Saturday, August 4, 2007

Pizza dough and quotes from the kids

My first attempt at homemade pizza dough is, in my unbiased opinion, a success. Martin and Lillie agreed (he ate three pieces of pizza and she ate an entire piece by herself).

From Bread Machine Baking by Lora Brody and Millie Apter...one of my favorite features of this cookbook is the fact that the authors tested every bread recipe in 17 different bread machines and they include any recipe variations among the different bread machines (i.e. the same recipe might need more water in a different machine etc).

Pizza Crust (for one 12" pizza)
3/4 cup warm water (plus 1-2 Tbsp. if mixture looks dry and crumbly after first 10 minutes of kneading)
2 Tbsp. olive oil
1/2 tsp. sugar (I'm going to try honey next time...)
1 tsp. salt
3 Tbsp. cornmeal
2 Tbsp. whole wheat flour
2 cups unbleached white flour (we used bleached...tasted fine)
2 tsp. yeast (room temperature)

Unless your bread machine says differently, place ingredients in bread machine pan in order listed (liquids, then dry ingredients, and end with yeast).
Program Dough. (takes about 90 minutes)
Remove dough from pan when finished and let sit for 10 minutes at room temperature. *
Roll dough on baking stone (may want to use a bit of olive oil on dough and sprinkle of corn meal on pan underneath dough), top with pizza fixings and bake at 450 for 12-15 minutes.

*Book suggests chilling dough to make it easier to work with (oil a large bowl and place dough in bowl after it is finished in the bread machine and cover tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate a couple hours). Punch dough down and proceed to roll and bake as instructed above.
I did not chill my dough and I still thought it was very easy to work with.

We topped ours with a marinara sauce, sausage, cream cheese chunks, sauteed fresh mushrooms and onions and a four cheese blend.
I actually made one of these on Friday, too, and my 3 year old nephew rolled the pizza dough, so this will probably become one of our favorite 'kids can cook' recipes.
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This has been the week of quotes from Nathan and Lillie:

Nathan (3 year old nephew): "I love your couch. Its so cozy" (as he snuggles in to read)
Nathan: "I love your toilet" (he is potty trained and very pleased to share this info)
Nathan again: "I love your bathtub" (I don't know why he said this...our bathroom needs to be gutted, but if he thinks its pretty, then so be it)
Lillie: "NO, NO, NO, NO, NO" (to me as I gave Beretta leftover hamburger...I know, she's not to get table scraps, hence the appropriate scolding to me by my daughter)
Lillie again: "Bre, GO POT" (Lillie telling Beretta to Go Potty...most of our neighbors should have been able to hear Lillie giving this command!)

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