My Big Fat Not Greek Pizza

I don't know how many of you have seen Chef at Home, but it is one of my favorite cooking shows. If you are American, chances are you haven't seen it as it is a Canadian show. Chef Michael Smith sets out to make food without using a recipe. I have one of his cookbooks, Chef at Home, and the ingredients are listed as "a handful of this" or a "big scoop of that", without there being an actual recipe with set amounts. He also provides hints of things you can use to swap if you don't like an ingredient.

In Chef at Home, he generally picks a theme of what he wants to make and then just runs with his idea. For instance, in season 1 he picks vanilla as his theme. In the episode he made vanilla chicken, panna cotta, and a salad with vanilla in the dressing. Or he will decide to make a southwestern menu and make a meal using southwestern ingredients.

Chef Michael Smith could say to himself "I'm going to make a Greek pizza", and succeed. I could say to myself "I'm going to make a Greek pizza" and end up with something not even close.

I started with the dough. I used C's Pizza Dough:

Ingredients:
3 cups flour, separated
2 tsp quick rising (instant) yeast
1 tsp salt
1 1/4 cups hot (120 F) water
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

1) Mix together 2 3/4 cup flour with yeast and salt
2) Gradually add water and oil until dough forms
3) Knead dough adding remaining flour 1 tbsp at a time until dough is smooth & elastic

4) Place in a greased bowl, cover, and let rise for an hour at room temperature.

5) After an hour, punch down the dough, and roll out to a 14 inch crust.

Because I am such a healthy person now, I substituted 1.5 cups of all purpose flour for 1.5 cups of whole wheat flour. I also added about a Tbsp of dried oregano to the dough (for added Greekness) before kneading it. And by kneading it, I mean placed in my stand mixer to knead.

The inspiration behind my Greek pizza, was a Greek salad. My Greek salad contains cucumbers, tomatoes, red onion, red or green bell pepper, feta, extra virgin olive oil, lemon and dried oregano. Obviously, I wasn't going to put cucumber on my pizza, or lemon for that matter.

When I set the dough aside to rise, I thinly sliced three tomatoes and a red onion and placed them on a foiled baking sheet. I drizzled extra virgin olive oil on top, and sprinkled with salt and pepper. I placed the sheet in the oven @ 400 F for about 40 minutes.

After rolling out the dough (which smelled heavenly by the way), I spread a thin layer of pizza sauce on top. I then topped the pizza with the sliced roasted tomatoes, and red onion. Then I remembered that sometimes when I microwave leftovers that had red onion in them, the red onion turns this hideous shade of grayish blue and I refuse to eat it. So I picked off the red onion, chopped up a white onion I had in my pantry and topped the pizza with the white onion. I also topped it with a diced green bell pepper, and 1/3 cup of crumbled low fat Feta. I had some pizza pepperoni in the fridge, and I didn't want it to go to waste so I put some on the pizza as well. Then I sprinkled about 1/2 cup of grated mozzarella cheese on top.

I placed it in the oven @ 425 F for 25 minutes.

I can't really call it a Greek pizza, but I can call it delicious.