Pizza with pork, peppers and basil

Well, now that the lawns are mowed, I was in the mood to make my favorite comfort food, pizza. It’s not too hot to turn the oven on, and I’m in the mood to overeat. 

I still have some pork ‘taco meat’, which is a coarsely chopped fresh pork. I’ve never used pork like that on a pizza, but why not. At first I wasn’t planning on adding bell peppers, but my neighbor picked up a bag of them for me. Woodman’s was selling a bag of 12 for 99 cents. I used half a bell pepper for my pizza, and the other half for my salad. You can leave them out if you don’t like them on pizza. Here’s how I put this together. 

1-1/2 cups of flour

About two thirds cup of water

1 tbs. instant yeast

1/2 tsp. salt

8 oz. can of tomato sauce

10 fresh basil leaves

1/2 tsp. oregano

Adobo seasoning

1/2 bell pepper cut into strips

1 cup of coarsely chopped pork

1 cup shredded Asiago cheese

2 cups shredded Mozzarella cheese

Extra virgin olive oil

Fresh ground white pepper

Preparation

Place the flour, water, yeast and salt in a mixing bowl, add a good splash of olive oil, and bring the dough together. Now keep in mind that I never measure this stuff. Use enough water to end up with a slightly wet dough. Knead the dough for a minute or so. If you have time, let it rise for a half hour, and knead it again. I was hungry, so I skipped that step.

Place the tomato sauce in a bowl. Use a scissors to cut the basil leaves, and let them drop into the sauce. Sprinkle on some oregano, some adobo seasoning, and a spec of olive oil. You could add a little chopped garlic, but last night I skipped that.

Work the dough with your hands on a floured surface, until you have a circle about fourteen inches in diameter. Slide that on to a pizza pan, and roll the edges to form a crust. Spread the sauce over the pizza dough. Add the Asiago cheese evenly over the sauce. Add the bell pepper strips, and then add the Mozzarella cheese. Finally add the pork evenly over the top of the cheese.

Bake the pizza at 490º until the cheese is nicely browned. Remove the pizza from the oven, and give the surface of it a good dousing of your very best olive oil. Sprinkle on a little white pepper, and let it rest for five minutes until slicing.

Serving

I served my pizza with a big tossed salad, a bowl with excess pizza sauce, for dipping the crust in, a bowl of greek olives, and for dessert, a bowl of fresh blueberries. I washed it all down with a good California Zinfandel. Don’t ask about leftover pizza. There wasn’t any. Burp.