The Dinner Project - Pizza

My first post in The Dinner Project is, by far, my favorite dinner. I mean, who doesn't love pizza?! It is a family favorite as well. My household excitedly repeats "Ooo! Pizza Night!!" when they see it on the menu at the beginning of the week. We do individual pizzas so we can make exactly what we each want.

Admittedly, this one can be a bit time consuming, especially if you aren't familiar with making basic bread dough. However, you can make this dough ahead and keep in the fridge for a few days or freeze it for a couple weeks. Just make sure to wrap it well so it doesn't dry out and leave plenty of time for it to get back to room temp before you make your pizza crust. Once you get the hang of it, making this simple bread dough is pretty easy. (If you have a good mixer with a bread hook it is a snap!)

This recipe for the basic bread dough that makes great pizza dough is a slightly modified version from a recipe in "The Naked Chef Takes Off" by Jamie Oliver. (I LOVE Jamie!!!) This recipe will make 3-4 individual pizzas or one big family-sized pizza. The three of us always have leftovers for lunch the next day. I don't have a pizza stone so we use our cast-iron skillets to bake our pizzas. You don't need either of those though. This will work just fine on a good baking sheet. We each like different thickness of crust so the different sizes of our skillets work well.

Basic Bread Dough:

1/2 lb whole wheat flour

1/2 lb unbleached white flour

1 cup warm water (not hot or cold as it will kill your yeast!)

3/4oz active dry yeast (1 and 1/2 envelopes of the 1/4oz dry yeast packets or, when taking from a jar, it is 3 3/8 tsp. If using fresh yeast then it is 1oz.)

1 tbsp sugar (I use raw sugar but you can use honey too.)

1 tbsp salt

Directions:

Weigh out your flour and set aside. (When baking, measuring flour by weight is much better. If you plan on making bread regularly I strongly suggest getting a kitchen scale. They are about $20 for a decent one at any

kitchen store. It has made me much more successful in baking!)

In a mixing bowl, combine water, yeast and sugar. The yeast should start to foam up a little after a minute or so. This is called "proofing." Basically, you are making sure your yeast is good. If it doesn't foam up then your yeast is too old/dead and your bread will not turn out. Add the salt to the mixture and stir until dissolved.

Now you are going to combine the yeast mixture with the flour. There are a few ways to do this. I use my mixer with a bread hook and slowly add the flour. Some people mix in the flour slowly to the yeast mixing bowl using their hand. (I've done that before too.) The fancy way is to make a little pile of flour on your counter, create a little bowl in the center, pour the yeast mixture into the little well made into the flour pile. You then slowly incorporate the two. I suck at doing this and always make a huge mess. Don't worry if you don't do this. Your bread will turn out fine being mixed in a bowl.

Keep mixing until you start to get a nice, elastic ball of dough. You may have to add a little more water if it looks a little dry and flaky or a bit more flour if it looks too sticky. Different kinds of flour and the temp/humidity will effect this so you just have to eyeball it each time. If you are using a mixer with a bread hook then just let it keep mixing. The bread hook will do all the kneading for you. If you are doing it by hand then plop that beautiful lump out onto a floured surface and KNEAD! (I won't go into proper kneading here. There are plenty of instructional videos on the web to help you along.) Giving your bread a good knead is very important for creating that fluffy texture. Not enough kneading means tough bread.

Set aside your bread dough, in a floured bowl, in a warm place with a damp cloth covering it to rise. For first rise should take an hour or two for the bread to double in size. Once it has done that, punch it down, knead it well again and place it back in the bowl for second rise. The second rise always takes less time. (Mine takes about 30 minutes usually but on really cold days it can take longer.) Punch it down, knead it a little and then you are ready to make your pizza crust.

I usually sprinkle some fine ground cornmeal on my pan but that is just optional. I'm not going to tell you how shape your dough because, to be honest, I kind of suck at it myself. I do my best and it always comes out good.

Put on your toppings and bake at 450 for about 25-30 minutes. If you make your crust really thick it will take longer. If you make your crust paper thin it will be done quickly so check often!

The sky is the limit with homemade pizza toppings. We try to keep it healthy so there are lots of veg and lean meat. We use skim mozzarella cheese and keep it to a couple ounces each. We plan adding some different cheeses as toppings this summer. The most popular toppings in my house include lean Canadian bacon, fresh basil, baby spinach, mushrooms, green peppers, roasted garlic, artichoke hearts (not marinated in oil) and olives. For sauce we each have our own favorites. I use a tablespoon of basil pesto. Monkey uses a mix of spaghetti sauce and feta dressing. Author uses straight up red pizza sauce. If we have it, Monkey and I will sometimes use a touch of truffle oil. (REAL truffle oil, not that chemical shit.) We all keep it very light since the best sauces are never low in fat. We usually sprinkle a little fancy salt and maybe some dried parsley or oregano to finish it off.

Dinner is Ready!

(This is my pizza. I forgot to take a picture before I started eating! It has pesto sauce, mozzarella cheese, fresh basil, Canadian bacon, spinach and a couple mushrooms. It is finished with some Sel Gris (French gray salt) and dried oregano.)