Tasty Tuesday

Hey!!! I'm back with another Tasty Tuesday recipe. Last week I had to vent a little about our non cooking nation and all the excuses people give for not cooking, but that was last week and I'm ready to move forward.

 

Today's recipe is a basic pizza dough.

 

Ingredients

 

4 cups of all purpose flour

1 teaspoon of salt

1 tablespoon of sugar

1 packet of yeast

2 tablespoons of olive oil

2 cups of lukewarm water

 

Directions

 

In a large bowl, combine yeast packet and sugar in 1/2 cup of warm water.

Stir until mixture is well dissolved. Let mixture sit until it becomes bubbly.

 

While waiting for yeast mixture, combine all the dry ingredients together. Stir really well to get all the dry ingredients incorporated together.

 

Pour the yeast mixture into the dry ingredients first  and then add the olive oil and the remaining water.

 

Stir mixture until it forms a ball, if dough is sticky, add more flour until it isn't sticky anymore.

 

Lightly flour a clean work surface and begin to knead and fold the dough out to ensure no sticky areas in the dough.

 

Once dough is no longer sticky, place it in a well oiled or buttered bowl to prevent the dough from sticking to the bowl. Cover the bowl with a clean dish towel.

 

Let sit for at least 45 minutes or until the dough has doubled in size.

 

Punch the dough down and let it rest a minute.

 

Lightly flour your rolling pin and work surface. This would also be the time to decide how many pizzas you want to make and how thick or thin you want your pizza crust to be.

 

Divide your dough up and roll each ball out to your liking. Just don't roll dough out so thinly that you can't pick the dough up to put on the pizza pan. You just want to roll the dough out, to cut some of the stretching you have to do by hand once the pizza is on the pizza pan.

 

Lightly oil or butter your pizza pans before you place the dough on the pizza pans.

 

Once the dough is on the pan, use your hands to stretch the dough to the edges of the pizza pan. You'll notice that the dough might shrink back a little--this is common, don't get frustrated and think you're doing something wrong....it just happens....it's part of the process.

 

Veggie Pizza

Preheat the oven when you're ready to start building your pizzas. Preheat oven to 450 degrees, ovens may vary, so please consider that when you're baking anything. 

 

Now it's time to build your own unique pizza. The possibilities are endless, so get creative if you like, or just pile on your usual favorites.

 

The pizza my son and I made together was  just something we put together because we needed to use up some vegetables before they got old. We cooked some kale, broccoli, and a few mushrooms together with some garlic and then added some pickled jalapenos to top it off.  We used mozzarella cheese and made the sauce ourselves, I'll have do a post on the sauce another time.

 

So, there you have it....Today's Tasty Tuesday Recipe: Pizza Dough.

 

Oh, before I forget, bake your pizza on the lower rack for the best crust and bake for 15 minutes or until crust has a golden color and cheese has completely melted.

 

Hope you enjoy and here's to a delicious Tuesday.

 

-Shelly