Kurt’s Pizza Dough

I thought I’d share the recipe Kurt uses each week to make the pizza dough (I checked with him first, he said it was OK).  Last week, he let the dough rise again in a warm oven after he’d rolled it out and put it on the pizza pan.  The result was a more “bready” pizza, less “thin crusty” but still delicious!  Enjoy…

First you make happy little yeasts:

1 - package yeast (I use standard rise)

1 cup nice hot water (but not too hot, it kills the

little yeasts)

3/4 teaspoon sugar

Stir together and let it rise for 10 minutes, I

normally cover it with the bowl for the flour.

 

Turn oven on to “warm”

2-1/2 cups of flour into a medium heat resistant

mixing bowl.  We use a mix of 1-3/4 whole wheat and

3/4 white flour

Take the cup of happy yeast and add:

3/4 teaspoon salt, this slows the yeast down

2-1/4 teaspoons olive oil, this is to help their tan

Blend and knead the liquid into the flour

Coat the dough ball in olive oil

Cover the ball in the mixing bowl with aluminum foil

and place in warm oven to rise (30min to 1 hour)

 

Take dough out, turn oven to 425

Work the dough as little as possible (the more you

work it, the more it is like cardboard)

Roll it out into and place on pizza pan

Coat with olive oil

Put in oven for ~10 minutes or until it smells great

and has browned nicely.

 

Things I've learned:

1. Coat counter well with flour

2. Don't overwork dough

3. Add water if dough is too dry

4. Some days the little yeasts just die, try again and

mourn them later...

Pizza Mondays

On Mondays, I’m the envy of the lunchroom at work as I heat up and enjoy my pizza from our weekly Sunday night pizza. This used to be one of those $5 deals from a chain pizza joint, until my father lovingly pointed out that as a dietitian, I should be ashamed of myself, eating fast food…

Of course, (as always ) he was right. So, my husband and I decided it was time to start using one of our wedding presents, a perforated 15 3/4″ pizza pan (available at Target for about $15). The perforated surface promises a nice crispy crust and the nonstick finish means you can slide your pie onto a cutting board and divvy it up. I have to confess that aside from occasionally helping with the chopping of the various toppings, Kurt is the master of pizza night.

He is the one who researched online recipes for whole wheat pizza crust (I put in the request for the whole wheat part), and every Sunday night he gets the party going by starting the yeast. Fast forward to about 1 hour and fifteen minutes later, and our house smells like the best pizzeria in town. He is also the one who, a few weeks ago, wondered aloud about making his own pizza sauce…so off he went and managed to find a recipe that makes enough for two pizzas (we freeze half for next week). It is the best pizza I’ve ever had–and I spent a year of my life in Italy, so that is a high compliment!!

In any case, Pizza Mondays are a great example of the idea behind the Lunchbox Chronicles: make enough for dinner one night to take for lunch the next day! The only things I miss as I sit in the lunchroom eating my Monday Pizza are Kurt, our dog Otto and a nice glass of red wine…