The Grinder

Back in the day, I had a college professor who took our Greek class to The OP (aka: The Other Place) for our final class for pizza and refreshments.  My end of the table was graced with this delicious pizza called "The Grinder."  It was a beautiful combination of sausage, ground beef, sauce, mozzarella and cheddar, topped with pickled jalapenos.  Pure deliciousness.

Last weekend, I was craving this pizza.  The only problem: The OP (and every other OP restaurant) is a good 1200 miles away from my apartment.  It wasn't going to happen.  So, this pretty and fresh substitute was created...

I started with this crust recipe adapted from Alton Brown's recipe on allrecipes.com. 

· 2 tablespoons honey
· 1 tsp salt, 1 tsp garlic salt
· 2 tbsp olive oil
· 3/4 cup: about half water (hot) half milk (cold)
· 1 & 1/2 cup flour, 1/2 cup wheat flour
· 1 teaspoon instant yeast

· Some semolina flour for dusting dough.

Combine hot water and cold milk in med-lg measuring cup.  Add honey, and yeast.  Let the mix do it's thang for 15 minutes or so.  Then combine with all other ingredients.  Let rise for an hour.  Knead.  Let rise for 1-3 more hours.  Roll out, dust both sides with semolina flour and bake at 325* on heated pizza stone for 2 minutes.

Move to cool pan and add sauce and toppings.  Slide back onto hot stone and bake until cheese is golden.

Toppings for my version of The Grinder:

· Sauce: 1/2 can of tomato sauce with some generic Italian Seasoning blend.

· 1/2 lb ground beef browned with a bit of fresh jalepeno diced small and 1/2 a white onion

· 1 chicken breast ground up (or processed in a Magic Bullet) with a bit of sage, fennel, red pepper flake, ground black pepper.  Browned with olive oil.

· 3-4 sliced button mushrooms

· Kroger "pizza blend" cheese--about 1 & 1/2 cups, Kroger "mexican blend" cheese--about 1/2 cup

· 1 sliced fresh jalapeno

Verdict: It's not my college-days pizza, but it was pretty darn good.  The wheat flour gave the crust a nice crunch and nutty taste.  Having had no sausage on hand, the chicken was a decent substitute.  With the current price of pork products, the next pizza we make will likely include another sausage experiment.  The peppers on this puppy were HOT.  Good, but hot.  I'd use pickled jalapenos for a more 'authentic' replica, but the fresh were good enough to feed my need for pizza.

This is pizza has a nice combination of crunch, chew, and cheese.  This is for someone with appetite and adventure as it is hearty and spicy.

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New Year, New Pizza!

First of all...like all other 'bloggers' say when they're not satisfied with a picture but LOVE what's in it...please, forgive the photography here.  This is the only picture I snapped ( to send to my Mom and Dad who sent my husband and me this pizza stone) before we dug in.

I called this our New Year's Pizza...because we've made it on New Year's Day, clever, I know.  It's not the best pizza we've made and it doesn't take much for us to demolish a pizza of any quality, but it was an overall GOOD pizza.  The crust is pseudo-deep dish, crisp on the bottom, thick and bready on the edge...I could go on, but I'm salivating and might short out my laptop.

Here's my crust recipe (I adapted this from another recipe, but I can't seem to find the original...it didn't include wheat or semolina flour):

1. Combine in measuring cup: 2.75 tsp yeast, 1 tsp sugar, and 1 cup warm milk and let sit for 5 min.

2. Combine in bowl: 2.5 cups white flour, .5 cup semolina flour, 1 cup wheat flour, 1 tsp salt.

3. Combine in small measuring cup: 6 Tbsp olive oil, 2 Tbsp veg. oil.

4.  Combine all concoctions and knead briefly in bowl.  Cover for an hour.

5. Knead dough (about 5 minutes) and cover until ready to use.  Punch down.  Roll out dough.

EASY!  Admittedly, my husband rolled out the dough and placed it on the pizza stone while I prepared our toppings.  We baked the crust for about 3-4 minutes (at around 375*) with foil over the edges before putting the toppings on.

Sauce and Toppings:

Since we had an opened jar of Prego mushroom pasta sauce in the fridge, I decided to be a good steward and use it up.  If you're wondering, it's pretty decent dumped on a pizza crust.  Atop the sauce, I put:

1/2 pound of browned ground beef

Sauteed garlic (2-3 cloves) and onion (1/2 small onion)

Mushrooms....lots of mushrooms...these ones were button.

1.5 cups cheese (Kroger brand pizza blend and a little Mexican blend because we were short)

Oh, yeah.  Don't forget to bake the pizza!  A good 8-12 minutes should do, or until the cheese gets a delicious golden, bubbly, artery-clogging look.

Things I'd do differently next time I make this pizza:

1. Add some oregano to the crust

2. Brush crust with oil/butter and garlic

3. Try it in a cake pan, sauce on top of cheese.  Like a good Chicago-style deep dish.