...like a big pizza pie that's amore!
I had been struggling to decide what recipe to start this blog with for the last few weeks. After many dishes not seeming quite amazing enough to be THE first dish, looking at a few roma tomatoes finally convinced me. PIZZA!
There is a little Italian in me and my husband and I do like our pizza, but its usually our go to meal when we are too lazy to cook and don't feel like fast food. These days pizza isn't the cheap meal it used to be, with frozen pizzas costing nearly as much as delivery...I figured I could do it for pretty cheap. So I sent the hubby to the grocery store for his topping selections and started kneading.
My first goal was to find a crust that didn't require overnight refrigeration. I don't mind doing things ahead of time, but when I want pizza, I don't want to wait until tomorrow! I researched several recipes and settled on one I found on a blog Fab Food Friday. Of course I doctored it to my specifications, so I'm only going to list my recipe:
Wheat Pizza Crust (after all we are Kansans): 1 cup warm water 2 1/4 teaspoons yeast (I used bread machine yeast as it was all I had on hand) 1 teaspoon honey 1 1/2 cup all purpose flour 1 cup whole wheat flour 1/2 cup bread flour 1 tablespoon fine sea salt 2 tablespoon olive oil First mix the water, yeast and honey and leave set for 5 minutes. This is to give the yeast time to activate. Second I used my mixer to whisk the flours together while the yeast activated. Switching to my dough hook, added the yeast mixture and the salt and olive oil and mixed for 8 or 9 minutes. Finally, place the dough in a greased bowl in the turned off oven next to a bowl of boiling hot water and allow it to rise for 60 minutes.
I took this opportunity to cut up and prep all of our toppings. My meat-loving husband chose traditional sausage and pepperoni toppings, but I also chopped up some roma tomatoes, black olives and sliced up some fresh mozzarella cheese! YUM!
After a very LONG hour, I divided the dough into two pieces and kneaded for a few minutes before flattening. It was a little difficult for us to flatten the dough as it sprung back easily, we ultimately used a rolling pin.
After turning on the oven to 500 degrees, and getting the pizza stone nice and hot we topped our pizzas and cooked them for just under 10 minutes. Depending on how thick you have your crust it might not take that long! Just keep an eye on it.
My toppings and those pictured are: a brush of olive oil, sprinkle of Italian seasoning, some tomato sauce, sliced roma tomatoes, black olive slices, fresh basil, mozzarella slices, and a final sprinkle of Italian seasoning.
Needless to say one of the best pizzas I've ever eaten, and certainly the best that has come out of my oven! I will probably make up more pizza dough and package in individual ziplock bags so I don't have to wait for it to rise. If I come up with a different dough recipe I will post it. Otherwise, the wheat crust wasn't tough or dense, it was nice and light. Mixing the flours really aided that.
Good luck and happy eating!
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