Home-made Pizza

                                     

Making pizza is one of Seth's and my favorite things to do for dinner. It's a good date night activity, it's somewhat cheap and it's oh so good! However, everyone makes their pizza differently, so this recipe is going to have a lot of interchangeable ingredients :)

Crust

Ingredients:

1 pkg active dry yeast

1 C lukewarm water

1 1/4 C ice-cold water

1 tsp sugar

1 tbsp salt

2 tbsp olive oil

5 1/2 C flour

(The recipe makes three pizzas, which is enough for two nights dinner for us!)

In a bowl, combine the yeast and warm water. Stir with a fork and then give it five minutes to dissolve.

In another bowl, mix the cold water, sugar, salt and olive oil. Stir until it's dissolved.

Add the flour to the bowl of a standing mixer. Pour in both water mixes. Mix on low speed until it forms a coarse ball, about 4 min. Turn it off for 2 min, and then mix on low speed until smooth, about six minutes. It'll look like the picture below.

       

Change the paddle to the dough hook, and knead the dough for a minute or two. It'll look like this picture:

Split the dough into three parts and put into individual bowls. Beware! The dough will be sticky! However, it should only stick to your finger for a few seconds before pulling away. You should not have dough stuck all over your hands! If you do, you need more flour :) 

Refrigerate the dough for 10 hrs or two days. It should have mostly doubled in size by the time it comes out.

Taking each individual dough piece, place it on a well-floured counter. Don't roll out the dough, rather pull and push it into a circle shape until it won't get any bigger. I like to roll the edges to give my finished pizza more of puffed crust, but Seth leaves his flat.

Sauce

Ingredients:

2 6oz can tomato (Seth and I don't like large chunks of tomato in our sauce, so we just use the tomato sauce. However, you can used puree or chunks or whatever)

3 tbsp grated Parmesan cheese

5-6 cloves minced garlic

1 1/2 tsp onion powder

1/2 tsp oregano

1/2 tsp marjoram

1/2 tsp basil

1/2 tsp black pepper

1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

1/4 tsp red pepper flakes

Add all these things to a saucepan, and heat up on the stove. Once it starts bubbling, turn it on low and keep warm while making your pizzas.

To make our pizzas, we brush the spread-out dough with a little olive oil mixed with garlic, either pieces or powder. Pour on desired amount of sauce. This is where Seth's and my pizzas differ. I put sauce, a layer of caramelized onions, a layer of cheese, one of pepperoni, and a smaller layer of cheese. Seth just has cheese and pepperoni. Two layers :) However, we both sprinkle basil on top! It's very yummy :)