Greek Spinach Pizza

My husband, Paul and I have never been great fans of homemade pizza, which is why we never ventured into making one of our own.  We found the following recipe for Greek Spinach Pizza on the Taste of Home website and in spite of our misgivings decided we would give it a try. I am so glad we did.  This pizza is delicious!  The crust is thin and crunchy and the flavors incredible!  

We made only minor changes to the recipe adding some mushrooms and fresh garlic. The next time we make this pizza we'll probably add some grilled chicken as well.   

This recipe is for a 12-inch pizza.  Our crust turned out to be around 18 inches so we added extra of each ingredient to make up for the difference in size.  There are plenty of frozen pizza crusts available in grocery stores, but I highly recommend giving the following pizza dough recipe a try.  We found the recipe on the Food Network website.  It makes enough dough for 2 18-inch pizzas.  You can freeze the leftover dough for another time.

Pizza Dough

Ingredients:

1/4 cup warm water (about 110 degrees)

1 envelope active dry yeast

1 teaspoon sugar

4 cups bread flour (we used organic all-purpose flour)

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 1/4 cups cold water

1 tablespoon olive oil

Yellow cornmeal, for sprinkling the baking sheet  

Directions:

In a bowl, combine warm water, yeast, and sugar.  Stir to combine.  In the food processor, combine flour and salt and pulse.  Add the yeast mixture, cold water, and oil.  Pulse until a ball is formed: this will happen quickly, be careful not to overwork the dough.  Scrape dough out onto a lightly floured counter and knead for several minutes until dough is smooth.  Allow dough to rest for 2 to 3 minutes.  Place dough in oiled bowl and allow to rise at room temperature for about 1 hour.

Punch dough down, divide into 2 to 4 balls, let rise another 30 minutes.  Heat up pizza stone in a 500 degree F oven. Form a 10 to14-inch pizza crust and place on a piece of parchment paper sprinkled with yellow cornmeal.  Place topping on the crust and place the pizza, with the parchment paper in the oven on the pizza stone or on a hot inverted cookie sheet (not aluminum).  Bake until golden, about 10 minutes.  NOTE: We don't have pizza stone, so Paul and I prebaked our pizza crust directly on the pizza pan and it turned out fine.  

  Pizza dough rising:

 

                                                        Prebaked pizza crust:

Greek Spinach Pizza

Ingredients:

2 cups fresh baby spinach

3 tablespoons olive oil

3 teaspoons Italian seasoning

1 prebaked 12-inch thin pizza crust

2 plum tomatoes, thinly sliced

1 cup crumbled feta cheese

1/4 cup shredded part-skim mozzarella cheese

1/4 cup chopped pitted Greek olives  (we used kalamata olives)

2 tablespoons chopped sweet onion

Other possible ingredients:

mushrooms

garlic

grilled chicken

                                        Organic veggies purchased from The Merc:

Directions: 

In a small bowl, toss the spinach, oil and Italian seasoning. Place crust on an ungreased 12-inch pizza pan. Arrange spinach mixture over crust to within 1/2 in. of edge. Place tomatoes on top; sprinkle with the cheeses, olives and onion. 

Bake at 450° for 10-15 minutes or until cheese is melted and edges are lightly browned.  Yield: 6-8 slices.

                                          Toppings added and ready for the oven:

                                                        The finished product: