Pizza

This week we are rerunning our recipe for pizza dough, which is a staple on our house. We make it in quadruple batches and freeze it in individual balls. It works great for garlic knots, bread sticks, calazones or focaccia. Use it as a base for any extra veggies – think way beyond pepperoni. Eggplant, peppers, fresh tomatoes are all great! How about zucchini or grated carrots? David makes a great breakfast pizza that is a rip off of a Wolfgang Puck pizza - with eggs, bacon and basil! Yum!

Pizza Dough

1 T active dry yeast

¾ C + 2 T water

2 ¾ C flour

1 t salt

1 T extra virgin olive oil

Dissolve yeast in water, add flour and salt, knead by hand or machine. Roll finished ball in olive oil and let rise for about an hour before using. Or divide into smaller balls and freeze immediately. Let thaw and rise a bit before you use it.

TIPS:You can substitute part of the flour for whole wheat/rye/buckwheat flour to have a heartier dough. A great whole wheat pizza is topped with sliced cooked potatoes, fresh rosemary, olive oil and crunchy sea salt. Sounds weird – but is amazing! You need to have a pizza stone to make this as sublime as it should be. Place it on the bottom of your stove and set the temp for as hot as your stove will go (450-500) and let preheat for at least 30-45min.Use a bread peel or the back of a baking sheet dusted with cornmeal, semolina flour or regular flour. The trick to get it onto the stone is all in the wrist – practice a few times before you put the toppings on to make sure the dough is not sticking anywhere. Should cook in 5-10 min, depending on your stove. The best sauce would be a thick homemade, marinara sauce. For cheese, we love whole milk mozzarella (BIG difference from part-skim) mixed with fontina, and Parmesan. This is a thin, Italian style pizza – so I would stay light on the toppings and avoid wet sauces. We even like just fresh sliced tomatoes, whole milk or fresh mozzarella, garlic and olive oil.