Homemade Pizza, Its Easier Than You Think

This recipe is too good and too simple not to share! I have been making homemade pizza for years now and it has been a family favorite ever since. In fact, every time I make pizza my husband says, “This is the best pizza you’ve made so far.” Not only is it amazingly tasty, but it is incredibly easy to make too. I usually have all the ingredients on hand and depending on my mood or weather, I can make it in the oven or on the grill. 

Pizza Dough

Ingredients:

3 Cups Flour

1 Cup Water (luke warm)

2 Teaspoons Yeast

1 Teaspoon Salt

2 Tablespoons Olive Oil (optional)

Cornmeal and/or steel cut oats (optional)

I have made this recipe with and without the olive oil. I think you get a little bit more of a chewy crust with the olive oil and a more crisp crust without. Same thing for the cornmeal/steel cut oats. I just like the extra crunch it adds!

Directions

1.  Add 2 cups flour, yeast, and salt to food processor bowl. Pulse about 5 times to combine ingredients.
2. Add ½-cup water to flour mixture and olive oil (optional). Pulse the food processor about 5 times to combine.
3. Add remaining cup of flour and remaining ½-cup of water. Process for about 30 – 45 seconds or until the inside of the bowl is clean and the dough has formed into a smooth ball.
4. If your dough does not form into a smooth ball and the inside of the bowl is not clean after 45 seconds of processing, add a pinch or so of flour if your dough appears too wet or a teaspoon of water if your dough appears too dry. Then, process again for about 10 more seconds. Repeat this process until your dough is the right consistency.
5. Sprinkle a dusting of flour into the bottom of a medium sized bowl. Make sure your bowl is big enough to allow the dough to double in size. Place dough into bowl. Cover with towel and place in a draft free location and let rise for about 1 hour, or until your dough has doubled in size.
6. If you are baking the pizza in the over, now is the time to preheat it to 425 degrees.
7.  Remove dough from bowl and place on a floured work surface. Cut the dough into two equal portions and form into a rough, ball shape.
8. Flatten dough as much as you can into a pie or disk shape. Once your dough will not stretch anymore, pick it up, and gently stretch dough until you get about a 12 x 12 inch round. If your dough starts to break apart as you stretch it, set it down and let it rest for about 5 minutes. Doing this allows the gluten to develop and your dough to stretch more easily.

 If this is the first time you are experimenting with pizza dough, more than likely you will not end up with a 12 x 12 inch round shape, and it will won’t be pretty! Do not be alarmed as it takes a lot of practice to get a perfectly shaped pizza. The good thing is your pizza will still taste fantastic and will have that homemade, rustic look!

Making Your Pizza

Oven Method

1. Place your dough onto a pizza pan (or any other sheet pan) that has been slightly coated with olive oil and sprinkled with either corn meal and/or steel cut oats or anything that will add a little extra crunch on the bottom. This is optional.
2. Place pizza dough in the bottom rack of the over for about 4-5 minutes.
3. Take out of over and add your choice of toppings. My only suggestion is to add the cheese first. This helps prevent the crust from getting soggy. Also, note that the more toppings/sauce you add, the heavier the pizza will be, and the soggier the crust will get! Less is more – use only a few good quality ingredients!  If you are the type of person who needs specific instructions, do this, in this order:
1. Add grated, whole-milk mozzarella cheese (about 2 cups) 
2. Add thinly sliced tomatoes (roma tomatoes or the best quality tomato at your local grocery store).
3. Add thinly sliced prosciutto.
4. Once pizza has come out of over, sprinkle with roughly chopped basil.
4.  Place pizza in the middle to lower half of the oven and bake for about 20 minutes or until cheese has browned to your liking.  Each oven will be different so the time could range anywhere from 15 – 30 minutes.
5. Once the pizza is done, take off pan and place on a cooling rack immediately! Leaving the pizza sit on the pan will allow moisture into the crust and you will end up with a soggy pizza. 

Grill Method:

1. Make sure you have enough flour under your dough so that it will not stick to work surface! Preheat grill for at least 10 minutes on high.  Brush a few teaspoons of olive oil on top of dough, just enough to coat.
2. Get all your pizza toppings ready. Gather toppings and dough (place dough, oiled side up, on flat cutting board) and head out to grill.  
3. This is tricky and will be a bit messy the first few times. Quickly flip crust, oiled side down, onto grill. (Do whatever works best. Just make sure the oiled side is down on the grill.) Leave on grill for 45 seconds.
4. Take dough off grill and flip over so grilled side is facing up. Quickly, very quickly, place toppings on pizza, with the cheese going down first. This is not a time to make sure all the toppings are evenly spaced. You want to get the toppings all on in less than one minute so the pizza doesn’t cool off!
5. Place the pizza back on the grill for about 1 minute and 30 seconds. The cheese will not brown as it would on a pizza that you cook in the oven. To check if it is done, gently lift edge of pizza off grill to check bottom. If you have nice, brown grill marks, your pizza is done.
6. Take off grill and place on a cooling rack immediately!

Do not be scared by the length of these instructions! It is a very simple, easy recipe to follow. The directions are just very detailed. Enjoy!

Serenity Now

Writing has always been one of my passions and it has been a dream of mine to write my thoughts down on paper (actually to type them in Microsoft Word and them copy and paste them into my blog). I have started writing many times and have found myself at a dead end each time. Patience has never been my strong point and although many people in my life would argue, over the past five years my patience has developed considerably. I still would not consider myself a patient person, however, I realize this “condition” and can usually correct my attitude, take a deep breath, and say to myself, “patience, Kim, patience.” Having said that, I hope this blog will go beyond the first few paragraphs that I typically write before my patience lapses.

Within the last five years, my life has changed dramatically, and in in many ways has pushed me towards serenity. Like avid Seinfeld fans would say, “Serenity now”! I am 28 years old. I have been married to my kindergarten classmate for almost 5 years, and all of which I have been a Marine Corps wife. Now you have it, the reason I am now a learned, patient person – the Marine Corps! 

It was years ago when I heard this quote by Chuck Swindoll regarding attitude, but it has stuck with me ever since and has had a great impact on me. 

The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life.

Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company... a church... a home.

The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past... we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude... I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it.

And so it is with you... we are in charge of our attitudes.

I realize now how accurate that quote actually is. I went from being single, in control of my life to being in a three-way relationship with my husband and the Marine Corp. Life has taken me in a direction that I never imagined, and I no longer have a 10-year plan. Not that I have anything against them, in fact I encourage them. My husband has a multi-faceted 10, 20, and 30-year plan. Between him and the Marines, I let them do all the planning and I love it! (However, I still have veto power over most things.) I am not sure how I got so lucky to have such a wonderful life, but somehow I have! Only other military wives will probably understand how a life full of deployments and packing up and moving every three years can be so rewarding. Not that it is easy, by any means, and deployments never get easier and you never get used to saying goodbye to your friends, but for some strange, romantic reason, I love it!

Eight months ago, my husband and I were blessed with a beautiful, tiny bundle of goodness. Our son was born. From the moment I saw his precious face, something changed in me that I could never begin to explain. Only other parents would know the feeling. For me, it is an entire new emotion that I've never felt before.

I am a mother of a happy, healthy baby boy, a wife of a Marine Corps officer, a daughter of the best mom and dad in the World, a sister to two beautiful, amazing women, a granddaughter to the sweetest, funniest grandparents, and a friend to some of the greatest people on Earth. 

Welcome to my blog - For The Good Times!