Here is an easy recipe for all you sourdough lovers. No more cardboard-tasting pizza crusts. This recipe has just a few simple ingredients but so much flavor thanks to the long fermented sourdough. Many people are intimidated by sourdough, thinking it sounds complicated and takes too much time. But, this pizza dough recipe is very forgiving....say you mixed up the dough and now plans changed and you won't be home for dinner, no problem, just put it in the fridge and use it tomorrow! Or you forgot to mix up the dough in the morning and you need it to be ready sooner.....place the dough in a warm place to rise faster, like by a fireplace, an oven with the light on, or an oven with a proofing setting. Even if you underproof or overproof this dough, it will still taste great for pizza!

This dough can also be made into delicious focaccia or garlic bread to eat with any meal. 

For focaccia bread: After shaping the dough, create indents in the dough with your finger tips and generously drizzle with olive oil, add herbs like basil, oregano or rosemary. Bake, then sprinkle with freshly grated parmesan. 

For garlic bread: Add minced garlic to melted butter and brush onto the pizza dough. Add herbs and shredded cheese if desired before baking.

Pizza night is a family favorite, everyone can customize their own pizzas with the toppings they love. What do we put on our pizza? To make this a nourishing, filling meal, we pile-on-the-protein and use high quality ingredients. Below are some pizza topping ideas that we love to use. Also, pizza night is a great time to use up any leftover meats!

The Sauce: Use a good quality pizza sauce, barbecue sauce, gravy for a breakfast pizza or Alfredo sauce for chicken Alfredo pizza. A drizzle of olive oil or balsamic vinegar is good too!

The meats: We like a lot of meat on our pizza! Here are some of our favorites using Grassfed Goodness 100% Grassfed Beef and Woodland Pastured Pork!

• • • • Beef  Pizzas
• Italian Beef: Use leftover roast or steak or fry up some ground beef and add Italian seasoning.
• Cheeseburger: Fry up some ground beef, add seasonings and maybe a splash of ketchup or Worcestershire sauce.
• Bacon Cheeseburger: Fry some woodland pastured bacon with ground beef for an amazing meaty pizza.
• Barbecue Beef: Instead of pizza sauce, toss cooked beef with bbq sauce then spread on the pizza.
• Philly Cheesesteak: Thinly sliced steak sautéed in butter, seasoned with salt and pepper and a splash of Worcestershire sauce. 
• Steak Fajita: Use any leftover beef or sauté some steak in olive oil, drizzle with lime juice and season with chili powder, cumin, garlic powder and oregano. 
• Taco: Great way to use up any leftover taco meat or fry up some ground beef with taco seasoning and add refried beans. 

• Italian Sausage: Fry up some ground pork and add some Italian seasoning.
• Spicy Sausage: Make the ground pork spicy by adding more black pepper, red pepper flakes and paprika.
• Breakfast Pizza: Fry up some ground pork and add breakfast sausage seasoning with a little gravy. 
• Barbecue Pork: Use leftover pork roast or chops and toss with bbq sauce, then spread on the pizza. 
• Mexican Carnitas: Use slow cooked pork seasoned with salt, pepper, garlic, onion, oregano and cumin. Top with fresh cilantro. 
• Bacon: I think you could top any pizza with bacon and it would be amazing!
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The Cheese: Get creative and use a combination of cheeses. Some options are mozzarella, cheddar, provolone, Monterey Jack, parmesan, goat cheese and feta cheese. 

The Veggies and herbs:  Here is where you can get really creative and customize your slice. Sautéed peppers and mushrooms, caramelized onions and fresh basil are classics.

But first, we make The crust:  Why sourdough? Besides the added flavor, a sourdough pizza crust is going to give you more health benefits, including improved digestion and enhanced nutrient absorption. To increase the nutrients even more, I use freshly milled flour, which contains 100% of the vitamins, minerals and enzymes found in the grain. I use a hard red or hard white wheat berries and grind them into the flour just before mixing up the dough. I realize most people do not have a grain mill in their home! So, I would recommend using a high quality organic unbleached all-purpose, bread or pizza flour. I would NOT recommend using store bought whole wheat flour (it doesn't contain the same nutrients as freshly milled flour and your crust will probably taste like cardboard!).

When cooked in a hot oven on a pizza stone, this crust will be crispy on the bottom and soft, chewy and full of bubbles on the edges. Also, full of flavor! WARNING: Once you start making your own homemade sourdough pizza, it's hard to eat any other pizza!

Ingredients:

• 2 cups warm filtered water
• 1 cup active sourdough starter
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1 T. honey
• 3 tsp. salt
• +/- 5 cups unbleached flour 
  
  
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1. Place the water, sourdough starter, olive oil, honey and salt in a large bowl. Mix well. A Danish dough whisk works well for this!
2. Then add the flour one cup at a time and mix, just until incorporated. If you are using freshly milled flour, it will be around 5 cups, if you are using all-purpose you will probably need more flour. You want the dough slightly sticky. 
3. Let the dough rest, covered about 15-30 minutes to let the flour absorb the water. 
4. Now you are going to stretch and fold the dough right in the bowl. Get your hand wet to prevent it from sticking. Gently pull one side of the dough up and fold it over itself. Rotate the bowl with your other hand and repeat the stretch and folds on all sides until you've completed a full circle.
5. Cover and repeat the stretch and folds every 15-30 minutes, 3-4 more times. With every stretch and fold the dough will become less sticky and more stretchy. 
6. Let the dough ferment until about doubled, a total of 3-8 hours, depending on how warm your kitchen is. You can now use the dough immediately or for a deeper flavor and more fermentation benefits, cold ferment the dough in the refrigerator for up to 24 hours.
7. About 1 1/2 hours before you want to bake the pizzas, remove the dough from the fridge and let rest on the counter for 30 minutes.
8. Pre-heat the oven to 500 degrees and place a pizza stone in the oven. If you are making deep dish pizzas, pre-heat the oven to 400 degrees.  
9.  Divide the dough into 3 equal pieces or 2 pieces for deep dish pizzas.  Shape each portion into a ball on a floured work surface and place on a piece of parchment paper, cover with a bowl or tea towel and let rest for 30 minutes. 
10.  Dust the dough ball with flour and gently pat the dough ball down with your finger tips creating a circle. Then pick up the dough and gently stretch the dough out with the back of your hands, turning it as you go, letting gravity help you stretch out the dough. Then set the dough back on the parchment paper and finish shaping into your desired pizza size by stretching out the thicker parts. Stretching the dough rather than rolling it out is going to help keep those bubbles in the dough giving you an "airy" lighter crust. 
11. Add all of your toppings. Then, slide the pizza with the parchment paper onto a pizza peel and then slide it onto the HOT pizza stone in the oven. If you can do this without a piece of parchment paper, you are talented! I have not yet mastered this skill. If you don't have a pizza peel, you can use an upside down cookie sheet. 
12. Bake the pizza for 7-9 minutes. Every oven is different, you may have to adjust the temperature, time or position of your oven rack to get your best crust. Electric ovens may need more than 30 minutes to heat up the stone. 

Enjoy!