Greek Food, Belly Dancers and Pizza

I used to spend a lot of time in a Greek restaurant. I had a good friend Chuck who's step dad owned a Greek restaurant in the community I grew up in . We used to go and eat, break plates, and sometimes some of us would get hit on by the belly dancers who worked there. Such fabulous fun times. It was during those times that I fell in love with Greek food. I want tzatziki just thinking about that. 

Anyway, lets get to the pizza part. I love pizza. I could eat pizza every week. I'm usually a pepperoni and mushroom kind of girl but when I was making pizza the other night I suddenly had a craving for Greek so I put it all together, and satisfied my need for feta.

Greek Pizza

Crust: 

Simple Scratch Pizza Dough

Mix: 

1/2 cup of Warm Water

1/2 tsp of Sugar

3 tsp of Instant Yeast

Add:

1 cup of Hot Water

1 Tbsp of Vegetable Oil

1 tsp of Salt

Flour; enough to make a soft dough (about 3 1/2 cups) (I used whole wheat to give this pizza a healthy boost)

That is it, knead this all together and voila! you are ready to roll it out

Now time to add some Greek toppings:

I substituted tomato pizza sauce for tzatziki, threw on some tomato, onion, green pepper and feta. The only thing I was missing was spinach but even without the green stuff  this pizza turned out so good.   

 Okay, so bake at 375 for 25-30 minutes or until golden brown and cooked through and then eat up!

*To make thick chewy crust: stretch dough to 1/2" thickness and let it rise slightly before baking.

*To make a thin, crisp crust: use cold dough, roll it to 1/4" and bake while the dough is still cold.

Simple Scratch Pizza Dough

I like to cook, and bake, and eat yummy food (in case you didn't realize). I grew up being told that if I wanted something good to eat I would have to make it. So I did. Thank you Mom. (love you).

I learned how to make cowboy cookies, perfect grilled cheese (I was a kid so this counts as real food), texas sheet cake, grasshopper pie and other things too. I developed my sweet tooth early and became a snob for homemade. Which explains why when I decided to make pizza I make pizza - dough and all.  Here is the recipe I always use and it hasn't failed me yet!

Simple Scratch Pizza Dough

Mix: 

1/2 cup of Warm Water

1/2 tsp of Sugar

3 tsp of Instant Yeast

Add:

1 cup of Hot Water

1 Tbsp of Vegetable Oil

1 tsp of Salt

Flour; enough to make a soft dough (about 3 1/2 cups)

That is it, knead this all together and voila! you are ready to roll it out and add the toppings a bake at 350 for 25-30 minutes or until golden brown and cooked through. 

*To make thick chewy crust: stretch dough to 1/2" thickness and let it rise slightly before baking.

*To make a thin, crisp crust: use cold dough, roll it to 1/4" and bake while the dough is still cold.

Click Here

Pizza Pizza Thick Tomato Paste...

I have this hilarious memory of myself and a bunch of friends when we were younger, maybe 10 or 11 singing a pizza song for some church talent show or something. I can still see this one girl in my mind, she had such enthusiastic actions as we rocked out on stage. Whenever I eat pizza this song goes through my head:

"Pizza pizza thick tomato paste. Lotza mozza all over your face. So hurry up and slice it up there's not a minute more to waste, with 27 toppings you can't miss a single taste"

I want you all to know that I do realize that I've been a slacker on the veggie meals front. Yes, I've posted some snacks and side dishes but we can all make those. I've been looking for some new recipes and am pleased to announce there will be some good ones coming in the future. I have a couple of new cookbooks Ive borrowed from the local library (my favorite building on earth) and I'm looking forward to trying out some recipes. 

This recipe came from a cook book from my own stash. The title is "Claire's Classic American Vegetarian Cooking". I got this free from someone who had posted online that they were giving it away to the first person to respond. I was the first person. And it is actually a great cookbook; simple recipes, meal plans and the font that is used for the recipe headings makes me smile every time. 

Last night I was trying to decide what to make for dinner (yup, you caught me, I didn't meal plan this week again) and I had to stop and think about what I had. Normally I meal plan then shop based on that so I had to find something to make with what I had. This is what I came up with. I didn't follow the recipe much but used it as a guide I guess. I LOVED this pizza. So good. Made it to favorites. 

Spinach, Tomato, and Goat Cheese Pizzas

6-7 8" Greek Pita Breads (I was planning on using these because I usually have some in my freezer but of course last night I didn't. I ended up making my own pizza dough instead. You can find the recipe here)

3 Tbsp of Olive Oil

5 cloves of Garlic (when I saw that this recipe called for 5 cloves of garlic I was thrilled. Garlic makes me happy even with the killer breath)

2 large ripe Tomatoes, finely chopped (I had no fresh tomatoes so I used a can of diced and it worked fine)

Salt and Pepper

2 10oz bags of spinach, well washed and finely chopped (I only had frozen but again it worked great)

5-6 oz of Goat Cheese, crumbled. (improvising again. I used feta and I don't think I would change it)

*I also used about 1/2 a cup of Grated Marble Cheese

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Arrange pita bread in a single layer on a cookie sheet (or roll out your pizza dough on a pizza stone). Set aside.

Heat oil in large skillet over medium heat. Add the garlic and cool 3-4 minutes until soften. Stir in the tomatoes (since i used canned tomatoes I drained them of most of the juice before adding them to my pan).

Add spinach. Cover and cook for about 10 minutes stirring occasionally. Season with salt and pepper.

Using a slotted spoon spread spinach and tomato mixture onto pitas (or pizza dough). Scatter goat cheese (and marble) over the pizzas and bake for 10-12 minutes (or 25-30 if you are using pizza dough that also needs baking). Serve. 

Like I said; we LOVED this. Hazel took leftovers to school for lunch and ate them cold. If I had of had Greek Pita bread this would have been a fast and yummy dinner. Mmmmm, I'm not sure how long I can wait before we have this one again.

Click Here