Day 1: PIZZA!!!

Remember how I posted about the 7 essential ingredients every kitchen should have?  Well today, we are using 5 of them to make pizza dough.  Which ones?  Flour, salt, sugar, rising agent and oil.  It is so easy I would certainly say even n 8 year old could make this.  Wait--she did!  Well, at least half of it.  I was the sous chef today and she really just needed my muscle power.  You'll understand why later.  But first, a side story...

Side story...

Right now I am using the "speech-to-text" feature on my iphone so that I can speak my recipe into this blog post. Definitely a time saver, huh? What made me think to do that, you ask?  Well let me  tell you, lots of great ideas come from failures or by accident.  Yup!  And today was one of those days. I was trying to take pictures, shoot video, and cook eight pizzas all at once.  Why is that not a good idea, you ask?  )Sheesh, you sure ask a lot of questions.)  Well when you are trying to be super woman you forget you don't have hands of steel and you burn your hand on a HOT baking sheet. Which I did! BADLY!
 
Oh the agony!  Luckily, I remembered my essential oils. So in case you ever burn yourself while cooking, remember this remedy:  lavender oil for skin burns and peppermint oil to help with the pain. It’s a lifesaver!  As we speak, I am holding my phone with my right hand while fanning my left hand back-and-forth to keep it cool.  First blog post ever for me to speak instead of type and I’m doing it...one-handed? Kind of. That should be interesting! Call me...a multi-tasker.  A STUPID one, but a multi-tasker nonetheless.   Also, in case you didn't know, multitasker is not recognized as real word. Hyphenated or not.  At least not for spell check.   Now, let's move on to less complicated things like...

PIZZA!!!

Tonight was a great dinner night! Tava and I made pizza. At first we started out by asking everybody what type of pizza they wanted. Bad idea. I was only planning to make for pizzas and there were way more people wanting customized pizzas than four. So we decided to let everybody make their own! Everybody made their own pants size pizza By putting on the sauce cheese and all the toppings themselves. The only thing we have to worry about was chopping up the toppings making the pizza dough and making our own sausage—which I will tell you how to do as well. So sit tight, grab a pencil and piece of paper and take notes.

First we start off with 2 cups of warm water.  I just turned the top water on and let it run until it’s hot and then we measure out 2 cups of that water and put it in a bowl or measuring cup.

Next we add 4 1/2 tsp yeast. Remember how I said there are some recipes that call for the seven basics? On that list of seven basics, I listed a rising agent. For this recipe the rising agent is yeast!

We also sprinkle in some sugar to help the east rise a little bit faster. 1 tablespoon should do it.

 Mix it up and let it sit until it’s foamy/frothy on top. This usually takes about 10 minutes.

While we're waiting for that chemical reaction to occur, we can go ahead and start chopping up our fresh toppings.  Don't worry, I closely monitored the kids while using knives.  And if they happen to cut themselves, well, they'll learn to be more careful next time.

Our pizza toppings include:  pineapple, bell pepper, sausage, ham, onions, mushrooms, jalapenos, cheese and roma tomatoes.  Mmmm, mmmm!

Okay, yeast water is ready!

Next we’re going to put 5 cups of flour in our stand-up mixer. If you don’t have a KitchenAid you can just use a regular mixing bowl and a large wooden spoon. It won’t change the way the dough turns out, you’ll just get bigger muscles by mixing yourself!

We are now going to add the yeast water to our mixing bowl.

Then  1/2 tsp salt and 4 tablespoons of olive oil. If you don’t have olive oil you can just use regular vegetable oil.


Insert your hook attachment to the KitchenAid put the head down and turn it on the low mix.

I let it mix until everything’s been equally incorporated.



Next you will dust the counter or clean work surface with flour to knead your dough.  Tava uses our handy sieve to do that.

Turn your dough onto the floured surface. 

Dust the top with more flour so your hands don’t get stuck to it.

Now, take out all that stress on your pizza dough and KNEAD away! This is another great way to work your arm muscles. Because you’re going to be doing this kneading for 6 to 8 minutes.

Once you’re done kneading, you’ll put your dough back inside the mixing bowl, cover it with a towel and let it rest for about 20 minutes. During that time Tava & I begin working on making sausage.

I don’t know if you really want to call this sausage. I haven't actually looked up to see what makes process is required to turn something into a sausage--besides casing.  But I like the taste of this homemade type sausage.  We used about 1 pound ground beef.  Ours is fancy shmancy stuff from Imperfect Foods.  It is a grass-fed beef and VERY lean.  We mixed a half teaspoon each of salt, pepper, garlic powder, oregano and Tony Chachere’s Creole seasoning cause I like the mixture of spices in it.

Then we mix it all up by hand. That’s how you get the love all up in it!

Once it’s mixed well, we’re going to grab small bits of the ground beef and roll it up into little balls. Kind of like miniature meatballs. But these are going to be your sausage balls!

Once all the ground beef has been rolled into individual mini beef balls, you’re going to turn a skillet on medium high and let that heat up before putting your mini sausage balls into the skillet.  Roll them around until they are browned and cooked through.

Drain on a paper towel lined plates and set aside.

By now your pizza door should be ready to start working into a pizza pie.  It will have risen some. No worries, just punch it down.

Dust your counter-top or other work surface with flour once more, and turn out your pizza dough onto that flower to surface. Knead your dough just a few times until it is in one nice, smooth, floured ball.

 Then cut it into quarters.

Set three of the dough pieces aside and take one quarter of it, roll and into a ball on the floured surface.

Next you’re going to need a rolling pin to roll it out. 

The larger you roll it out the thinner your crust will be. So you decide how thin or thick you like your pizza and roll it out accordingly.

Once you’ve rolled it out, press around the edges with your fingertips to make somewhat of a groove all the way around which will be your crust. 

This will also help keep all of the sauce from spilling over the edges.

Nice!  Now grab your baking sheet and line it with foil. You don’t need to use cooking spray, we will be using a magic pizza just called… Cornmeal!  Sprinkle just a little bit of cornmeal all over the baking sheet.


Carefully lift your pizza dough onto the baking sheet, re-do your crust edges if needed.

Now you’re ready to put the sauce cheese and all your toppings on. In that order! Or not, whatever.

Here's a little video clip of my kids putting their pizza toppings together...

Once you’ve got your pizza the way you want it to look you’re going to pop it in the oven at 425°F and bake for 10 to 15 minutes. You’ll need to bake it on the longer end of that cooking time if it’s a thicker crust.

And most importantly… Be sure to use oven mitts when removing the baking sheet or transporting it from one place to another until it is cool. Don’t burn yourself!

Here are some of the kids' pizzas...

Video coming soon!

Just FYI, this is how much better my hand looks after 3 hours of constantly applying essential oils.

MIRACLE!

Aaaaannnd, super woman is back in business!


Homemade Pizza Dough
Prep time:  45 min           Cook time: 10-15 min         Makes: 4 Large pizzas 


Ingredients

• 5 cups flour
• 4 1/2 tsp yeast (two .25oz pkgs)
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 Tbs granulated sugar
• 2 cups warm water
• 4 Tablespoons olive oil
• cornmeal

Directions

1. Add yeast to 2 cups of warm water.  
2. Sprinkle 1 Tbs sugar in water also and stir slightly.  Set aside about 10 minutes or until froth/foam forms on top.
3. Meanwhile, add 5 cups flour to large mixing bowl or stand-up mixer.
4. Add salt.
5. Once yeast water is ready, add to mixing bowl.
6. Add olive oil.
7. Mix until well incorporated.  If using stand-up mixer, be sure to use dough hook attachment.
8. Lightly dust counter or clean surface with flour.
9. Turn dough out onto floured surface.
10. Dust the top of dough with flour also and begin kneading.
11. Knead about 8 minutes.
12. Place dough back in bowl and cover with towel.  Allow to rest about 20 minutes.
13. Dust kneading surface with flour once more.
14. After 20 minutes, [reheat oven to 425 degree Fahrenheit and punch dough down before emptying onto floured surface.
15. Sprinkle with flour on top of dough and knead a few times or until dough is a smooth ball once again.
16. Cut ball into fourths.
17. Take three fourths and set aside.  Using remaining fourth, roll into ball on floured surface.
18. Use rolling pin to roll dough ball out into size and thickness desired for pizza.
19. Use finger tips to push out dough around edges, forming a lip.
20. Sprinkle cornmeal on baking sheet or foil and carefully lift rolled pizza dough onto the baking sheet.
21. Using about 1/4-1/3 cup pasta sauce, evenly coat the pizza until only the outer edges are bare.
22. Sprinkle mozzarella cheese over sauce and top with favorite pizza toppings.
23. Place pizza baking sheet on center oven rack and bake 10-15 minutes.
24. REMOVE FROM OVEN WITH OVEN MITTS!!!  Allow to cool 5-10 minutes before slicing and enjoying.