{"id":17,"date":"2015-02-01T03:45:09","date_gmt":"2015-02-01T03:45:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thebookofkales.com\/?p=17"},"modified":"2015-02-01T03:45:09","modified_gmt":"2015-02-01T03:45:09","slug":"homemade-pizza","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thebookofkales.com\/?p=17","title":{"rendered":"Homemade Pizza"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last night, Kyle and I had some friends over to make and eat pizzas. \u00a0Two of these friends are from Cincinnati, and we’ve developed a working theory that people from Cincinnati are very particular about their pizza. \u00a0This is based on a total of three people, so, like I said, just a working theory. \u00a0So we’ve had many discussions about pizza and where to get good pizza.<\/p>\n

Since we’ve gone to grad school, I’ve been trying to make healthier versions of quick meals that we can put in the freezer and make when we’re being lazy in an attempt to avoid going out to eat or buying pre-made food from the grocery. \u00a0One of these meals has been frozen pizza. \u00a0I make the dough, partially bake it, put the toppings on, freeze it, and then we can have pizza for dinner in about 10 minutes. \u00a0Our friends have been curious about the dough I make, so we planned a pizza night. \u00a0We made personal pizzas so no one had to compromise on toppings, and it was a great night: friends, pizza, garlic-cheese bread, white chocolate truffle popcorn, bourbon, and hockey. \u00a0Although the Preds couldn’t pull off the win last night, it was a lot of fun, and our Cincinnati friends gave it their approval for good pizza.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_1565\"<\/a> \"IMG_1567\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I use one of various recipes from the book, “Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day.” \u00a0They have a particular pizza dough, which I used last night, but I often just use their basic recipe, substituting in about half whole-wheat flour to make it a little healthier. \u00a0Both make great pizzas.<\/p>\n

Pizza Dough recipe (can also be found at\u00a0http:\/\/www.artisanbreadinfive.com<\/a>)<\/p>\n

3-1\/4 cups lukewarm water<\/p>\n

1\/4 cup olive oil<\/p>\n

1 tablespoon yeast<\/p>\n

1-1\/2 tablespoons kosher salt<\/p>\n

2 tablespoons sugar<\/p>\n

7-1\/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour<\/p>\n

In a large bowl, with a lid that is not air-tight, put in the yeast, salt, and sugar. \u00a0Then pour the liquid over these. \u00a0Finally, put in the flour, and mix with a mixing spoon until just combined. \u00a0Put on the lid and let rise for 2-3 hours. \u00a0Once it has risen, you can use it or put it in the fridge for up to two weeks. \u00a0It will become more of a sourdough the longer it sits, but it’s still good!<\/p>\n

To use the dough, first pre-heat the oven to 500 degrees with a pizza stone in it to heat up too. \u00a0Then sprinkle some flour on a cutting board (or pizza peel) and on top of the dough (so your hands get well-floured too). \u00a0Pull out about a handful of dough and shape it into a ball. \u00a0Then flatten it on the cutting board and roll it out with a rolling pin (also dusted with flour). \u00a0Add more flour as you need to make it less sticky. \u00a0Once the dough is rolled out, you can put cornmeal or whole-wheat flour underneath so it will slide off onto the pizza stone, but I find it is easier to just put it on parchment paper and let it bake on the parchment paper. \u00a0Makes for a cleaner process, too. \u00a0I find you can re-use the parchment paper a couple times too.<\/p>\n

If you’re making the pizza to eat right away, you can put on your toppings, and then bake it for about 8 minutes, depending on how thin you rolled out your crust.<\/p>\n

If you want to make frozen pizzas, first put the crust in the oven for about 3 minutes; then take it out and let it cool. \u00a0It may have puffed up some – just pat down the bubbles. \u00a0(If you want pita bread, leave it in for about 8 minutes and it will puff up all the way and make a pita pocket great for sandwiches!) \u00a0After it has cooled, put on your toppings, stick it in the freezer on a plate or tray for an hour or two until it is fairly hard, and then wrap it up in saran-wrap and\/or foil and put it back in the freezer for whenever you want it. \u00a0Since it is already partially baked, when you take it out of the freezer, you only have to bake it 8-10 minutes in a 450-500 degree oven.<\/p>\n

If you’d like to make a bit healthier dough, here is what I use to add whole-wheat:<\/p>\n

Basic Bread Dough (can also be found at\u00a0http:\/\/www.splendidtable.org<\/a>\u00a0with the only alteration in adding the wheat flour)<\/p>\n

1 1\/2 tablespoons yeast<\/p>\n

1 1\/2 tablespoons kosher salt<\/p>\n

3 cups whole wheat flour<\/p>\n

3 1\/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour<\/p>\n

3 cups lukewarm water<\/p>\n

Mix it up in the same way as above, putting in the yeast and salt, then water, and finally flour. \u00a0Mix until just combined. \u00a0Put on the lid and let rise for 2-3 hours, then use or put in the fridge for up to two weeks. \u00a0Use it the same way for pizza dough as above.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last night, Kyle and I had some friends over to make and eat pizzas. \u00a0Two of these friends are from Cincinnati, and we’ve developed a working theory that people from Cincinnati are very particular about their pizza. \u00a0This is based on a total of three people, so, like I said, just a working theory. \u00a0So […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thebookofkales.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thebookofkales.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thebookofkales.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thebookofkales.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thebookofkales.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/thebookofkales.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21,"href":"http:\/\/thebookofkales.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17\/revisions\/21"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thebookofkales.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thebookofkales.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thebookofkales.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}