Deep Dish Pizza

Deep dish pizza

Last night I made a deep dish pizza that was inspired by a recent
episode of "The Frugal Gourmet". It turned out so well that I thought
I'd share it with you. I'm having leftovers for lunch today. I'm
also writing it up from memory and have no "real" recipe, so bear
with me.

CRUST:

Approx. 2 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1 pkg. fast rising yeast
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. sugar
1 cup of very warm water

FILLING:

1 package Health Choice brand shredded pizza cheese
2 cans whole tomatoes (plum would've been best, but I didn't have any)
A generous handfull of fresh basil leaves, chopped (dried is o.k.if it's
all you have)
Cracked black pepper, salt and oregano to taste
4 or 5 large cloves of fresh garlic, minced
1 very large onion, sliced thinly
2 10 oz. packages of frozen spinach, thawed
1 fresh tomato, thinly sliced

To make the crust, combine the yeast, salt, sugar, 1 cup of the flour
and the cup of warm water. Mix thoroughly. Since you aren't proofing the
yeast first, the water needs to be a bit hotter than usual. Add enough of
the remaining 1 1/2 cups of flour to form a soft dough. Knead it for
a few minutes, then put it back in the bowl, cover and set aside to rise.

In the meantime, prepare the veggies. Saute the onions in some red wine
until caramelized. Squeeze the moisture out of the thawed spinach. Break
up the tomatoes slightly and set them in a seive to drain. You don't want
them soupy. Save the juice for something else.

When the pizza dough has more or less doubled in bulk (usually in less than
an hour - I find you don't need to be too technical with pizza dough),
punch it down. Lightly spray a 10 inch spring form pan with cooking spray.
Press the dough into the pan and up the sides. Spread the shredded cheese
over the crust. Top with the tomatoes which have been mixed with the
basil leaves. Season with the salt, oregano and black pepper. Sprinkle
the minced garlic over the tomatoes, then the add the sauteed onions.
Top the onions with the spinach and then arrange the sliced tomato
decoratively on top. Bake at 425 in the middle of the oven for about
45 minutes or so. Since it's so thick, it takes quite awhile for the
filling to heat all the way through. It makes a lovely presentation
when you remove the ring from the spring form pan.

The fillings I used are what I happened to have around the house. You
can use anything you wish. I think artichokes, mushrooms, eggplant,
roasted peppers and brocolli would be especially good. I was quite
pleased with the way the Healthy Choice fake cheese melted. Recently,
I tried the Kraft fatfree singles (sharp cheddar flavor) and found them
to be as good as any full fat processed cheese slice (for what that's
worth). They melted well as part of a burrito filling.