Photo #333/365: Pizza

For a long time now, I have been looking for a recipe for a really good homemade pizza crust.  My cousin, Angela, gave me one that I like, but it wasn't quite what I wanted.  I saw this recipe on Pinterest.  It is from a blog called Lauren's Latest.  Tonight is the first time I every used my dough hook on my stand mixer.  It was easy, and worked very well.   Here is Lauren's recipe.

Fail-Proof Pizza Dough and Cheesy Garlic Bread Sticks 

Basic Pizza Dough
yield: 2-12 inch pizzas, approximately 1 lb. of dough
Ingredients:
1 cup warm water
2 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast
1 tablespoon honey {or sugar}
2 teaspoons salt
2 tablespoons olive or canola oil
3 cups bread flour

Directions:
In a large mixing bowl, preferably that of a stand mixer, stir yeast and honey into warm water. Sit for 5-10 minutes or until bubbles form and mixture starts to foam. Pour in salt, oil and half the flour and mix.

Once that flour is incorporated, start adding flour in bit by bit until you get the pizza dough to the consistency you want: slightly tacky, but when you touch it it doesn’t stick to your hands.

Turn the mixer on high to knead for 6 minutes. Make sure to let it go the whole 6 minutes.

The dough should be smooth and easy to work with. And the bowl should be clean!

Lightly grease the bowl and the dough so it doesn’t dry out, cover with plastic wrap and let it rise 1-2 hours.



I baked it at 400 degrees for about 12 minutes.

Go to her blog to see the step by step tutorial and her recipe for Cheesy Garlic Bread Sticks.  You'll find it at:  Lauren's Latest

This is absolutely the best pizza I ever made!  I used some of my homemade pasta sauce, sweet Italian sausage, pepperoni, and a mixture of Italian cheeses.  Give it a try!

Photo #275: Saturday Night Pizza

I made homemade pizza for dinner tonight. I'm always looking for a good recipe for pizza dough. I think I found it with this recipe from Angela. It was posted on the Overland Park Baking Examiner blog back in January.

I, being a fairly lazy cook, didn't quite follow directions, however. I threw all the ingredients for the dough into my bread machine, and set it on the dough cycle. It came out good. Next time, I'm going to load it up with more sausage and pepperoni.

Homemade Pizza Dough
From Angela Pritchett

Pizza dough
• 1/4 oz. package yeast
• 1 tsp. sugar
• 1/2 cup warm water, 100 -110° degrees, + another 1/2 cup tap water ( you can slowly run the tap water into the container you used to proof the yeast so this additional water helps you get all the yeast into your dough)
• 2 1/2 – 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp. salt
• 2 tblsps. olive oil
1. Stir the sugar and yeast into 1/2 cup warm water. Let the yeast mixture stand for 10 minutes to proof.
2. Combine 1 1/2 cups flour and the salt in a mixing bowl. Once the yeast has proofed add it to the flour mixture and stir until just combined. Add another cup of flour to the dough, alternating with the additional 1/2 cup water and the olive oil. The olive oil will help get any remaining flour mixed into your dough.
3. Turn dough onto a floured surface and knead while you add up to 1/2 cup flour to keep the dough from sticking.
4. Oil a large bowl and place the dough in the bowl, turning it over to oil it completely. Cover and let rise in a warm place for 1 hour or until doubled. Your dough is now ready to pat into a pizza pan, top with sauce, cheese and your favorite toppings, and bake.

Photo #48: Michael's Birthday

Michael's Birthday
Originally uploaded by BarbaraLN

My son, Michael, turned 22 today. To celebrate his birthday, we went out for dinner at Bella Italia Restaurant in Pleasant Hill. We had the Phillie Cheese Steak Pizza, which was delicious, and bread sticks which were outstanding. After that it was home for birthday cake, watching the olympics, and bed.