Pizza and Bread and Yum
Disclaimer:
This recipe, and in fact, this blog post is not for you. While I hope that you enjoy it and try the recipe, it’s not written for you. It’s not written in any kind of effort to start a food blog, or to be a foodie, or to show off any kind of cooking skills. The post is written for Denise.
In December, Denise, one of my dearest bestest friends, came to Houston. Denise’s brother has cancer and was getting some treatments at M.D. Anderson. Denise was here to be with him for support. While Denise and I were visiting, she told me that her brother’s Oncologist advised him to avoid processed foods, and more importantly to avoid the sugars that are added to most processed foods.
Denise wants to cook more, to avoid the processed foods, to avoid the added sugars. I cook. A lot.
So I’m going to try to share some recipes and cooking methods with Denise. We live 3 hours away from each other, so I can’t show her in person. I’m going to try to show her via blog posts, because I love her and I want to support what she’s trying to do. This is the first post, and I hope there will be others. I’ll try not to be too Italian-snobby about things. I said that I’ll try.
I’m not suggesting that I’m a know-it-all, or that I have the best methods of cooking. I’ve never been formally trained to cook. I’m not perfect and I don’t provide perfect recipes. I learned to cook by watching my mom, my grandmothers, my great grandmother, my aunt, and my great aunts. They were some amazing cooks and if I ended up with just an ounce of their cooking ability, I’d be happy.
I’m telling you all of this, but I don’t want to hear or to read any comments that aren’t productive. If you’ve got a better recipe, share it. If you’ve got a pointer, give it. If you know something I don’t, tell me. Just don’t be a jerk about it, ok?
Pizza and Bread
This is a recipe that can be used for making both bread and pizza. I usually make the dough, then divide it half and make two pizzas and a loaf of bread. Denise, try it out for yourself, but I think for two women and two kids, two of these pizzas (with a salad) would be enough for dinner, and you’d have some pizza to have for lunch the next day too.
Ingredients
- 7 1/2 cups of flour
- 3 1/2 teaspoons of salt
- 1 tablespoon of dry yeast
- 2 teaspoons of sugar
- 1/4 cup of olive oil
- 2 1/2 cups of water
You need a pan or tray or pizza stone for the pizza, and a board or counter top to use to knead the dough.
Let’s talk about the flour for a minute. You really should buy Italian flour, it makes a difference. Denise, you can buy this at Central Market
Method
Sift the flour into the bowl. You have to do this, you can’t just dump the flour in the bowl. Sifting makes the flour lighter and we want that for this dough.
Add the yeast, sugar, and salt.
Add the oil and the water.
I would just put my hands in that and start mixing it up, but I get that this might be weird for some people, so get a wooden spoon and slowly start to mix this all together.
When you get to this point where the dough looks like this, you are going to put the dough on the wood board and start working it with your hands. See how the dough is together, the moisture is absorbed, but it doesn’t really look like bread dough yet?
Take some flour and spread it in the center of the wooden board. How much flour? I would put down maybe three tablespoons. You are going to knead the dough and you really don’t want it to stick to the board.
Remember when you were a kid, the way you made mud pies? That’s how you’re going to start. Put one hand on either side of this pile of mess and squeeze it together. Then turn it the other way and do it again. Then put it down on the board and start kneading it. To knead, you’re going to use the palms of your hands and you’re going to push the dough down and forward. Then you’ll pick it up, fold it back over on itself, and do it again, like this (yes, that’s the cat at the beginning):
See what the dough looks like there at the end? That’s when you’re done, when it looks like that. Grab that bowl, the same one you mixed the dough in, and throw some flour in it, coating the bottom and the sides. Then put the dough back in the bowl and cover the top with plastic wrap. Make sure the plastic isn’t touching the dough. Take a picture, so you can remember the size of the dough, then cover the plastic with a kitchen towel and leave the dough to rise. It needs to at least double in size and having the picture before it starts to rise will help you figure out if it’s doubled.
This is kind of common sense, but if it’s warm, it’s going to take less time to double than it will when it’s cold. In this particular case, it took about 2 1/2 hours to double because it was cold.
Toppings: Pizza Margherita and Funghi Pizza
This won’t take you two hours, but while the dough is doing it’s thing, you can get the pizza toppings ready. I made one pizza with light tomato sauce, fresh mozzarella cheese, and basil. I made the other pizza with just olive oil, cheese, mushroom, and a little bit of truffle oil. But you know what? You can put whatever you want on it, it’s your pizza. Just try to avoid really processed toppings —that defeats the purpose of doing all of this!
For the traditional pizza margherita, start with some plain tomato sauce. Pick up a can or bottle of either the organic plain sauce or a good Italian brand, but make sure that it’s plain and not seasoned. You’ll use a some for the pizza and put the rest in the fridge because we are going to use it for other recipes, TBD. If you use a can, make sure that you put the left over sauce into a sealed container. Don’t put it in the fridge in the can.
I like light sauce so I used about three tablespoons of sauce. If you like more, double it or triple it. I added about a tablespoon of olive oil. I don’t measure what I do, so I’m eyeballing it. I’ll try to get better about measuring!
Now, season this by adding some salt and pepper, then mix it up. Set it aside.
For both pizzas, I use fresh mozzarella. Denise, you can get this at Central Market. You don’t have to buy the mozzarella made in Italy, but that’s what I buy. The mozzarella comes in a salted water, so you’ll take the balls out of the water and slice them.
For the mushroom pizza, I used organic canned mushrooms. Under no circumstances should you put fresh mushrooms on a pizza. That’s a moronic thing that Americans do. If you only have fresh mushrooms, slice them and sauté them before you put them on a pizza, please. Please!
Preheat the oven to the highest possible temperature. My oven goes to 500 degrees so that’s what I used.
Here’s my dough, doubled.
I cut it in half, right there in the bowl with a knife. Then cut that half in two. Put some flour on your board again and now we will make pizza!
Ok, you have your 1/4 of the dough in front of you. Here’s our goal: stretch the dough in a thin, evenly leveled pizza. To do that we are going to: Stretch and Turn. That’s it. Put the dough down on the floured board and poke it down with your fingers so it’s a circle shape. Mentally divide the circle into quarters, like a clock. Turn the dough one quarter and stretch it again. Turn a quarter and stretch it again. If you feel comfortable, pick the dough up and gently throw it from hand to hand, to help it stretch faster. If you don’t feel comfortable, don’t worry about it, just keep stretching it on the board.
Here’s my pizza, stretched out. Drizzle some olive oil on the pizza and spread it out.
It’s not perfect, far from it. But it’s fine!
Drop your sauce in the middle and use a spoon to gently spread it outward. Sprinkle the basil all over, but don’t put the cheese on yet. Put the pizza in the oven for about 10 minutes. (Set the timer!) After ten minutes, grab your cheese slices and head over to the oven. Using a mitt, open the oven and pull out the pizza. I do this right at the oven. Add the mozzarella.
Put it back in for another 10-15 minutes, depending on how dark you like your pizza. I like mine light, so I took it out after 10 minutes.
While this pizza is in the oven, you can start the mushroom pizza. I like to make it a rectangle shape, but you can make it the same circular shape as the first pizza, it doesn’t matter. Add the olive oil.
Put this in the oven for 10 minutes, then pull it out and add mushrooms and cheese. If you like truffle oil, then you can drizzle a little bit sparingly, a little goes a very long way here.
Bake for another 10-15 minutes.
Make a nice salad and dinner is ready. I like an arugula salad at this time of the year since lettuce isn’t in season.
The Bread
With the 1/2 batch of dough that you have left, you can make a nice loaf of bread. If you have a bread pan, just put the dough in the bread pan, cover it up with plastic and a towel, set it on the counter, and let it double again.
If you don’t have a bread pan, form an oblong loaf and put it on a sheet pan. Cover it up, set it on the counter, and let it double.
Once the dough is doubled, preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Take a knife and make gentle cuts in the top of the loaf at an angle. Then bake the bread until the top of the bread is brown. This is the lightest it should be, don’t take it out any lighter than this.
Let’s say that you want to eat some nice hot bread and butter for breakfast. So instead of letting the dough rise on the counter, put it in the fridge. It will slowly rise overnight, and you can bake it in the morning. Hot, fresh, homemade bread. Yum!
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