I was sent an email a few weeks ago inviting me to participate in the annual YYC Pizza Week Food Bloggers Challenge. All that was said in the original email was that there would be 4 mystery ingredients and we had to work with at least 2 of them. We would not be told what the mystery ingredients were until after we accepted the challenge. I eagerly accepted with the support of my amazing husband, Matt who promised he would be my sous chef and help me in any ways needed.
The day came that we were told what mystery ingredients we could choose from.
1. Fig Spread
2. Housemade pesto
3. Ricotta
4. Pitted assorted olives
The decision was pretty easy for me because 1. I don’t like olives, and 2. I don’t think I’ve ever eaten a fig. I figured that I could taste match the pesto and the ricotta pretty easily and The Italian Store was awesome enough to sponsor these ingredients AND a fresh batch of dough if you wanted (of COURSE I accepted this!).
It was 9 pm when I decided it was now or never and we got to work! Matt was a fantastic sous chef and taster extraordinaire helping me to make sure all the flavours and amazing tastes were there.
First of all, I pre-heated the oven. I was a little unsure of what temperature I should cook the pizza on, so I took to Google to answer my important question. I stumbled across some sites saying you should put your oven as hot as it will go! This was 550 on our oven. I was a little worried, but there were some notes in there that assured everything would be okay so I decided to go for it.
I pressed out the dough on the pizza pan after buttering the pan generously, and I used a fork to poke some tiny holes to make sure the dough wouldn’t bubble up too much.
Then, I stuffed the crust!!
The stuffed crust mix consisted of beautiful, fresh ricotta cheese, pesto, chopped garlic/garlic oil, seasoning salt, basil & parsley
The pizza sauce was made from tomato paste, pesto, MORE garlic, dill, italian seasonings & seasoning salt again. A little layer of pepperoni was then added.
The pepperoni was covered with a layer of three cheeses (mozzarella, provolone and parmesan) and topped off with some delicious prosciutto and a few dashes of basil.
Voila, my beautiful finished product! It ended up staying in the oven about 18 minutes and came out beautifully as you can see. The crust was brushed with melted butter before going in for that awesome golden brown colour. The prosciutto was a perfect ham and bacon all in one as parts were crispy and delicious.
Please click here to vote for my pizza! You can vote for more than one as well!
Who wants to have a pizza party?
girlinlovewithfood 