I don’t know about your neck of the woods, but here in New York, the magnolia trees and forsythia are in full force, baseball has taken over my 1010 WINS sports report, and the market is slowly but surely becoming more plentiful in the asparagus department. In honor of that, I thought you might like a pizza recipe that takes advantage of all this. (Remember, Golden Rule Number 348: When in Doubt with Kids, Pizza.) I developed this asparagus-mint-feta pizza for a new partner, King Arthur Flour, and the best thing about the recipe is that the crust is made with their white whole wheat — which is lighter in color (i.e. good for kids who balk at a darker grains) and nutritionally identical to whole wheat flour.
OK I lied, the real best thing about it is that they’ve offered DALS readers a pretty amazing giveaway — everything you’re looking at in this photo below PLUS (not shown) an Emile Henry pizza stone! Guys, I don’t know a lot, but I do know that this is mighty generous of them. Comment below to be eligible. (It wouldn’t hurt if you included a pizza tip or trick.) Deadline: Tuesday, April 5 at noon ET. Good luck!
One bag of their Identity-Preserved White Whole Wheat Flour (“Identity Preserved” means the grains are sustainably grown and traceable from field to flour); one bag of their signature All-Purpose Flour; a “bake” mug; dish towel; dough scraper; bench knife; and the sweetest vintage tea towels. Comment below to be eligible to win. Contest ends Tuesday April 5 at noon ET. Good luck and thanks for playing!
UDPATE: THE WINNER HAS BEEN NOTIFIED. THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO ENTERED!
Spring Pizza with Asparagus and Leeks
4 tablespoons good-quality olive oil, plus more for brushing
1 16-ounce ball pizza dough (see recipe following) preferably sitting out at room temperature for about 15 minutes to warm up a bit and rise
6 ounces feta, crumbled
1 large bunch asparagus, trimmed of its woody ends, and chopped into 1-inch pieces
1 bunch of leeks, cleaned and roughly chopped (about 1 1/2 cups)
1 teaspoon grated lemon peel
½ teaspoon garlic powder
freshly ground pepper
chopped fresh herbs such as mint and chives
Preheat the oven to 475°F. Using your fingers or a pastry brush, grease a 17 x 12-inch rimmed baking sheet with 1 tablespoon of the oil. Drop pizza dough into the center of the baking sheet and, using your fingers, press out and flatten the dough so it spreads as close as possible to all four corners. (This takes time, but you want it to be thin so it cooks evenly and quickly.) Sprinkle with the feta, leaving a ½-inch border around the perimeter. In a large bowl, toss the asparagus, leeks, lemon zest, and garlic powder.
Season with pepper to taste and drizzle in the remaining 3 tablespoons olive oil, then give it all another toss. Using your hands, add the asparagus mixture on top of the cheese in an even layer. Brush the exposed edge of the crust with a little oil. Bake for 15 minutes, until the crust looks golden and the asparagus looks crispy and dark brown, but not black-burnt. (You can always cover the toppings with foil if the asparagus looks ready before the crust is.) Remove the pizza to a cutting board to cool. Top with herbs. Slice into eight rectangular pieces and serve.
Pizza Dough
Makes two 16-ounce balls of pizza dough. (You’ll be glad you have one leftover.)
3 3⁄4 cups King Arthur White Whole Wheat Flour
2 1⁄2 teaspoons instant or other active dry yeast
3⁄4 teaspoon salt
3⁄4 teaspoon sugar
1 1/3 cups water, room temperature
Olive oil, for greasing
In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, yeast, salt, and sugar. Add the water, and using a wooden spoon or your hand, mix until blended, at least 30 seconds. The dough will be stiff, not wet and sticky. Cover the bowl and let it sit at room temperature until the dough has more than doubled in volume, about 2 hours. Divide the dough in two and shape each section into a flattened ball. If you are only making one pizza, freeze the other ball in a freezer storage bag. If you rub a little olive oil on your fingers and on the ball of dough before bagging, it will be less sticky to negotiate.
It is King Arthur for me or nothing!
I love pizza! The number one thing I miss about living in NYC (besides my family) is PIZZA (and bagels and the magnolia trees)
That’s a great giveaway! We’ve always gone out for pizza, so I don’t have any helpful tips to offer on pizza-making but it’s definitely a skill I want to learn.
We love a sauce free pizza with carmelized fennel, ricotta, grape tomatoes, fresh mozarella, lemon zest, fennel fronds and topped with pink Hawaiian sea salt and drizzled with some great olive oil
I like making spinach pies using whole wheat pizza crust to take to work for a lunch that is tidy, delicious, and not bad for you. I bake them on parchment paper, on top of a hot pizza stone.
I love making pizza at home. My tip/trick is to use Mark Bittman’s food processor pizza dough recipe. It is not the fanciest bread making approach, doesn’t get deep into hydration or fermentation, but it is FAST and EASY, and you can have pizza you make yourself really quickly. Sometimes you just need to get it done, and with delicious toppings from our local italian deli, Bittman’s easy recipe makes it all work for our family.
King Arthur Flour is great. They did a fantastic program with my son’s middle school where they showed them how to make bread and sent them home with the key ingredients and recipe to make 2 loaves. The kids then kept one loaf for their family and donated the other loaf to a local food pantry. We just used that recipe to bake bread again this weekend. I usually just buy pizza dough, but maybe we should try making that ourselves too.
Kathleen,
You can use the same bread recipe your son learned for pizza dough. You already know how!
Sunday night is pizza night at our house! I especially love making it with my 2 year old son. My tip is to cook it on a very hot grill.
love DALS, King Arthur, and pizza!
I love pizza! My trick is to always cook the crust a bit before I add the sauce and toppings to ensure a super crisp crust!
I’d love a chance to bake with all those products and enjoy some spring produce!
Love King Arthur! I started using the whole grain version when my kids were tiny, so they don’t know there is another way baked goods could look.
We started making pizza on the grill last summer and we never went back to the oven – I was out there many times this winter with a pizza on the grill.
Love KAF products!
One of the best ways to use up leftovers meats or veggies is for pizza topping. Also, you can make a great pizza over a campfire in a cast iron skillet! I have never won a contest, so I’m really hoping you pick me!
I love using white whole wheat flour for pizza as well as baked goods. I look forward to trying this recipe! When I make pizza using my pizza stone, I put the pie on parchment before putting it on the stone, so that it doesn’t stick to the stone.
What an awesome giveaway!!
My husband has been wanting a pizza stone. This is perfect!
I love making homemade pizza! Its way cheaper and tastes fresher!
Such a huge King Arthur flour fan! (It’s not distributed in Canada, so I used to drive across the border and stock up on huge bags when I lived in Vancouver!)
Think dried fruit on pizza to add a little sweet and chewy goodness: sausage, squash, Swiss chard, and dried cranberries; bacon, broccoli, red onions, feta cheese, and raisins; and chickpeas, cherry tomatoes, curried sautéed onions, and dried apricots are three examples. Delicious!
I love King Arthur Flour’s White Whole Wheat flour. I sub it for AP flour often. Just picked up a bunch of asparagus maybe the kids would actually eat it on a pizza. Worth a try.
Yum! Love King Arthur flour. Our pizza tip: spread dough onto parchment paper – – makes it immensely easier to slide into the oven (and can remain on parchment paper directly on a pizza stone).
I just bought some asparagus at the market. Now I know what I’m going to do with it. Our favorite non-red sauce pizza is pesto + potato (thinly sliced), but I’m guessing the hints of lemon on yours will make for a lovely spring dinner.
I just started making my own pizza, and would LOVE the chance to use these ingredients, as now I’m winging it.
My husband and I just got married in December, and cooking together has been our very favorite married activity! It’s such good built-in quality time to catch up on our days while we’re working side by side in the kitchen. We make pizza together about once a week, and we love it because it’s so customizable– we even do different toppings on each half , depending on what we have in the fridge/ what we’re each in the mood for on a given night. And we’ve been wanting to start making our own dough from scratch (instead of buying a ball of dough from the grocery store), so this is perfect!