Pizzzzza

Now, who doesn't like pizza....everybody luvvvvs it and I'm not talking about those cardboard flying saucers that you can buy for less than 2 Euro's, those aren't worth to be called pizza! No, I'm talking about homemade pizza, with all the toppings you like, coming straight out of your own oven! Or, from the barbecue, of course, but this time I made them in the oven....sorry if I disappointed you now....!!

If you never tried it because you thought it was too difficult or you get nightmares even thinking about making your own dough....please read this, I'm gonna convince you that it is EASY!

So, put your legs on the table and we'll start (yes, it is that easy!)

The dough comes from the book Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day, it's a great book written by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoë François. It contains lots of recipes for bread, pizza, dessert, anything with dough!

All you need is a big container with a lid, a wooden spoon and a thermometer and of course the ingredients:

3 1/4 cup all purpose flour

3 tablespoon olive oil

3/4 teaspoon salt

3/4 teaspoon granulated yeast

1,5 cup water, lukewarm (that means absolutely NOT warmer than 100F, check with thermometer!)

This amount is enough for two large pizza's or several small ones, of course.

The original recipe also has sugar in it, but I omited that because I think it's too sweet.

Mix the flour and the yeast in a big bowl. In the container goes: water, olive oil and salt. Then you add the flour, all at once and start stirring until there are no dry spots of flour left. If the dough is too wet, add some more flour, if you think it's too dry add some water or olive oil.

Put the lid on loosely, don't close the container! Put it on the counter and have a glass of wine.

The dough needs approximately 2 - 2,5 hours to rise, so maybe you'd better take a bottle of wine.

This is how it looks after stirring, before rising:

In the meantime:

gather all the toppings you want, like onions, mushrooms, bell peppers, salami, garlic etc. etc. Anything you like! But there are three things you really need:

1 can of peeled tomatoes

dried italian herbes

shredded cheese. I used shredded Gouda cheese.

Use a blender for the tomatoes, in order to get a smooth tomato sauce, but some tomato chunks are okay.

Preheat the oven to 500F or use the crisp program if your oven has one.

When the dough has risen, scatter some flour over it and pull out half of the dough with your hands.

Now you can make the pizza, flatten the dough with a a rolling pin or simply use your hands. Put it on baking paper, a pizza stone, or as I did, use a crisp plate for pizza. 

Divide some tomato sauce over the dough and start building your pizza. End with the dried herbes and the cheese.

The first one I made, with onions, prosciutto, red bell pepper, and garlic:

After 12 minutes (when using the crips program or a pizza stone) or about 15 - 20 minutes when you use a regular oven method, it is ready!!

The second one (mine!) had salami, mushrooms, garlic, onions, jalapeno slices (from a jar) and green olives:

And I almost forgot to make a picture of the result, so here are the last 2 pieces.... :

And now I'm hungry, you too??

Try it, and enjoy!!