I told Stew a couple days ago that I'd get a vegan safe pizza dough recipe up here, so here we go. This has a few more ingredients than a strictly traditional DOC compliant dough, but it's much easier to handle.
5 cups unbleached high-gluten or bread flour
1 tablespoon sugar or honey
2 teaspoons table salt OR 3 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 teaspoon instant yeast
2 tablespoons olive or vegetable oil
~1 3/4 cups room temperature water
1. Stir together all the ingredients in a large metal bowl.
2. Repeatedly dip one of your hands or the spoon into room-temperature water, working the dough into a coarse ball like you were using a dough hook while rotating the bowl with your other hand. As all the flour is incorporated the dough will begin to strengthen. This should take about 4 minutes.
3. Cover the dough and let it rest for 5 minutes and then resume mixing for an additional 2-3 minutes or until the dough is slightly sticky, soft, and supple. If it's too soft and sticky to hold it's shape mix in more flour one tablespoon at a time. If it's too stiff or dry mix in more water.
4. Immediately divide the dough into 4 (or whatever) equal pieces. Round each piece into a ball, brush it with olive oil to coat, and place inside it's own container. I use tupperware for this.
5. Let the balls rest at room temperature for 15 minutes, then put them in the refrigerator overnight. You can also freeze them at this point for up to 3 months.
6. Take them out of the fridge ~2 hours before you plan to use them so they can return to room temperature, then use them to make pizzas as you normally would.
Alright, I'm putting this up because Stew asked for it. This is the pizza dough recipe I use most often these days, copied out of Peter Reinhart's book American Pie, though lately I've been in the habit of swapping out one cup of the regular flour for whole wheat flour.
Makes 4 10-ounce dough balls (I usually just divide it into two)
- 5 cups unbleached high-gluten or bread flour (I usually just use all-purpose. Most American all-purpose flours have a higher gluten content than European bread flours anyway)
- 3 tablespoons sugar or honey
- 2 teaspoons table salt OR 3.5 teaspoons kosher salt
- 2 teaspoons instant yeast
- 1/4 cup olive or vegetable oil or solid vegetable shortening (I use olive oil)
- 1 cup whole or low-fat milk
- ~3/4 cup room-temperature water (Start with a little less. The amount of moisture that flour can absorb can be affected a lot by humidity. You have to kind of learn to eyeball when it's right.)
1. With a large metal spoon, stir together all ingredients in a large bowl until combined. Repeatedly dip one of your hands into room-temperature water and use it like a dough hook, working the dough vigorously into a coarse ball as you rotate the bowl with your other hand. As all the flour is incorporated into the ball, about 4 minutes, the dough will begin to strengthen; when this occurs, let the dough rest for 5 minutes and then resume mixing for an additional 2 to 3 minutes, or until the dough is slightly stick, soft, and supple. If the dough is too soft and sticky to hold it's shape, mix in more flour by the tablespoonful; if it is too stiff or dry, mix in more water by the tablespoonful. The dough should pass the windowpane test (i.e. you should be able to pull a small piece off and stretch it between your fingers thinly enough that you can see light through it. This tests elasticity.).
2. Immediately divide up the dough into 4 (or whatever) equal pieces. Round each piece into a ball and brush or rub each ball with oil. Place each ball in it's own zipper freezer bag (I use tupperware). Let the balls sit at room temperature for 15 minutes, then put them in the fridge overnight or freeze any pieces you will not be using the next day.
3. Pull them out of the fridge and leave them somewhere at room temperature around 2 hours before you plan to use them. They should keep in the fridge for a couple of days, or around 3 months in the freezer (I've never actually tested that).
Went and finally bought a pizza peel, so this was the first night I cooked things properly on a stone. The results were mostly positive, even taking into account how I set off the smoke detector.
Foreground - ham, grilled (well, griddled) pineapple, and a small number of black beans I had left over.
Background - chicken, bacon, and ham.
Vegetable pizza - red and yellow bell peppers and black beans. First pizza in, so it's a little darker.
Ham, grilled pineapple, and banana peppers.
Three pizzas tonight, two smaller ones on the grill and a larger one in the stove.
First one - oven-roasted tomato slices with parmesan and basil:
Second one - just sauce and parmesan cheese, with a little basil:
Third one - "breakfast" pizza. Ham, potatoes, and eggs:
So it's pizza you bastards want, is it? Fine, I'll play ball. Mike probably wins as crust goes, I just used one of those cheapo pre-mixed bags. I topped that with a pizza sauce from scratch: 6 oz tomato paste, 6 oz water, parmesan, minced garlic, fresh basil, oregano, marjoram, salt, red pepper flake, black pepper, and sugar. Then it got colby and cheddar cheese, caramelized onions, bacon, spinach, a whole heapin helpin of fresh roasted chicken, a little more parmesan, and green onion. It was good. It would have been great, but the crust kinda sucked.
All made with the same pizza dough as last time.
Kielbasa and egg:
Grilled pizza with garlic, olive oil, basil, tomato, a little remaining chicken and some cheese:
Grilled chicken and bell peppers on a barbecue sauce base:
The remaining grilled chicken and kielbasa with a traditional tomato pizza sauce and mozzarella:
Group shot:
Left to fend for myself for dinner tonight and for whatever reason I decided I felt like pizza, even though it was already after 6pm when I found out.
Chicken, bacon, and garlic pizza. Pretty good. Here's a couple more shots to give you the full experience.
Update: There have been some complaints that I didn't actually post the instructions for making this. I didn't because I am lazy, and since I'm still lazy I'll just direct you to where I got the dough recipe here. Follow this, top as you want, cook as it instructs, and then there's pizza.
I've just reconsidered my stance vis-à-vis Jeremy pooping on Gizmo, so I've decided to post the results of tonight's entry into Operation: Don't-Starve-To-Death-The-Minute-We're-Left-To-Fend-For-Ourselves. I'm happy to report that the operation was a success; we've postponed the inevitable time when I have to try to tackle Shaun and eat him by at least another evening or two.
We produced two pies tonight, the first is Chicken with Black Beans and Peppers(Red and Yellow):
The second, a more traditional Ham and Pepperoni with Peppers(also Red and Yellow):
Unfortunately all physical evidence has been destroyed, leaving these photos as the only evidence that it all even happened. I post them here so that in the days to come, half-mad with starvation, I can look back at them with jaws sore from chewing on Shaun and think back to a happier time when I had foods that didn't taste like sweaty gristle and Axe body spray.
Hey, why wouldn't I post a restaurant review? Don't have an answer do ya shithead? Shaddap. I'll make it quick.
We've hit this place a couple times. They have killer deep dish pizza, made so because of its thick, soft, and flaky crust. They do these baked potatoes...wait for it.....as an entree! WTF? They're huge. Amber ordered one once and then, true story, brought a 747 screaming down into the parking lot with her new found gravitational pull. Also, something happened with the tides, but I don't remember. It was on the news, look it up.
Other super notable thing about the place is its house made sodas. They do a root beer, black cherry, and orange cream. I am particularly fond of the black cherry, iz sour. So there you go, that didn't hurt, did it? Ring the bell!
