Learning to brunch...Pan-cooked pizza with sun-dried tomatoes, black olives, provola cheese and champignons

This is a very easy pizza to prepare. The trick is to cook the dough in a pan instead that in the oven. Then, after the pizza is stuffed with your favorite ingredients (in this case sun-dried tomatoes, black olives, provola cheese and champignons) you have just to put it in the oven to grill for a few minutes. The taste is very rich and the pizza is so crunchy, but still with the thready cheese I like. We did it at a brunch cooking lesson I recently attended. I learned that brunch is not only about pancakes, French toast, eggs and coffee, and when there's an Italian touch it might become even more interesting. Besides pizza, we prepared a salad with oranges and grapefruits, a potato Italian omelette, a marinated salmon, a cous cous with roasted vegetables and feta cheese, a mozzarella bread, a Taboulè cous cous (typical of Lebanon), a corn bread, Boquerones (a Spanish style fresh marinated anchovies), grilled grapefruits and two types of  muffins, one with rice and the other one with apples and carrots.  I have to say, this was the best brunch I have ever had, so thank you Americans for having invented brunch...and thank you Italians for pizza and the art of cooking!!!  Enjoy  this tasty pizza  with a fresh glass of beer or an easy sparkling white wine, like a Prosecco. 

Pan-cooked  pizza with dry tomatoes, black olives, provola cheese and champignons

(the recipe is taken from my class cookbook written by Roberta Molani, makes 6 servings)

300 g self raising flour

1 tablespoon Provencal herbs

water

salt

500 g basil and garlic tomato sauce

10 sun-dried tomatoes in oil

basil leaves

150 g sliced  champignon mushrooms

200g smoked provola cheese (cow's milk cheese typical of Southern Italy) or mozzarella cut into little pieces.

2 tablespoons pitted black olives

extra virgin olive oil

Mix the flour with the water (about 2 dl), a pinch of salt and the Provencal herbs in order to obtain a soft and flexible dough. Roll it out in the shape of a disk on a pastry board.  Oil a pan and cook the pizza on both sides for about 4-5 minutes each. Place the cooked dough disk in a baking tray and stuff it, when still warm,   beginning with tomato sauce, then with sun- dried tomatoes, basil,  mushrooms, provola cheese or mozzarella,  black olives, more basil leaves, and lastly, add a  sprinkle of extra virgin olive oil. Put in the oven to grill until the cheese is melted and thready.