Pizza Dough

I promise we'll get back to baking tomorrow, but since we had this for dinner along with the Kale Salad I told you about yesterday, I thought you might like to hear about our approach to pizza.

We rarely order pizza but we eat a lot of pizza.  I'm a big fan of making my own pizza dough and it really is pretty darn easy.  I've tried quite a few recipes and my go-to is this one from Martha Stewart.  I like that it's got half whole wheat flour in it to keep it on the healthier side.  The recipe makes 2 crusts but because CA and I both prefer a thin crust pizza (again, a little more healthy), I typically divide the dough into 3 crusts.  The dough freezes really well in a quart size baggie and defrosts in no time.   We always have a few crusts in the freezer ready to go.

90% of the time we make veggie pizza with whatever we've got lying around... peppers, artichokes, spinach, mushrooms, tomatoes... as well as whatever cheese is lingering in the drawer... mozzarella, parmesan, feta, goat cheese.  Sometimes, we go sans-sauce and make flatbread (that's what we had tonight pictured on the left with garlic, pancetta, roasted orange pepper and buffalo mozzarella).  I even went an entirely different direction once and made this Malaysian Chicken Pizza (super yummy if you're tired of the same old pizza).  Sometimes I make my own sauce if we've got the stuff for it, but often it's just jarred spaghetti sauce.  My favorite, though, is grilled pizza.  You can stretch out the dough and throw it straight on the grill, just be sure to oil the grates first.  Once one side is set and have some nice grill marks, flip it over.  Once that side is set, take it off the grill and put on your toppings.  You can either put it in the oven at this point or back on the grill on low or indirect heat.  See the photo on the right?  Grilled.

I say all this like it's not scarier than watching The Shining to put raw dough on your grill.  It still freaks me out so I make CA do it.  He is a superhero after all.  Generally, if the grill is involved so is he and it makes for a good strategy when I don't want to cook everything myself and/or clean a cooking vessel.

Something else I've done with the crust is make "hot pockets" that CA takes to work.  I originally used this blog's recipe as a guide, then got creative with the fillings.  I've done roast beef & cheddar, Southwestern chicken & black bean and pizza versions (Southwestern is always his favorite).  I bake them off and stick them in the freezer.  CA can just grab one and microwave it at work.  Aren't I a nice wife?  I like to remind him often.

Julie