What's for Dinner? 1-3-11

Pizza is what's for dinner. Here's how I normally make it... but tonight I'm cheating. Freschetta is in the oven as we speak.

1.) Mix up dough in bread maker. Recipe:
                For 1.5lb ball of dough
                1/2 tsp. salt
                3 cups all purpose flour (I use two cups of whole wheat and one of all purpose)
                1 1/2 tsp Bread Machine Yeast
                1 cup water  
                2 tbsp Olive Oil
        Dump all of the ingredients into the bread machine and run it through a dough cycle. Sometimes for mine  I have to watch it ball it up because sometimes it's too wet or too dry (I blame it on the humidity). If it's too wet/dry, i just add flour or water until it mixes into about the right consistency. This is what you should have after the dough cycle (on my machine that's an hour and a half).

2.) When it's done in the bread machine, roll it out into a pizza shape. I put it on a floured surface and knead it a few times first, roll it out then I put it on a lightly floured pizza stone, like this:

 3.) This is the most important part. Brush dough with olive oil, sprinkle on some oregano, and then pierce many times with a fork. If you don't do the piercing it will get bubbly and poufy and make crappy pizza dough. Then you bake it in a 400 degree oven for 2-5 minutes. Bake it until the dough is firm enough to lift off the stone. Put on the sauce, cheese, and other toppings of your choice.

4.) Carefully transfer the pizza from the stone to the racks in the oven. Put a cookie sheet under the pizza to catch any drippings and bake until cheese is melted and bubbly (I usually bake it for 15-25 minutes. But I always start checking it at 15 minutes)

And there you have it. My usual pizza! :-)