Pizza with panache

So, I have mentioned a local recreational cooking school around here via my Baking Course posts (I promise, I have more of them!), but I have not mentioned some of their one-off classes which are phenomenal.  I have attended the fresh pasta workshop and the fresh pizza workshop.  Most recently, I had the pleasure of taking my foodie friend Tara with me for the pizza workshop.  The teacher, Julie, is an authentic Italian chef with quite the credentials.  But it is her lifetime of experience the students benefit from most in these classes.  She is a wealth of knowledge and is ready and willing to answer all the questions we have. 

I have been wondering for a long time why pizza recipes call for corn meal for dusting.  I learned at the class that the cornmeal acts as "little wheels" to help the prepared pizza dough to transfer from the pizza peel to the the hot stone in the oven.  Genius!

On the menu for the class were:

Fresh Pizza Dough

Pizzas: Margherita, Quattro Stagioni ("Four Seasons"), Smoked Salmon w/ Goat Cheese; and Carmelized Onion, Mushroom and Fontina

Calzones: Four Cheese and other creations of the imaginations of the students
Flatbread from the Grill

Needless to say, we ate well that night as we learned a lot about traditional Italian pizza and were encouraged to get in the kitchen to make our own combinations.  Julie teaches the foundations of food, leaving lots of room for variation and playfulness.  My favorite combination of the night was the Carmelized Onion, Mushroom, and Fontina.The class is interactive and is a great way to meet new friends interested in food (as we did!).    As for pictures, Tara's talented techie husband helped us out by creating a link to the pictures from the class.  Thanks, Spencer!

The best part of the evening was the opportunity to take some fresh dough home to make pizza for our families.  Tara and I jumped at the chance and Drew was thankful!  The next night, while I did some things around the house, I sent Drew to the store to come up with his own toppings for our pizza.  He did great, bringing back fresh mozzarella and pancetta.  I threw some marinara down, added these toppings and some very thinly sliced red onions and we were set!  The results were amazing (that's it pictured above).  We are going to be having pizza regularly around here, I think!

Game Night, Pizza Night, Same Diff

Trying to get back into the swing of things has made for a tiresome day.  Thankfully, we were rewarded with a great (and important) win by the Mavericks tonight (Dirk for his 2nd career triple-double) and a pizza worth the time it took to make it. 
We are pretty simple pizza eaters by most standards.  Every once in a while we will step outside the box and try something new, but mostly we like pepperoni.  Drew prefers onions with his; I like black olives (as many as possible) with mine.  So it was not anything special, but it was good. 
I used the Pampered Chef Pizza Dough mix.  This was the first attempt and skepticism soon turned to incredibly doughy hands, followed by...SUCCESS.  It actually did what it said it was going to do...I was thrilled.  Thank you PC.  Now I just have to figure out what to do with the other half of the dough produced by these efforts...any suggestions?
After the dough was together, I rolled it out into a thin crust and spread some pizza sauce over most of it.  To top the pizza I used mozzarella and parmesan, pepperoni, onions on one side, black olives on the other, and sprinkled the top with a little Italian seasoning.  I threw it in the oven for 17 minutes and was very pleased the results.  I think it is better than Pizza Hut and a whole lot cheaper.