Pizza Is Easy To Make

Tired of ordering pizza? The last pizza I had delivered did not even taste that good. Did you know it is easy to make your own pizza at home? Here is one way of doing it.

Ingredients For Pizza Dough:

• two cups of flour
• one teaspoon garlic salt
• one teaspoon of honey
• one teaspoon of rosemary
• one teaspoon of crush red peppers
• one teaspoon of oregano
• one cup of water
• one-and-a-half teaspoons of active dry yeast
• two teaspoons of oil (I like canola or olive oil)

As you can tell from this list of ingredients above, I prefer an herby/spicy pizza crust, but you can cut out some of the above herbs/spices if these are not to your liking. The first step of making my pizza crust is to pour one cup of water into a large teacup, and I microwave it for a minute, just like when I make tea. Once the microwave dings, I take out the cup and pour the water into a mixing bowl, and then I add a package of active dry yeast. If you buy the yeast in the packages you have the perfect serving, and do not have to worry about measuring. From experience I have learned it is best to let the yeasty water sit for ten to twenty minutes to get bubbly. Next, I add the honey and mix this in thoroughly, which aids in making the yeasty water more frothy. After this I add all of my herbs, crush red pepper, and the salt to the mix, and then I add the the flour bit by bit. If you dump in the flour all at once you will have a mess, so make sure to only add a little at a time. Once all of these ingredients are combined, I add my oil.

Once blend the oil into the dough, I then knead it on a floured cutting board for a couple of minutes. I prefer to knead my dough on a cutting board because it keeps my counter from getting sticky, so I highly recommend buying one if you do not already have one in your kitchen. After I have kneaded the dough, I then pour a little bit of oil in a bowl, and I make sure to rotate the ball of dough around in it to fully coat it. A plate is placed over the bowl, and I allow my pizza dough to rise for about an hour. At this time I preheat the oven to 425 degree Fahrenheit, and place the bowl of dough near the oven so it can help it rise. In the winter this works well because heating the oven also helps to heat my apartment on a cold winter's day. However, I would not recommend making pizza on a hot summer's day because the oven will heat up your house, and you can buy a pizza stone to make pizza on your barbecue during the summer months.

An hour is a sufficient amount of time to allow your pizza dough to rise if you are making this for lunch, but letting your dough rise for several hours will give you a more elastic and pliable dough. When my pizza dough is ready, I simply add a tiny bit oil and cornmeal to the bottom to the pizza pan, and I stretch my dough out with my hands. You could use a rolling pin, or get all fancy throwing the dough like they do in a pizza restaurant, but I like to keep things simple. Once he dough is on the pan I add my sauce to the top of it, which just is plain tomato sauce flavored with garlic from the grocery store. Some people prefer to make a special sauce for their pizza, but all of the herbs I sprinkle on top add the flavor to mine. You can use sauce sparingly, but I will admit I really like a lot of sauce on my pizza. My pet peeve is a delivery pizza that is heavy on the cheese and light on the sauce, which is one place where I deviated with my family for years. Just imagine being a sauce loving pizza girl with a family who wants their loaded with cheese, which is why I love making my own now. Kids can even make their own mini pizza to taste, which is another way to get picky eaters involved in the cooking process. You will have fewer people complaining about who wanted olives vs pepperonis on the pizza if each person can make their own mini pizza.

Next, I sprinkle rosemary, oregano, and some crushed pepper over the sauce, and then I add a little bit of mozzarella cheese. After that I add the pepperoni, bell peppers, and and purple onion. Recently I have made several different types of homemade pizza with various toppings, which I will show you below. Once all the toppings have been added to your pizza, I bake it at 425 degrees Fahrenheit for about fifteen minutes, or until it has a brownish on the crust. I like a crispy thin crust, so the browning of the crust is always my cue to take it out of the oven. Making your own pizza is actually a time and a money saver because you do not have to run out to a restaurant to order the pizza, or go to the store to buy one. I can work on my writing as the dough is rising, and as the pizza is baking.

I am the writer and artist who believes in cooking as much as you can at home in order to save time and money, and I am always highly skeptical of writers who say they rely on restaurants when they are writing. I guess if you are making enough money to prop up our economy by ordering pizza every time you are working on a book or an article that is a good thing, but I just like to be frugal and make my pizza at home. Besides, I have learned I can make a pretty delicious pizza that tastes better than most delivery or take out places. So start saving some time and money as a writer by making pizza and other dishes at home, which you could always write about when you publish your culinary infused memoirs and novels. If you read novels such as Pomegranate Soup and Rosewater and Soda Bread, in which the author Marsha Mehran describes characters with impressive culinary skills, you will notice there are many writers out there who actually use the creativity of cooking to construct vivid stories and rich character. Many people have also written memoirs that include stories about cooking, such as Frances Mayes' Under the Tuscan Sun, which recounts her adventures cooking and restoring an Italian villa. Who better to pen recipes and tales of the kitchen than a writer!

For about the price of a take-out or delivery pizza, your can buy a pizza pan. See how much you will save when you start making your own pizza? I bought a pizza pan for around eight dollars back in May, and I have used it at least ten times since. Eventually pans do become stained and tented to where you will want to recycle these, but a pizza pan will give you a lot of use for less than the price of a pizza from a restaurant.