Deep Dish Skillet Pizza

Things are looking pretty lean in our fridge these days, as we have been eating everything perishable in anticipation of vacation.  Cheese pizza was on the menu for last night.  Tonight we'll probably be left with breakfast for dinner.  That will work out well since we'll be up before 5 tomorrow morning to catch our flight!

Skillet Pizza Dough
adapted from Rachael Ray

3/4 cup warm water
1 teaspoon sugar
1 Tablespoon active dry yeast
1 1/4 cup all purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon salt
3 Tablespoons olive oil

In a measuring cup, combine warm water, sugar and yeast.  Allow it to sit for about 5 minutes, or until it's all foamy.  It will go from looking like this:

To looking like this:

In the bowl of your mixer (or a large bowl if you're going to get an arm workout and mix by hand), combine the flours and salt.  

Pour in the yeast mixture and the olive oil and mix for about 8 minutes until it forms a tight ball.  Knead it a few times and put into a large bowl coated with olive oil or cooking spray.  Cover and place in a warm place for at least an hour, or until doubled in size.  It goes from this:

To this:

Punch down the dough and then press into a cast iron skillet lightly coated with olive oil or cooking spray.  If you don't have a cast iron skillet, I highly recommend you pick one up at some point.  They are relatively inexpensive compared with fancy stainless steel, and when you've finally seasoned it (mine is still in progress), it is wonderfully non-stick and easy to clean.  

Allow the dough to rise in the skillet, about 20 minutes, top with sauce or chopped tomatoes, and bake in a 400 degree oven for 20-30 minutes.

Remove from oven, top with cheese and whatever else you want to add.  Since we are completely out of vegetables, we went with just mozzarella, red pepper flakes, and the huge about of oregano you can see here.

Bake for an additional 5 minutes to melt the cheese, and then allow to cool in the skillet for about 10 minutes before removing.  

Enjoy!