Pizza!
It's definitely one of my top favorite foods. My other favorite is probably potato pierogi. I'm a Polish girl though, so what do you expect?
Ah, but pizza. So perfect. So cheesy. What's not to love? I love ordering pizza. Since we moved here to New Jersey, I have had fun trying out all the different pizza places around here to find our new favorite. We had our favorite spots in Philly, one for regular pizza, one for white pizza and one for sauce on top pizza.
One of my favorite things to do with my son is to make our own pizza from scratch at home. It can get messy (flour all over ourselves and the kitchen) and take a long time (the recipe I use calls for dough-rising time) but it's fun and it seems healthier to me than pizza store pizza. I don't know if it really is or isn't, but I feel like it is.
I have tried many different types of pizza dough recipes and so far this is my favorite. It comes from the book Cook This, Not That I like this series of books because I have gotten good ideas from them.
So here my first attempt at documenting a recipe!
This is the cast of characters to make the dough
I start with a cup of hot water and add my salt.
Then I add my agave nectar.
Then I add the yeast.
Looks pretty gross. Me and my son like to watch it when the yeast starts to activate. It makes all these neat bubbles and it's kinda cool!
So after 10 minutes, your yeasty water should look all bubbly and foamy like this.
Next I add the oil.
The next step is to add the flour little by little and stir and mix and stir. It comes out to look like a big sticky blob. It shouldn't be too sticky though because that means you don't have enough flour.
Put your dough clump on a well-floured surface and knead it for about 5 minutes, adding extra flour sprinkles if the dough is too sticky. I wash out the same bowl I used and grease it a little bit with some oil.
Cover it in plastic and let that puppy sit for about 90 minutes.
This dough ball should rise nicely for you. I punch it down in the middle about halfway through waiting for it to be done. Sometimes it seems to rise too high for me so I just punch it. Well, I'll have my son punch it because again, it's fun for him to do and watch!
So the I take the big ball of dough and roll it out onto my pizza plate. Again, add a few sprinkles of flour to combat any stickiness.
Now here's the best part of pizza! You can add whatever you want to it to make it your own creation. Our favorite sauce is this one, but use whatever you love! Sometimes I don't use sauce and spread olive oil on the crust, season it with garlic powder, garlic salt, bits of garlic and lots of cheese!
Today it was just a plain pizza. Add as much or as little sauce, cheese and toppings as you want!
Bake at 500 degrees for about 8 minutes. Sometimes it's a few more minutes for some reason for the cheese and crust to get to this beautiful, golden color. I'm so hungry looking at this right now!
So there is my first food post! Hooray! I hope you try out this recipe and let me know if you have a favorite that I can try out!
Pizza Dough Recipe (from Cook this, Not that)
1 package instant yeast
1 cup hot water
1/2 tsp salt
1 Tbsp sugar or honey (I like agave)
1/2 Tbsp olive oil
2 1/2 cups flour, plus more for kneading/rolling
Combine yeast with water, salt and agave and let sit for 10 minutes while it activates. Stir in olive oil. Add flour and stir. When the dough is not sticky anymore, place on well-floured board and knead for about 5 minutes. Put dough ball in bowl, cover with plastic wrap and let dough rise for about 90 minutes. Keeps in the fridge for about 2 days.
