Pizza time!

… is easy to do when you feed them pizza. Here is something that can make our family’s day, any day, and it does so about once a week– it is a little piece of home and so yummy too. At first we were sad that there is not any good pizza in town, but now we are big fans of this recipe. I have found that pizza making is pretty enjoyable– the stretchy dough, the painting of the sauce, and the end result is certainly rewarding, making every member of the family happy at once.

This is a calzone recipe from Cuisine at Home, a magazine my sister-in-law recommended to me and I can heartily recommend to others. It makes two about 10” pizzas. We have started to need to make three!

Pizza Dough
1 c. warm water
1 package yeast (2 1/4 teaspoons)
1/4 teaspoon sugar
2 tablespoons olive oil
3 c. flour
1 tablespoon sugar
2 teaspoons salt

Sprinkle yeast and 1/4 teaspoon sugar over warm water and let it sit for several minutes. When it is foamy, add the olive oil. In the meantime, put the flour, tablespoon of sugar, and salt into a food processor or large mixing bowl and combine. Add the yeast mixture and either process until it forms a ball or mix until all dry ingredients are moistened. Now knead it on a lightly floured surface about 10 times. Put the dough into a bowl with about 1/2 tablespoon of olive oil on the bottom and turn it over so that it gets oiled on top and bottom. Cover with plastic wrap and let it rise for at least an hour. Cut the ball into two pieces and roll into whatever shape your cookie sheet or pizza pan is.
If you have a good working surface, don’t sprinkle much flour at all for rolling out your crust or it will spring back and you’ll never get a thin crust. I like it pretty thin, so I let it stick to the table until I get it the size I want. It peels off easily. I read on the Internet that you can turn a cookie sheet over and bake on it so that you can slide your pizza off. I put a tiny bit of corn flour (it’s like cornmeal only more fine) down first, peel the dough off the table, arrange it on the turned-over cookie sheet, and add a simple tomato sauce and mozzarella cheese. This is an important tip, because if you build your pizza on your working surface instead of your baking surface, it is very hard to move the pizza onto your baking surface. I’ve learned that the hard way! We like pizza margherita, with just cheese and basil, or a few slices of ham. We haven’t gotten too crazy with the toppings yet, but there is more pizza to come, never fear… When you come to visit us, I’ll make you a hot, delicious, Allison’s Pizza Kitchen pizza!