It's all Greek to Me

So I used the "son of the bitch" starter tonight to make the crust for my sourdough Greek pizza. Here's a photo of the pie before it went into the oven. Making the dough was very simple - 1.5 cups starter, 1.5 cups flour, some olive oil and a pinch of salt. No commercial yeast was used anywhere. I mixed everything together and then kneaded it by hand, shaped it into a ball and let it sit covered for about an hour (I'm thinking all this kneading is excellent practice for the pushup challenge - bakers must have arms like Hercules). Then I pressed the dough out, tossed and spun it into shape and rubbed it with extra virgin olive oil. The toppings were mushroom, red onion, grilled chicken and spinach, with mozzarella and feta. I did not use any tomato sauce. Popped it into a 450F oven for 15 minutes and hey presto.

Here it is resting on the peel before slicing. It made the house smell delicious and brought back really good memories of our time in Greece.

I gave the remainder of the starter another feed and it's bubbling away very vigorously at the moment - a healthy sign. I was going to refrigerate it, but I'm thinking I may proof it again in the morning and make some more bread tomorrow night. I am so happy I finally managed to cultivate it.

For those of you who are interested in trying it yourself, there are many resources for sourdough starters on the internet but I found success with this one (it's also one of the easiest). The pizza dough recipe I got here. The rest of the pizza came out of my own head. For general bread information, you couldn't find a better place to start than here (hint : their pita bread recipe is excellent). Happy baking.