Tasty Tuesday -- Pizza Edition!

For those of you who don't know, my dear sweet Kelly is probably the pickiest eater in the entire world. This poor child would rather starve then have to actually sit down and eat. Not at all like her mother, I might add! But anyway, the one thing for sure that we can always get our little darling to eat is Pizza. She still likes to keep it basic (cheese or sausage pizza), but hey, food is food in my opinion! I'm just happy when the kid eats! So even though I know you can either buy a Little Ceaser's pizza for $5 or get a frozen one for the same amount, we all know those pizza's are NOT filling. Sure, they might fill you up at the moment, but within two hours your stomach starts growling and screaming for more food.

That's when I decided it was time to try making my own pizza. At first I tried making it using those cheap packages of pizza dough mix you can buy at the store, but the same thing happened -- Not filling enough! So then I went in search of a good pizza dough recipe. One that was easy and required very little effort. This is the recipe that I use now. I picked it because the dough always comes out nice and crisp, but also because it's so freakin' easy!!!! This recipe is from the book "How to Cook Everything" by Mark Bittman. Here you go:

"You can knead this dough with a mixer (use the dough hook), or by hand, but I like the food processor best. The pizzas can be grilled or baked in an oven-the hotter the better (commercial pizza ovens are usually about 700 degrees). This is the simplest, most basic pizza (and bread) dough you can make. Olive oil makes a smoother, more flavorful dough and a slightly cracklier crust -- but you can omit it if you like -- just add a little more water to the dough if you do.

Basic Pizza dough recipe

1 tsp instant or rapid-rise yeast (I actually use one square of those envelope packs you buy)
3 cups all purpose flour or bread flour (I use 2 cups all-purpose flour and one cup whole wheat flour so the dough is heartier)
2 teaspoons coarse kosher salt or sea salt, plus extra for sprinkling
1 to 1 1/4 cups water
2 tbl plus 1 tsp olive oil

Combine the yeast, four, and 2 tsp salt in the container of a food processor. Turn the machine on and add 1 cup water and the 2 tbl of oil through the feed tube.

Process for about 30 seconds, adding more water, a little at a time, until the mixture forms a ball and is slightly sticky to the touch. If it is dry, add another tablespoon or two of water and process for another 10 seconds. (in the unlikely event that the mixture is too sticky, add flour, a tablespoon at a time)

Turn the dough onto a floured work surface and knead by hand a few seconds to form a smooth, round dough ball. Grease a bowl with the remaining olive oil, and place the dough in it. Cover with plastic wrap or a damp cloth and let rise in a warm, draft free area until the dough doubles in size, 1 to 2 hours. (My house is always cold in the winter, so it takes at least 2 hours for my dough to rise) You can cut this rising time short if you are in a hurry, or you can let the dough rise more slowly, in the refrigerator, for up to 6-8 hours.

Roll out dough as usual."

Obviously we all have our own recipe toppings that we prefer, so there's no real need to get into topping ideas. As I was doing some searching, I found this one blogger who said she liked a thinner crust, and therefore was able to get a large and a medium pizza out of this dough recipe. If you do use it all, it will make a very thick, dense dough (which I really like). when we get a frozen pizza, Kelly can easily eat 1/2 to 3/4 of it. With this one, she can eat one big slice and she's stuffed (and not hungry again 2 hours later). We also cook our pizza on a pizza stone. I'm a huge fan of pizza stones, but I know not everybody has one. I found ours for $5 on cheapcycle AND it was already well seasoned and ready to go. That being said, I'm not sure how the dough will come out on a regular cookie sheet.

To cook the pizza, I heat the oven with the pizza stone in it (on the bottom rack) to 500 degrees. Once the oven is preheated, I slide the dough with all of the toppings onto the pizza stone and cook until the cheese is sufficiently melted -- usually about 10-12 minutes. OH! And for the pizza sauce, I just use the cheapy jarred pizza sauce you can buy at walmart. It's pretty darned tasty.

Well, that's it! Happy pizza making!

** Below I included a Potato Chowder recipe as a follow-up from last week's Tasty Tuesday edition. Enjoy!