Friday, January 16, 2009

Slacker!

That's me, I'm a slacker. I can't believe it's been a month since my last post. A very busy month, mind you, but that's no excuse.

Anyway, our latest obsession around here is pizza. Homemade pizza, that is. Last spring, while on vacation with my 19 of my husband's extended family members, his sister made pizza. Obviously, it was delicious (or else why would I be writing about it?), but the fun part was the "customization". Each and every person got to decide what they wanted on their quandrant (just a side note, this is easier if you're using a rectangular or square pan). Sauce, cheese, toppings, it was all chosen, applied, and popped into the oven. Fifteen minutes later, voila! Your very own pizza. Luckily, after only 3 months of requests (hey, we're all busy people), we recieved the recipe by e-mail. It's shockingly quick and simple. Ready?

Pizza Dough: (this makes 2 pizzas - we usually cut this in half)

Mix in large bowl:
3 cups flour (we usually mix wheat and all-purpose flour)
1 Tbs salt
1 pkg dry yeast (approx 4 tsp)
2 1/2 cups warm water (note: I mix the yeast into the warm water to dissolve it)
Add 4 cups flour
(again, any combination of flour)
Mix and knead until smooth
(If you have time, you can let this sit for 15-30 min. If you don't have time, go to next step)
Divide in two (if you didn't halve the recipe)
Roll out into shape of pan
Cover with toppings (for planning purposes, we use 8 oz. shredded cheese for each pizza, and about 8 oz of sauce, just eyeball it)
Bake at 425 degrees for 15-20 min

I probably don't need to give you suggestions for toppings, but I will anyway. We've made all-veggie; sausage and onion; sausage, mushroom, onion; pepperoni; and at our peak of creativity, we made a buffalo chicken pizza. That one had buffalo sauce instead of marinara sauce, about 2 oz of blue cheese (in addition to mozzarella), buffalo chicken strips (found in your grocer's freezer), and onions (okay, we ALWAYS put onions on our pizza - sometimes raw and sometimes cooked).

The pizzas seem to get better and better, as we get a feel for how the dough should look, how much of each topping to use, what spices to add, etc. My mom got us a pizza stone for Christmas, but unfortunately, that didn't seem to work too well. We had made the pizza on a peel (that's what those big flat shovel-looking things are called that they use in pizza places), and pre-heated the stone in the oven. But when it came time to put the pizza on the stone, it stuck to the peel. Fifteen minutes later, we finally got it off, making a huge mess in the process, and wrecking the beauty of the veggie pizza. Then, after it was done baking, it stuck to the pizza stone. I'm sure all of this comes down to operator error, but when we have a non-stick pizza pan that makes a beautiful crispy crust... let's just say we'll "stick" to that!

Hopefully, you'll enjoy the pizza as much as we do. It's easy to keep the ingredients on hand, and is actually fun to make (kneading dough is good for stress release!). I think I may try a white pie one of these days...

2 comments:

Lo said...

LOVE homemade pizza!

Your pizza stone just needs some breaking in. Oil it up the first few times, and it should be nonstick in no time!!

Kori said...

Thanks Lo! I will try that, although the trauma of the ruined pizza still haunts me somewhat...