Easy Homemade Pizza
Every week, as Grace and I plan our shopping list we ask our little campers for inputs on what they want to eat. Their response is always the same: Pizza!
While ordering pizza is easy and delicious, it is probably not as healthy as when we make it at home. We have tried a lot of baking methods for our pizzas. We have an baking stone that (after you have preheated the oen with the stone inside to a temperature of 500 degrees for one hour) is supposed to help make delicious, even crust. We have pans and paddles; we have used semolina flour, bread flour, and sourdough starter. I am telling you we have experimented A LOT!
But no matter how we did it, homemade pizza just seemed like a lot of work.
Then we discovered an easy, versatile, recipe for easy, fast, homemade naan (to go along with our butter chicken) from our friends over at food.com. I highly recommend you use this recipe to make naan the next time you are making something even vaguely Indian because it is so easy and so delicious.
It is also versatile enough to make excellent pizza dough, and with a rise time of just 45 minutes, you can fit this into your weekday meal plans.
For the pizza dough:
1 ½ cups of warm water (90-105 degrees if you have a thermometer, otherwise try around body temperature. This is the most important step.)
1 tablespoon of sugar
2 teaspoons active yeast
1/2 tsp salt
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 teaspoon each of your favorite pizza spices (oregano, basil, thyme)
4 cups flour (plus more for rolling)
Combine warm water, sugar, and yeast in a bowl. Let stand for 5 minutes until foamy.*
Add salt and flour. Mix thoroughly.
Knead dough on a floured workspace about 20 times and form into a tight ball.
Put dough in a well oiled bowl and cover with a damp towel.
Put in a warm place to rise for 30-45 minutes. Make the sauce while you wait. (The dough will not double in size like regular dough, not even close, but it doesn't need to.)
Turn dough out onto a floured workspace.
Divide dough into pieces and roll out with a rolling pin to about 1/8" thick. We make 4 personal pizzas and one14-16 inch pizza with this recipe but you can make any combination depending on the pans you have to work with.
* You will know your yeast is activated after 5 minutes. If you have a little puffy dough coming out of the water, you are on track. If you have sandy colored water with no signs of yeast puffing up, you have not activated the yeast. At this point you can continue and make flat-bread pizza, or you can dump it and try again.
For the sauce:
1 large can diced tomatoes (28 oz) –or- 2 small cans diced tomoatoes (15 oz each) –or- just about any jar/can of tomatoes will do well here.
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1/2 teaspoon of pepper
1 tablespoon basil
1 tablespoon oregano
1 teaspoons thyme
1 tablespoon sugar (Skip this if you are using sauce from a can or jar)
1 teaspoon of garlic or 2 cloves garlic
1 teaspoon of onion powder
3-4 cups of fresh spinach (we make our sauce healthier by adding spinach to the sauce -- our campers never notice!)
1 tablespoon of sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons of tomato paste
Throw everything except the tomato paste into the food processor or blender and mix.
Mix the tomato paste into the sauce by hand when you are done processing (this gives the sauce a little more thickness) and runny sauce makes messy pizza.
Make the pizza:
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
Roll out the dough to your desired size and shape. Use cookie sheets, pizza pans, or whatever you have available.
Pinch the edges to give the sauce a little border.
Brush the edges of the crust with olive oil (optional).
Add the sauce and top with your favorite toppings.
Cover liberally with grated mozzarella cheese or whatever cheese you have on hand.
Bake 10 minutes for small (8-10 inch) pizzas; approx 14 minutes for a larger (14-16 inch) pizza. The cheese should be melted but only a hint of browning on top.
Let cool a few minutes before serving.
Let me know how your pizza came out in the comments below. Enjoy!
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