Homemade Pizza!

Have you ever had a gourmet sourdough pizza crust with pastured pork sausage as a topping?

To be honest, my days are too full at this particular season of my life to bake all of the sourdough goods. 

When I step into my kitchen at the end of the day to an accumulation of coffee cups, cutting boards, plates, and silverware waiting for me in the sink and across the counters, making dough from scratch -- in time for dinner -- and also cleaning the kitchen is not always a possibility. The days have thier limits.

However I do LOVE the taste of a sourdough pizza crust. And knowing that my family is eating clean, whole, foods -- and fermented grains.

The pre-made Sourdough Pizza Dough from Season's Yield (our neighbor's bakery) checks all those boxes. The convenience AND the flavor is unbeatable. 

I pull it out of the freezer and set it on the counter around midday. By supper time, it has risen, and it is ready for a splash of pizza sauce, a handful of toppings, and a quick 20 minutes in the oven. And Presto! 

While the topping varieties are endless, my family's favorite is a crumbled Hot Italian Sausage and Pineapple. The spicy meat and sweet tangy pineapple is a flavorful paring we can't get enough of. 

I think I may have raved about the Hot Italian Sausage elsewhere on this blog, but it is my personal favorite of all of the Polyface sausages. It's so intensely flavorful and spicy. I eat it plain as sausage patties (amazing with grits!), in quiches, on pizza, with scrambled eggs, over noodles with a white sauce, and the list goes on. If you haven't tried it yet, you should add a pack to your next order!

But enough about sausage for now. Let's get back to the pizza.

Here's my family's favorite:

• Hot Italian Sausage - 1lb Bulk
• Grated Mozzarella
• 15oz Tomato Sauce
• 1 Pineapple, cut into chunks (you'll have leftovers!)
• Dried Basil
• Dried Oregano
• Salt
• 4 Pizza Doughs (one package)

Brown sausage over medium heat. Mix dried basil, oregano, and salt -- to taste -- into tomato sauce. Stretch and work dough out into pizza crusts (this video from Season's Yeild is a great how-to resource!). 

Spread a thin layer of the tomato sauce on each crust. Sprinkle with mozzarella. Sprinkle with sausage crumbles and pineapple. 

Bake on a cookie sheet, dusted with cornmeal. We like ours at 420 degrees for 18-20 minutes. 

Absolutely delicious consumed hot, while the cheese is still melty and soft. 

Pro Tip:  Top this sourdough crust lightly. It rises best if you don't smother it, as I did in the above photos. ☺️

Before the autumn frost crept through the garden in the dark of night and finished off the tomatoes and basil; our other favorite pizza flavor was thinly sliced tomatoes and fresh chopped basil leaves scattered loosely over mozzarella. Crushed red pepper flakes added a nice finishing touch.

There are as many opinions on how to dress a pizza as there are folks. So, take your own family's favorite topping ingredients, and enjoy the convenience of a nutritious prepared sourdough crust. 

And there you have it!  On those hectic weekday nights when things have piled up on my counters, it bakes just long enough for me to get my kitchen cleaned up while it's in the oven. A real win-win situation. 

Bon appétit!