Homemade Pizza

I love pizza. Sometimes I forget how easy it is to make it at home.

This recipe is from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything, one of my favorite go-to cookbooks.

Pizza Dough

Makes: Enough for 1 large or 2 or more small pies

Time: 1 hour or more

You won’t believe how simple it is to make pizza dough at home. And because the dough freezes very well (at least for a couple of weeks), it’s even practical to whip up a batch for one or two people and tuck the rest away for another day.

To make pizza dough by hand or with a standing mixer, follow the directions, but use a bowl and a heavy wooden spoon or the mixer’s bowl and the paddle attachment instead of the food processor. When the dough becomes too heavy to stir, use your hands or exchange the mixer’s paddle for the dough hook and proceed with the recipe.

3 cups all-purpose or bread flour, plus more as needed

2 teaspoons instant yeast

2 teaspoons coarse kosher or sea salt, plus extra for sprinkling

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1. Combine the flour, yeast, and salt in a food processor. Turn the machine on and add 1 cup water and the oil through the feed tube.

2. Process for about 30 seconds, adding more water, a little at a time, until the mixture forms a ball and is slightly sticky to the touch. If it is still dry, add another tablespoon or two of water and process for another 10 seconds. (In the unlikely event that the mixture is too sticky, add flour a tablespoon at a time.)

3. Turn the dough onto a floured work surface and knead by hand for a few seconds to form a smooth, round dough ball. Put the dough in a bowl and cover with plastic wrap; let rise until the dough doubles in size, 1 to 2 hours. (You can cut this rising time short if you’re in a hurry, or you can let the dough rise more slowly, in the refrigerator, for up to 6 or 8 hours.) Proceed to Step 4 or wrap the dough tightly in plastic wrap or a zipper bag and freeze for up to a month. (Defrost in the bag or a covered bowl in the refrigerator or at room temperature; bring to room temperature before shaping.)

4. When the dough is ready, form it into a ball and divide it into 2 or more pieces if you like; roll each piece into a round ball. Put each ball on a lightly floured surface, sprinkle with flour, and cover with plastic wrap or a towel. Let rest until they puff slightly, about 20 minutes.

Make-Ahead Weeknight Meal - Pizza

I have a long and enduring love affair with pizza. I've recently learned how to make homemade pizza work with my schedule.

It's all here!

Again With Pizza

We eat pizza more often than I mention it here because I figure how many different ways can I write the same thing over and over? This time it is a little different in that it starts with homemade pizza dough.

I love homemade pizza dough. Love. It. It's not much trouble; I don't know why I don't make it more often. I think it's the idea of the homemade dough -- the kneading, the rising, the waiting, and whatnot.

This particular recipe is one of my favorites.


It's made in the food processor so the hand kneading is kept to a bare minimum (big plus). The dough is a joy to work with, too, nice and elastic and smooth - not sticky at all.

(One trick I learned from a bread baking class taught by Betsy Oppenneer is to use a bit of oil, such as olive or vegetable, rather than flour, when rolling out dough. Dough won't stick to the oiled surface and you don't run the risk of incorporating too much flour in the dough, as I almost always did when I'd use flour. The dough would stick to the surface, stick to my hands, stick to everything so I'd dust it with flour and more flour and even more flour, and the end result was often packy and heavy.)

Caveat: This recipe is from, um, Martha Stewart's Hors d'Oeuvres Handbook. I know. I'm generally not a fan of her recipes as they tend to involve ten steps too many, and obscure, often expensive ingredients and specialty equipment. Howevah, this book I really like. The handful of recipes I've tried in it have all turned out very well. I especially like this pizza dough because it can be made anywhere from 12 hours to three weeks ahead of time.

Pizza Dough
Makes enough for three 10-inch pizzas or four 14-inch pizzas.

1 cup warm water (110 degrees) - You may want to invest in a good instant read thermometer to be sure.
1/4 teaspoon sugar
1 1/4-ounce (about 2 teaspoons) active dry yeast
2 3/4 to 3 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tablespoons kosher salt
1 1/2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for oiling the bowl

1. Pour the warm water into a small bowl. Add the sugar and sprinkle in the yeast. Using a fork, stir the mixture until the yeast has dissolved and the water has turned putty colored. Let the yeast stand until becomes creamy and foamy, about 5 minutes.


2. In the bowl of a food processor, combine 2 3/4 cups flour and the salt, pulsing 3 to 4 times.


Add the yeast mixture and 1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil. Pulse until the dough comes together, adding more flour as needed until the dough is smooth,not tacky, when pinched between two fingers. Transfer to a clean surface. Knead the dough 4 or 5 turns and shape it into a ball.

3. Brush the inside of a medium bowl with olive oil, and place the dough in the bowl, smooth-side up.


Cover tightly with plastic wrap, and place in a warm spot until doubled in size, about 40 minutes. Remove the plastic wrap, and push your fist into the center of the dough to punch it down. Working in the bowl, fold the dough back onto itself 4 or 5 times. Turn the dough over, folded side down, cover with plastic wrap,and return to the warm spot to rise again until the dough has doubled in size, about 30 minutes.


4. Punch down the dough again, and transfer it to a clean surface. Using a bench scraper or a sharp knife, divide the dough evenly into three or four pieces, kneading each piece four or five times.

TO MAKE AHEAD: Follow the recipe through Step 3, tightly cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for up to 12 hours. When ready to use, remove the plastic wrap, punch the dough down with your fist, and let it sit at room temperature until ready to soft and pliable, about 30 minutes. Which is what I did last Sunday afternoon when we made pizza.

TO FREEZE: Punch the dough down after it first rises in Step 3. Fold it back onto itself 4 or 5 times as instructed. Divide the dough and roll it out to the desired-size rounds. Stack the rounds, separated by parchment paper, then double-wrap the stack tightly in plastic wrap and freeze. To use,m unwrap frozen dough and thaw slightly until the rounds are easily separated. Place each round in a lightly oiled bowl and thaw at room temperature for 3 to 3 1/2 hours, until each is completely thawed and the dough has doubled in size. Proceed as in Step 4 of the recipe.

About an hour and a half before we planned to eat, we began caramelizing a yellow onion in olive oil and butter.

We preheated the pizza stone, along with the oven, to 450 degrees. After rolling out the dough, I plopped it on the hot pizza stone and topped it with our usual: pesto, shredded rotisserie chicken, roasted red peppers, sun dried tomatoes, goat cheese, and mozzarella.


The pizza baked until the cheese was melted and the crust nicely browned.

The Search is Over

Pizza and me go back a long way.

When I was in junior high, maybe earlier, I turned my nose up at things like roast, mashed potatoes, fried okra, black eyed peas (actually, I don’t much care for mashed potatoes or black eyed peas to this day), and I’d roll my eyes, because life was very, very hard, and fix something else, with my own little hands, for me have for dinner. Because it was difficult to adjust to the unfair reality that the world did not, in fact, revolve around my 12-year-old self as it should.

So. Pizza. And by pizza I mean either white bread or English muffins lightly toasted, then spread with jarred pizza sauce, topped with a slice of American cheese and toasted again in the toaster oven. Gourmet, ya’ll.

If there was a brand of frozen pizza, I tried it. I pretty well lived on them in high school, when I wasn’t eating chicken nugget baskets from our local diner.

Eating out, Italian was always my preference. I was all over that wood-fired pizza trend that started, in Mississippi anyway, in the 80s.

Then in graduate school, I thought I hit upon nirvana. Caramelized onions, whatever kind of tomato-based pasta sauce that sounded interesting, and goat cheese on a Boboli crust. Well. There is no telling how many times I made that. It was my quirky version of comfort food; the onions smelled incredible while cooking and the gooey cheese melded with it and it was all good. It was one of those you-can’t-mess-this up dishes.

I don’t know that I thought it could be topped.

And I, I would be wrong.

A couple of weeks ago we bought a pre-made pizza crust and spread it with basil pesto. We topped that with sliced sun dried tomato, caramelized onion, fresh mozzarella, goat cheese, and shredded rotisserie chicken.


It was every bit as fabulous as it sounds. The only thing that could have improved it was roasted red pepper, which we learned a few days later when we made it again. From now on, they’re on the permanent ingredient list.

We've made it with smoked mozarrella, which I really liked.

The pizza was baked on a pizza stone and actually, that’s pretty important. It makes a world of difference in getting a nice, crisp crust. If you don’t have one, before you preheat the oven, slide in the pizza pan or cookie sheet or whatever you’re going to bake the pizza on and let it get good and hot with the oven. That will help.

This weekend, we're planning a picnic with sandwich wraps having roughly the same ingredients. I'll keep you posted.