Sunday, February 5, 2012

Do I smell homemade PIZZA?


Today is Funday Sunday! Super Bowl day! So…sto andando fare la pizza casalinga crust e tutte le guarnizioni! Amo la pizza e niente confronta a pizza che producete al vostro proprio gradimento!  Okay, I do not speak Italian either but I hope if anyone reading this does that my statement will make sense.  I am going to make homemade pizza crust and all the toppings!  I love pizza and it nothing compares to pizza that you make to your own liking!  It is not very hard to do, you just need a little more time to make it then you do if you are going to make one of the not so yummy frozen varieties!

For the crust you will need:
2 ¼ tsp. of yeast or one packet of the little buggers!
1 cup of water
2 tbs. of olive oil (I use 100% pure EVOO) plus more to coat dough and bowl.
1 tsp. of salt
2 ½ - 3 cups of flour (I use a good bread flour. But, use the stuff you like best)
A good size bowl and two strong hands!
Let's do it!!! 

1.     Fill your measuring cup with 1 cup warm water and sprinkle your little yeasties on the top of the water.  Let it sit for about 5 minutes until the yeasts start to get foamy.

2.    Put 2 ½ cups of flour into your bowl and form a pit in the center.

3.    Add the salt, oil and your yeastie water into the flour pit.

4.    With a freshly washed, jewelry-free hand dig in and mix it all up.

5.    If, after all of your ingredients are well incorporated your dough is sticky and does not form a nice elastic ball (as in above picture), add more of the remaining ½ cup of flour.  Keep adding until you get a nice firm elastic minimally sticky ball.  I just keep kneading the dough right in the bowl.  I do this with my bread dough also and it works great and reduces my mess.

6.    Put about 1 more tbsp. of EVOO into the bowl and roll your dough ball in it until the ball and the inside of the bowl are coated with oil.

7.    Cover your bowl with a damp towel or plastic wrap and place in a draft free location for about 1 hour or until dough has doubled in size.  While this is going on you can choose to get your blog entry started, chop your pizza toppings up or sit back and just breath in and out!  :) 

8.    Punch down dough, divide in half and left rest for about 5 minutes.


9.    You can either flour a surface and rolling pin and roll out your dough into the size and thickness you want for your pizza or just start spreading it with your hands and finger off a surface (like the fancy pizza making guys on TV).  I like to do it the second way.  Click on the video clip to see me in action!  Oh, I know, I do not look exactly like the fancy guys on TV but you get the idea.
 

10. When you get it close to the way you want it put it on a pizza pan or stone which has been oiled a little with the EVOO.

11. Spread out the dough to fit the pan and form a slight ridge around the edge.

12.  Bake in a preheated 425 degree oven for 20 – 30 mins. until the crust is a nice    golden color. 

13. Remove from oven and let cool before loading it up with your favorite toppings.
14. Load it up, and pop it into a 425 degree pre-heated oven for 12-15 minutes or until the cheese is golden and bubbly.

I am going to give one away to the grown-up kids for their game day celebration later and the other one will be mine and my hubby's dinner. 

Senta l'odore della pizza e continu aare respirare!

3 comments:

  1. I love pizza! It's a Friday night staple around here. And, even though we just had it Friday night, Bernie has requested another for the Super Bowl game tonight. I bought some Italian flour that is supposed to make a nice, crispy thin crust, so I'm trying that tonight. But hey - I don't think I've ever tasted a bad pizza :) So we'll see.......

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  2. I will be waiting to see how it turns out for you. Where did you find an italian flour? I have noticed that you do pizza every Friday and think that it is a really cool tradition. We usually do a Friday night fish fry as that is custon in our neck of the woods. I could eat fish and pizza every day of the week. Of course not together! But hey, they do fish tacos, why not fish pizza?

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  3. And let me know too about the italian flour. It might energize me to make a homemade pizza. I lknow when the boys were home, they loved homemade pizza, but I could never get the thin crust.

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