It's the weekend, a time when ActiveRainers share various recipes with the community, and with the BananaTUDES! group.
In my house, almost every Sunday is pizza night. That's basically my comfort food, well, one of them. I make the sauce, the dough and the actual pizza every week, although if I make enough sauce any given week, it'll last for a few weeks. Our typical toppings are any one or several of these: sliced sweet onions, mushrooms, olives, pepperoni, sausage or ground beef. I only made a pizza with pineapple once, and it was under duress. I don't do fruit on pizza. But we were having a vegetarian guest who specifically asked for it, so I caved and did it. That's the one and only time!
So here are the recipes for all three items:
Pizza Dough
Ingredients:
- 1 cup of very warm tap water
- 2 1/2 teaspoons active yeast
- 1/2 teaspoon sugar
- 2 1/2 cups of flour.
- olive oil
Directions:
Several hours before the pizza will be cooked, mix the water with active yeast and sugar in a bowl. Once it's mixed together let it sit for about 15 minutes until bubbly. Add the yeast to the flour, as well as about 1/4 cup of olive oil and some warm water (enough to get the yeast bits that are stuck to the bowl). Stir it all together and then knead the whole thing for a few minutes until the dough is nice and smooth. Then throw it in an oiled bowl with a towel covering it for a few hours until it's time to put the pizza together.
Sauce
There are a lot of ways to make spaghetti sauce and they all work. So if you already have a recipe you like, use that (or buy jarred sauce) and skip on to the next step. If you'd like a suggestion, you could do the following.
Ingredients:
- Olive Oil
- Several cans of diced tomatoes; I use 2-3 14 oz cans and also a can of diced fire roasted tomatoes. You can use fresh tomatoes if you'd prefer.
- Diced sweet onion, I usually use 1/2 onion.
- Diced garlic, I use four or so cloves.
- Fresh basil, dry will work also.
- Fresh oregano, dry will work also.
- A healthy splash of red wine
Directions
Saute the onion in olive oil until cooked through, then throw in the garlic for a few minutes. Scrape both into a food processor, and add tomatoes. Process until smooth and place back in the pot. You may have to do this in batches. If you like lumps in the sauce, then skip this step.
Add the basil, oregano and wine to the tomatoes, and place on very low heat for a few hours. I usually cover mine - but I leave the lid slightly ajar. The house smells great that way and if it's covered it won't get as thick and you won't get spatters. Also if you want meat in your sauce, then simply cook it first and throw it in.
Pizza Pie
The final step is to put all your ingredients together and bake it. So...
Ingredients:
- Olive Oil (optional)
- Corn meal (optional)
- Pizza dough
- Sauce
- Shredded Mozzarella or cheese of choice
- Optional toppings (whatever you want)
Directions:
1) Preheat your oven to 400º.
2) Put a small amount of oil on the pizza stone (or baking sheet if you don't have a pizza stone but if you don't I'd suggest you buy one! Pampered Chef has great ones.)
3) Then sprinkle a bit of corn meal on the oil - this helps the bottom to be a little crispier.
4) Roll the pizza dough out on your pizza stone, all the way to the edges. The pizza dough should have increased in size and be nice and puffy. If it is, it will be very easy to roll out. I use a small rolling pin.
5) Spread sauce on the dough, all the way to the edges.
6) Sprinkle your cheese on top of the sauce. Do not be stingy with the cheese! The best pizzas are nice and gooey. By the way, mozzarella is the cheese of choice for pizza, but I've found pizzas are much more interesting if you add some other cheeses that you may have left over. I've added bits of cheddar cheese and Monterey jack at times and it was really yummy.
7) Add whatever toppings you want.
8) Place in the oven for 30 minutes, and turn the pizza stone after 15 minutes so it cooks evenly.
9) Remove from oven. The cheese should be bubbly and slightly brown in places and the dough should be golden brown.
10) Cut into eight slices with a pizza cutter.
And that's it! Pour yourself a glass or two or three of Cabernet Sauvignon, put some red pepper flakes on top of the pizza if you'd like, and mangia!
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