What better time to finally write a blog post than when sitting on hold for school trying to figure out why the problem that was supposedly solved is now, well, unsolved…reproblematized…uggg…I don’t know, but uggg…

So here I sit, listening to the sounds of GSU’s Jazz band (Heads up GSU…I’m sure the band is great, but you’re doing them a disservice by playing them as hold music. NOTHING sounds good as hold music blaring through a phone.  Nothing.).  My bright note for the day is that I got an ‘A’ on that horrible fairy tale class.  I earned that A.  Stupid final.

But, on to brighter things like pizza!  Pizza is bright, is it not?  Or at least it’s round…and the sun is also round…and lightbulbs are generally also roundish…so pizza…bright?  Not really, but yummy?  Heck yeah!

 This is actually the second time I’ve made this particular pizza.  The one above was last week.  This week’s pizza is round #2 because I made homemade sauce last week and doubled the batch thinking, two batches for two pizzas, and no…two pizzas and several English Muffin Pizzas later, I’ve still got sauce.

Aren’t they cute? If you’ve never made them before take an English muffin, put you’re sauce, cheese, and whatever topping you want on top and bake at 375 for 10 minutes. Easy.

I don’t regret my unexpected abundance, because it’s really quite delicious.  I found the recipe on Ohsweetbasil.com, and would highly recommend it.  It’s quite good…you just might want to think twice about doubling the batch unless you know you’re really going to use that much or you plan on freezing it etc.

And the dough recipe isn’t my own either.  I’m not that cool, though I did tweak it a little bit with the spices and the cook time.  That one comes from AllRecipes, “Pizza Dough III“.  Exciting name, I know.  But it works, consistently.  I’ve now made four whole pizzas with it, and have had no problems, so huzzah!  Also, leftovers…I’m digging the leftovers.

Pizza Dough

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Ingredients

• 1 packet Active Dry Yeast (.25 ounce)
• 1 cup Warm Water (The instructions say 110 degrees. I don't really check this when I'm baking, I just turn the tap to hot, wait until it actually gets hot, and use the water.)
• 2 cups Bread Flour (Yes, there's a difference between this and all purpose. Something to do with gluten linking together and gasses and things that are past my knowledge. Point is, this is different from all purpose so try to use it if possible.)
• 2 tablespoons Olive Oil
• 1 teaspoon Salt
• 2 teaspoons White Sugar
• Sauce (Tomato, alfredo, barbecue...whatever floats your boat)
• Cheese (I suggest mozzerella plus something else to give it a little oomph. And oomph is a word.)
• Toppings (Go crazy.)

Optional

• 1 1/2 teaspoon Italian Seasonings (I used Mrs Dash. Any seasonings you happen to like should work here.)

Directions

Step 1
Dissolve the yeast in warm water and let it sit for around 10 minutes. It should look kind of creamy. Mix it around a bit so the lumps dissolve.
Step 2
Combine flour, olive oil, salt, sugar, seasonings (optional), and yeast mixture. You can try to do it with a spoon, or maybe whip out a stand mixer...I just wash my hands really well and knead it all together after mixing it a little. Messy, but effective.
Step 3
Cover it with a towel or two and let the dough rise for at least 30 minutes. If it rises too much, punch it back down, roll it up, and cover it again. Longer is better, so if you have a few hours, that's recommended. So go run errands or something.
Step 4
Preheat oven to 350. Flip/scoop/dump the dough onto a well floured surface, and roll it around to cover it.
Step 5
Put the dough ball onto your pan, and roll it out into a pizza shape using a rolling pin (and if you can do that cool spinny thing with your hands, I am sooo jealous). Keep your flour handy so that you can sprinkle some on top to keep the dough from sticking to your rolling pin. I like to pinch the sides up a bit for crust.
Step 6
Layer on your sauce(followed by your spinach if you're weird like me, and needed spinach on your pizza).
Step 7
Add your toppings.
Step 8
Bake at 350 until golden brownish, or until you deem it done. The original recipe says 20 minutes. My oven takes 25. Use your judgement a little here.

And I apologize for the dark scariness of the photos…they didn’t look dark and scary on my phone, but online it kind of looks like making pizza in some weird gothic mansion…or maybe with the Munsters…their house was darkish, right?

Any-who, next post will more than likely be titled Wok Seasoning Part 3, because of an unfortunate incident involving soap, and someone unaware that you don’t wash a wok with it…we promise not to set any more fires.  Well, I promise.  If there’s a fire, I’m blaming Michael. 🙂

(Although, as a side note, if we do set something on fire, at least we’ve already buttered up the fire department with popsicles!)