Pizza! Pizza!

In recent years a phrase has been coined to describe a food that is nutrient rich and beneficial to health and well-being. They call these "superfoods." While it may not meet those exact specifications, I consider Pizza to be a superfood. You can eat it hot, cold, for lunch, dinner, breakfast, it can be gluten free, vegan, contain meat or not, you can pile it high with vegetables or have simply cheese. Now if that isn't superfood, I don't know what is. I personally could probably eat pizza almost every day which means we try out a lot of pizza places. Caleb and I are always up for something new and joined the trend of trying the 'take 'n' bake pizza' from Papa Murphy's. I would liken them to being the Subway of pizza. Pick your bread and topping and they wrap it up and send you on your way where you can bake it yourself at home. We are definitely the get-every-topping-you-can-possibly-get kind of people. So needless to say we were a little sad when we had to pay extra for toppings ($1 for anything extra) and we ended up taking our pizza home and adding toppings ourselves. So why not make the pizza yourself too. It just makes sense. 

Pizza Dough - Source Joy of Cooking
(makes two 12-inch crusts)

Combine in bowl of heavy duty mixer (I use a kitchen aid) and let stand until yeast is dissolved about 5 mins
Your dough should double in size after you let it sit. If it does not then your yeast may not have activated so make sure that you get the correct temperature of water and that it is fully dissolved before you move on.

1 1/3 cups warm (105° to 115°F) water
1 package (2 1/4 teaspoons) active dry yeast

Then using your dough hook attachment (you can mix this by hand but it is much more labor intensive and takes longer) turn your mixer on low and add the flour 1/2 of a cup at a time until well mixed. Add olive oil, salt, and sugar. I use kosher salt but table salt is fine too.

3 1/2  to 3 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 Tablespoons olive oil
1 Tablespoon salt
(1 Tablespoon sugar)   

Turn mixer on medium and let mix until dough is smooth and elastic looking. The dough should completely pull away from the sides of the mixer and be in a ball. There should be no dough stuck to the sides of the bowl. If your dough is too sticky* add 1/4 cup more flour and let mix repeat this until smooth. Take dough out of the bowl. If it sticks to your hands without releasing clean it still needs more flour.  

Coat the inside of a medium bowl with olive oil (about 1/2 a Tablespoon) put your dough in the bowl and then flip it over so that each side is covered in oil.

Make a damp kitchen towel and cover your bowl. Set it someplace warm (I set mine on top of the stove when it is off)  to rise. Do NOT turn the oven on but set a timer for 45 mins and let your dough rest.

When the timer goes off punch down your dough and recover. You may need to re-dampen your towel. Turn oven on to 475º and preheat your pans for 45 mins while your dough continues to rise. When the timer goes off pull out your pans and punch down your dough again and let it rest for 10-15 mins. This is to ensure that your dough will not be too elastic to roll out. Lower the oven temp to 350º

Dust your work surface with flour to keep your dough from sticking. Coat the bottom of your pan or pans with olive oil.  Now you are ready to roll out your dough. You can use any shape pan you like, I use traditional round. You don't want to handle your dough too roughly or the gluten will reactivate and cause it to become elastic again. If this happens recover your dough and let it sit for another 10 minutes. This will cause the gluten to relax and you can continue to roll again. If you don't have a rolling pin you can use anything round and heavy. In fact we use a heavy (empty) wine bottle at our house.

After you roll your dough out to your pan size, place in your pan and roll the edges over and press so that it creates a crust. Spread a little olive oil over the bottom of the crust. This creates a barrier that keeps your sauce from soaking in and making your dough soggy as it bakes. We like to pepper the dough and sprinkle a layer of shredded asiago cheese on before we spoon on the sauce. After you spoon on your sauce (we typically use spaghetti sauce but you can make your own or use whatever you like) you can add your toppings.

Bake at 350º for about 20 mins or until your crust is golden brown and your cheese is melted. Enjoy!


Beaucoup d'amour, de rire souvent, et bien mange

xoxo,
Susan

I can write a blog, I have thoughts

If I am going to be honest right off the bat, I have to say that I started this blog months ago. It has sat blank and lonely while I have tried to figure out what I want to say. I constantly think of  a quote from "Julie & Julia" in which she says "I could write a blog, I have thoughts." As it turns out I just couldn't think of any thoughts to share and couple that with the fact that writing isn't my strong suit, it really just sounds like a recipe for disaster.  Finally I decided to just buckle down and work it out. Many ideas have been tossed around about what I want to accomplish here. Do I want to share my personal recipes? Do I want to "perfect" and simplify classics for an easy "how to guide" to make sure your dishes turn out perfectly every time at home? This list goes on for days. In the end I decided I was not quite ready to give up my recipes so easily out into cyberspace. Then it hit me. How many times have you watched a cooking show drooling over your television, found a recipe on the internet you just had to print, or heard from a friend of a friend of a friend that a recipe was "to die for" only to be completely disappointed by the outcome? It has happened to us all. My new rule of thumb is just because they are paid to be on television, or in a magazine does NOT mean the recipe will be good. I personally have countless recipes in folders, binders, books, and magazines. Much like "Julie & Julia," I am going to cook, bake, grill, poach, and sous vide my way through the mass of recipes I've collected and if you have one at home you'd love to try but sounds a little out there, send it to me! I'll try it out for us. Hopefully I can make use of all of my recipes (which might make me feel better about all the trees I have killed collecting them) and help you find some great go to recipes as well.

Beaucoup d'amour, de rire souvent, et bien mange
xoxo,
Susan