Home made pizza with leeks, lamb and pecorino

INSPIRATION: Food and Wine Magazine, October 2009 issue and Cindy and Ernesto's visit.

I have recently been working with dough a lot and so I got inspired to make pizza. Plus Cindy and I are doing this toegther and Ernesto just stocked the fridge with some Sweetwater 420 that will be a great accompaniment to the pizza!!This recipe is for 4 mini pizza's.

Ingredients:
3/4 to 1 pounds pizza dough (from whole foods frozen section), cut into 4 pieces
1 large leeks, sliced 1/4 inch thick (discard green end because it will be tough. slit lengthwise first and then slice thin)
3/4 pound ground lamb (you could use beef or ground chicken but the lamb flavor was right on for this recipe)
18 cherry tomatoes, halved
1/4 pound truffled pecorino cheese, thinly sliced (around 15 thin strips)
Four for dusting and olive oil for basting

Directions:

Thaw out the dough in refrigerator that morning or a few hours before. The dough usually comes in a 1.5 lb block so I just used half and saved the rest for another day.

On a lightly floured work surface, roll out each piece of dough to a 7-inch round. This could take time because pizza dough is a bit sticky and tends to stretch slowly.

Foil and oil 2 large inverted baking sheets and place the dough rounds on the sheets. Cover with plastic wrap and let dough rest for 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, in a large saucepan or skillet, heat 1/4 cup of the olive oil. Add the leeks, season with salt and pepper and cook over moderate heat until softened, about 8 minutes; transfer to a plate. Add the 2 tablespoons of olive oil to the skillet. Add the lamb, season with salt and pepper and cook until no pink remains, about 5 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 500°. If you have a pizza stone, heat it on the bottom of the oven for 45 minutes. I didnt so I decided to use the large inverted baking sheet which worked well.

Top the rested dough with the leeks, lamb, tomatoes and pecorino cheese. Bake for about 4 minutes. Turn oven off and leave for 2 minutes.

Notes: Note that since I didnt use a pizza stone (although I think this would work really well if making pizza on the grill! but i dont have a grill either so maybe someday..) and I used the same inverted cookie sheet with the foil and the olive oil, my olive oil started burning at minute 4 so just be aware of that - it still doesn't harm the food and it was still delicious. That's why I turned oven off and let it sit for 2-3 more minutes before removing. The alternative professional way of doing this would be to generously flour a pizza peel (which is kinda like a wood flat shovel to slide pizza). Place a dough round on the peel and brush with olive oil. Then top with topping. Then slide the dough round onto the hot stone or baking sheet and bake for about 4 minutes.