Pizza

Oh man this one was fun, plus its pizza, who doesn't like pizza? So next time I make it I'm going to use my own wheat flour ground fresh by me. I chickened out this time and used all white store bought stuff. So Seen below is most of the ingredients. I try so hard to get all the attending parties out and lined up for a nice shot and I imagine its a little like trying to take a picture at the family reunion. the guy taking the photo is obviously not going to make it into the shot right. So lets see what I forgot. I don't see any cheese, thats kinda important for pizza. There was some water, thats ok to forget. What the heck is that weed looking thing in the corner? Thats actually fresh oregano from the garden. I have some awesome herbs growing in the garden this year, although the basil is not quite ready, bummer thats my favorite one. And actually when I went to make the sauce, it was also baby feeding time at our house an I opted to just sprinkle in the dry stuff instead of chopping fresh herbs. Sometimes its all about quick and easy.

Ok so I also stole my recipe off of the web for the crust. I have made pizza twice in the past month and used two kinds of crust recipes, and this one is the better one. So here it is.

Ingredients

* 2 1/2-3 cups flour
* 2 tablespoons sugar
* 2 1/4 teaspoons fast rising yeast (or fast rise, 1 envelope)
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 1 cup very warm water (120 to 130 degrees)
* 2 tablespoons oil

1. In a large bowl, combine 1 cup flour, sugar, undissolved yeast, and salt; blend well.

2. Gradually add water and oil to mixture. Blend at low speed until moistened, then beat for 2 minutes at medium speed. By hand, add 1 1/2 to 2 cupa flour until dough pulls away from sides of bowl.

3. On floured surface, knead in 1/4 to 1/2 cup flour until dough is smooth and elastic. Cover loosely with plastic and let rest in a warm place for about 15 minutes.

4. Press out dough onto (2) 12-inch pizza pans. Prick randomly with a fork. Let rest again in a warm place for 10-15 minutes.

5. Brush crusts lightly with oil then pre-bake them in a 450 degree oven for 5 minutes.

6. Top as desired, then bake again in 450 degree oven for 4-5 minutes, or until desired doneness.


So I followed the above recipe almost exactly and the crust was awesome! I suppose I could have made the crust more round, and if I still had a pizza stone, wouldn't that be something. Our pizza stone died a horrible fiery death about a year ago. I would tell you the whole story but its long. Basically it all happened out doors on the grill and it involved an entire tank of propane. That was one black pizza stone man! So now I use cookie sheets. I sprinkled one with corn meal and the other I put on parchment paper. The parchment paper was WAY better. no mess at all, and no sticking at all!

So I made up the recipe for the sauce and Im open to suggestions here. It was good but im sure it could be better. It was going to bee good with fresh herbs I suppose but oh well.

1 can of tomato sauce, heavily sprinkled with Oregano, Basil, Onion powder, and Garlic Powder.
spread it on the pizza dough thick after the 5 minute pre-bake, and then top with your favorite toppings
I topped with Tons of Mozzarella of course and then Mushrooms and spicy sausage (left over breakfast sausage) The second pizza had Ham and Pineapple. Guess what? the pizza was pretty dang good! the whole thing took a little longer than 1 hour! I cant wait till the girls are older and we can do this one together!

2 comments:

majoram...that's a spice you can try adding. :)

Personally, I prefer a non-tomato based sauce. I like a simple pesto.

May 26, 2008 at 8:30 PM  

Here is a Pizza sauce recipe I got from Suzi it is EXCELLENT!

1 8oz can tomato sauce
1/4 T sugar
3/8 t oregano
1/8 t garlic powder
1/8 t italian seasoning
3/8 t anise seed (you will need to crush it)
dash of salt and pepper
YOU WILL LOVE IT!
AMBER SMITH

August 7, 2008 at 12:19 PM  

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