Home made pizza
 

Do you guys have bread machines? Do you make the pizza dough in the machine and then top it with ... tomatoes&garlic, onion, green peppers, sweetcorn, bacon, pepperoni, capers and mozzarella?
I do!
And I can't wait to get it out of the oven:drool:

Yes. Friday night is date night for the Mrs. and I, and since we are poor-ish, we don't go out. We stay home and make pizza after we put the kids to bed. We buy dough from Trader Joe's instead of making it. It's good dough, and about a buck. I'm not so bad at tossing pizza dough, if I do say so myself.

Pizza in an hour and a half! Yea!

I suck at making pizza dough - I usually buy it at a local shop, take it home and make it myself. What's up with sweetcorn on pizza? I have only had it in the UK and it was good, but you would never put sweetcorn on a pizza in the US!

When we make pizza at home it is always "Mexican Pizza": instead of tomato sauce, substitute a mashed mixture of black beans with some salsa and cumin. Use pepperjack cheese and top with corn, tomatoes, and green onions.

I buy pre-made crust, though...I'm just not hardcore enough.

My maid (shuddup, labour's cheap here) taught me how to make WONDERFUL dough... I'll look it up and post it here for you people.

Ahh, what a topic....

When I was a kid, Mom used to make the Chef Boyardee Pizza kit, and would supplement it with Hormel pepperoni. (The "pepperoni" pizza kit featured little microscopic flecks of pepperoni in the pizza sauce.)

As a college student cooking on my own, I did this sometimes. It wasn't long before I decided that the included cheese was lame--why not buy some real mozzarella to put on it? Wait, I'm buying separate pepperoni and separate cheese? How hard could it be to make the sauce? And the crust? .....

I have tried a basic pizza sauce crust out of the Betty Crocker cookbook, and it was OK. When things really took off was when I discovered a copy of The Art of Pizza Making at a local kitchen store. Ahh now this explains how to make some REAL pizza dough. It's yummy, and always appreciated by the family.

But I don't have a mixer or anything. I knead it by hand. It takes about 1/2 hour to mix it and knead it, plus a couple hours or so for it to sit in the fridge. The latest wrinkle is to try a pizza stone. I like the results, though I have had some trouble getting the pizza onto the stone, but I just have to practice!!

In researching pizza stone techniques, one woman who did a web page on the subject said she stopped making crusts and just bought the dough from Trader Joe's, because she found it was as good as anything she could make. I haven't tried those yet, though. I have one of my crusts in the freezer waiting to go.

As far as toppings go, I like pepperoni, but I'm the only one of the family who does so I don't always have that. Plain cheese, or pineapple, or green peppers are popular.

Having said all that, we had Domino's for dinner tonight. :D

Chicken is good and would go well with the pineapple. ;)

I found using a pizza stone is absolutely necessary. There's really no other way to get the crust to cook evenly and attain that crunchy outside/chewy inside texture. Before I bought a stone, I'd just throw the pizza directly on the oven rack, but it was really hard to time the crust cooking/cheese melting.

And, like SD, I always handmade the dough. About 15 minutes to mix and knead it, wait an hour for it to rise.

My favorite: fresh tomato pie with roasted garlic.

I make a pizza omelette once in a while. I can't cook for anything except for breakfast. I can flat out whip up some breakfast - even Northern breakfasts. Comes from having lived in the South for a while, I think. In the South, they understand breakfast.

CRUST:
1 1/4 cup flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 cup warm milk
1/2 tbsp. yeast
1/2 tsp olive oil

Combine flour and salt in large bowl. In smaller bowl, combine mild, yeast, and olive oil, and stir thoroughly. Combine two mixtures in large bowl, stir until solid. Pour olive oil on your hands, then knead the dough. Cover for 20 minutes.


PIZZA:
Dough as above
Sauce of your choice
Sargento (?) Mexican Four-Cheese Blend (monterey jack, cheddar, and two other cheeses i cant really remember)
Mozzerella
Parmesan
Crushed Red Pepper
Italian Seasoning (i use pampered chef)

Spread dough on bottom of baking stone. Add roughly half your sauce, then add a light dusting of cheese and red pepper. Add rest of sauce and top with cheese, then add more pepper and italian seasoning. Cook until crust is brown.

Random factoid: the utensil used at professional pizza places to pour and spread the tomato sauce is called a spoodle. No kidding.

Has anyone tried my pizza yet?

No. When are you going to make one for me?

I'd do it, too, dude, i love cooking for people.

For those of us not too far east, it is still today, but careful readers of the cellar know that tomorrow is pizza night at chez foot.

I can taste it now.

yum.