Mama Mia, Pizzaria!

in #food7 years ago (edited)


Pizza in the morning, pizza in the evening, pizza at suppertime... When flour is at our house, we make pizza everytime!


What is it about pizza that is so great? I guess it's the perfect balance of fat, carbs, proteins... The texture of the crust vs.
the cheese, and the sourness of the sauce with the sweetness of the dough?

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My boyfriend often asks me stupid questions like 'If you could only eat one thing for the rest of your life, what would it be'. I always say pizza... And to which he says I must only choose one ingredient. So in that case, I reluctantly pick peanut butter (which is another perfect food IMO)


Onion Pizza Grabbed from my FB album

We never need a special occasion to make pizza, as we always seem to have dough ready made in our freezer next to 2-3 pounds of mozzarella. I swear he often 'forgets' to go grocery shopping so we have to 'eat what we have in the house'.
Knowing good and well, that we have pizza ingredients stocked up as if we are waiting for a nuclear fallout.


Arugula Pizza Grabbed from my FB album

And do I ever say no? Let's not talk about that... :P I don't need to tell anyone here about my love for pizza, as I am sure 90%+ of you all have it as your favorite as well... So I will just share the intructions I use to make pizza here at our home.
Enjoy!


Yield:

4 eight-inch pizzas

Ingredients:

3 cups bread flour (or all-purpose flour) plus more for dusting
1 cup luke-warm water
2 1/4 teaspoon active dry yeast
1 teaspoon honey
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 tablespoon EVOO (Extra Virgin Olive Oil) plus 2 teaspoons to coat the large bowl
Mozzarella (as much as you desired)
1 teaspoon cornmeal (optional)

The sauce:

15 ounce can tomato sauce
6 ounce can tomato paste
1 tablespoon butter
3 cloves garlic, minced
onion powder
dried basil
dried oregano
red pepper flakes
ground black pepper
pinch salt

Toppings:

Any desired toppings just don't foget the mozzarella! Pizza without cheese isn't a pizza.;p

Directions:

  1. Gently whisk yeast and honey in luke-warm water until yeast is dissolved and let sit it about 10-20 minutes until you see the foamy texture on top of the water.

  2. Sift flour in a large bowl and stir in salt. Your yeast should have risen by then and now make a hole in the middle and pour in the yeast mixture and the olive oil.

  3. Using a non-stick spatula or a wooden spoon, gently stir the flour with the wet ingredients until dough holds together but should be sticky. If the dough is way too wet, add a little bit more flour.

  4. On your working station, sprinkle some flour and knead the dough for about 10-15 minutes, the dough could be sticky but manageable. How to knead a dough? Streach it out, fold towards you and twist, continue this until you get a smooth surface on the top of the dough.You can always add some flour if needed just so the dough won't stick to the surface. Form the dough into a smooth ball.

  5. In a large bowl, add 1 teaspoon of olive oil and spread to coat the entire bowl. Put in the dough and cover with plastic wrap and place a kitchen towel on top (if you don't have any plastic wrap, a kitchen towel will do just fine just place a heavy object on top of it, maybe a heavy large pan). Let the dough rise for at least 2 hours until the dough is double the size.

  6. Once the dough has doubled the size, transfer to the floured surface and cut into four slices. Push the dough around and pinch the bottom to get a smooth ball. Your pizza dough should be ready to shape just flatten it using a rolling pin or you can use your hands by simply pressing it down and stretching as you go along.

  7. Sprinkle some cornmeal on the baking tray and put in the pizza dough. Add the sauce and then layer the mozarella and add your desired toppings. Bake at 450f for 17 minutes. Once done, let the pizza sit on the counter at least 5 minutes before serving. This will help the crust not stick to the pan.

To cook the sauce:

  1. Melt butter in a pan a low heat and saute garlic until soft and transparent.

  2. Add rest of the ingredients for the sauce and bring to simmer for 30 minutes.

Cook Notes:

(For best pizza crust, I would suggest making the dough at least overnight to give it enough time to rise.)

Note: Pre-heat the oven for at least an hour before baking the pizza.

The reason why I like to use bread flour is that it makes the pizza crust crispier, they said it has something to do with the gluten and bread flour has a higher gluten than all-purpose flour.

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For the yeast:
I prefer Red Star active dry yeast.
I tried 'Eagle' brand instant dry yeast and other brands that you can buy at the grocery store but so far Red Star active dry yeast is favorite yeast to use for pizza dough.

Don't forget to check the expiration date on the yeast or else the dough won't rise. Though one time I was able to save the expired yeast since I was so lazy to go out and buy a new one. First I use 1/4 cup of luke water in a bowl and added 2 1/4 teaspoon of yeast (okay, before you start to panic, let me finish my experiment, lol). Then, I whisked the yeast with the water as fast as I can (it's a good arm workout *wink I probably mastered it and you can call me the whisk master, charot! If you have a stand mixer you can also use it, I just like doing the hard stuff because it's more fun, but really if you want to save time and energy feel free to use the electric mixer.

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Who wants a slice of pizza? ^_-


XOXO,

Gilaine

Sort:  

That pizza looks amazing. I will definitely be trying this recipe.

thank you, @sirstackalot ;) I like your username do you also stack some pizza ehehe

Thank you for dropping by, enjoy making your pizza and save me a slice pls, tysm!

The second day I look at this pizza, and yet it's appetizing! (Although I'm struggling with being overweight!)

Beautiful .. a strong start
Damn I'm hungry .. wonderful pictures
Thanks for sharing

Pizza is the best. If i could i would eat it all the time. :-). I will try your technics. Thanks.

haha same here, if not only for the carbs, i'd eat pizza all the time ^_-

my pleasure, thank you for visiting my page ;)

Looks really good! My favorite is Hawaiian with pineapple and ham. Yummy. Good to see you back!

Many people criticise Hawaiian pizza for some reason. Maybe it's something like "yeah, yeah, pizza tastes so good that you can throw anything at it and it'll still taste good. You're not innovating".

Yet I really really like Hawaiian pizza! I don't know if it's because of the way I enjoy pineapples or the mixture of flavours, but it's certainly one of my favorite recipes.

my sister, @gerel loves Hawaiian pizza ;)

Thank you, Mark. Yeah so many things going on right now. Sometimes am running out of thoughts to write, haha

Oh no! For me it's so easy to find a topic. I just have to balance my time because sometimes I start posting and I forget that the rest of the world exists. Other times, I pay too much attention to the rest of the world and the rest of the Steemit community or the books I'm reading and I forget to post for a whole week.

I also forget the rest of the world when am on steemit haha though it's more fun for me to reply to comments and read other people's blog than my own work. I always get paranoid about my grammar haha

Very Delicious, Good work my friend @purepinay. this recipe is very helpful. I Love a Lot to Pizzaaz. Last night i ate pizza and want to sharing pictures with you.

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Thank you, @rabeel! Wow did you eat that whole pizza? 😃

Yes alongwith my brother.

This looks so delicious. I've never made a pizza from scratch, I will try your recipe and let you know what I think. Thanks for sharing.

The tastiest pizza I've ever had was cooked at home :3 But I didn't make it! It was my Indian uncle who is also vegan. Our pizza also had cheese, but it had no other extra ingredients, and I must say, he's a master with the spices! It didn't have too much of anything.

Usually when we eat pizza here in Venezuela, they're super tasty and the tastiness comes from adding a lot of stuff almost indiscriminately. His was carefully laid out, like an artist's sculpture. It did not even have a strong flavor like normal pizzas, but the flavors were so well picked that it made it unforgettable.

I have to meet your uncle! haha

Cooking is really a piece of art!

I made cheese pizza several times already, I just couldn't find any good photos of though since my boyfriend and I would always rush to dig in.

Hahahaha, the same happens with my dad's cakes! Right out from the oven, we're all eager to approach with a knife and take a piece from it. My uncle is a bit old, so I might not even be able to meet him again myself, since he went to India and I'll be trapped in Europe for a year. Let's see how things turn out. :3

I hope you meet your uncle in very soon. I'd like to hear your story why are you trapped in Europe? 😨☹️

How you did this..alot of water in my mouth great job

Aw, thank you for visiting 😘

Wow super pizza!;)Already drooling)It looks very appetizing!

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Lovely pizzas :3 I've never eaten one with full leaves on it, lol.

It's almost midnight and I suddenly became hungry because of this post, Gilaine! Hahaha.

Lol. It's the same here. 11 pm and now I want some pizza. How am I going to make one? I don't even have the ingredients! <3

omg haha am sorry, I hope you didn't snack on something last night, save you some extra calories ;)

how is everything with you?

I'm doing great! I've been writing a lot and it has been a nice week :) Well, my sleep schedule is a bit weird right now, but it works and I'm working to fix it.

I'm going to have to get some dinner as soon as I'm done storming my comments here :3 You've made me so hungry that I'm sure it would be unhealthy to stay like this for more than an hour, gastric juices and all wrecking havoc in my stomach.

omg I saw you've been writing like a

as for me, I am the opposite against the clock, I constantly remind myself I that I don't have a deadline so I don't get burned out.

haha! I love you, thank you so much for your time and help.

Pls, go grab something to eat, take care of your health <3

Writing like a ___

Now I'm wondering what the first word you thought of was. LOL

ohh sorry, I was typing that comment on my lapytapy at the same time reading other comments on my phone, am never good at multi-tasking eh! hahaha

I meant to say you write like a machine! You can finish a blog in just one sitting! haha, how do you do that?

Well, first of, I don't proofread much. I have one of my ideas, maybe a story or an article about a certain topic, and I just start writing. I write nonstop, adding and adding as I feel like it, then I edit it, separating the sections, adding images, and it all can take me one hour and a half, maybe. Sometimes around 3 hours.

Yesterday's story took me a long time, lol. I was on and off from the post, chatting and coming back to it. And by the end of it, I didn't proofread it. I trust my past self to have written good stuff and I have a good memory to remember the ideas I already wrote and where.

So by the end of the session, even without reading it, I can just eye any section and I know what's in each paragraph. I reorganize a bit if I feel like I need to do it and I just post it without any qualms about perfection.

I'm a perfectionist, so this is the only way I can finish the job (it's either in one sitting or nothing). Otherwise it'll stay in some drawer for all of eternity waiting for me to "feel like finishing it".

Wait, did I just read a whole blog from your comment? Haha You are very talented, not all people can write like you.

Am having my lunch right now, I hope you had dinner already 😘

I am happy to see your post again! ♥ Your pizzas really make me hungry @purepinay! I will definitely try your recipe. You love pizza and yet you are so sexy. Thank you very much for this mouthwatering pizza recipe, a must try! :)♥
Thank you very much for your support, you're an angel here on Steemit @purepinay! :)

Hey, Leah! How are you?

make sure to knead the pizza dough well ;) save me a slice of pizza, okay? hehe

Thank you, dear... you are sweet!

XOXO

Good food phatography @purepinay