a few hours.

Phase 2, bring it all together

Once the broth is cooked, pull out the ham hocks to remove bones and skin and non-edible-ham material. Leave the good ham chunks in the broth. If you pressure cooked, move the broth to a stock pot on the stove and add the second box of stock. If you cooked on the stove, you may need to add more stock to your desired consistency to compensate for reduction.

With the broth on a good simmer, start adding the collard greens and stirring. After a minute or so in the hot broth they’ll take up a lot less space, so if it seems like you can’t fit all the greens in from the start, just do it in batches until it’s all in. If you’re adding extra ham, go ahead and do that now.

Bring back to a boil and then reduce heat to a simmer for 30 minutes. Stir in the beans and feel free to add stock now to get to your desired broth consistency. Simmer for another 15 minutes or until you feel it’s right.

Additional notes:

*I usually add a bit of extra ham, or sometimes cooked sausage if i have something on hand. It’s not necessary. One thing to watch out for is that if you add a lot more ham, you may end up with a dish that’s too salty (all the salt in the dish comes from the ham)

**Here’s how I wash and cut my greens. Fill a sink with water, dump the collards in and wash thoroughly. One or two leaves at a time, I cut the thick rib out for compost or to cook in a stock (I don’t like thick collard ribs—I don’t enjoy the texture). Once you’ve got 6-8 big leafs with ribs out, roll them up like a big doobie and then cut into 1 inch slices (you’ll end up with strips). Spin or towel dry. Keep doing this over and over until you’re done. This is the only laborious part of the entire recipe, and I often do it one or two days before I cook the recipe and keep it in a loose plastic bag in the fridge.

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