Yesterday I found a pizza dough and sauce recipe on my favorite recipe site allrecipes.com and picked up the ingredients at Safeway during my weekly (ok I confess...probably thrice weekly) shopping trip. I got brave enough to attempt to make something that involved yeast after my first disastrous attempt many years ago. This time I bought myself a candy thermometer so I could get the exact temp. needed which I hoped would up my chances for a non-failure.
I started off by heating the water to the specified 110 degrees (the cheap candy thermometer worked like a champ!) and as I got going with the recipe it looked more and more like it might actually turn into pizza crust and not slimy flour. The recipe made enough for two pizzas so I rolled one crust out and put the other in the fridge which made another pizza for dinner tonight. Don't tell me you can't eat pizza two nights in a row because I totally can.
Just before the dough was done rising in it's well oiled bowl I took a stab at making some pizza sauce. It was easy to put together but I'm not loving the taste. Definitely need to tinker with it some more and maybe add some more sugar. After the sauce I put tore up deli ham, chunked pineapple, and grated cheddar cheese for the toppings and shoved it in the super hot oven on my nifty Pampered Chef baking stone. Eight minutes later I popped it out of the oven and waited a short time for things to cool before taking that much anticipated first bite.
It wasn't bad. The crust was actually chewy and not crispy, the toppings were ok, and the sauce needs some work. All in all it's a meal I'll definitely make again. Especially when I compare the cost of my homemade pizzas to a Papa Murphy's Canadian Bacon & Pineaple which is our usual pizza of choice. My version cost around $7 for two pizzas which is less then just one Papa Murphy's pizza costs. You do the math.
3 comments:
just confirming what i already know...you rock! good job
Hi, Jeff of Jeff and Odessa here.
just a thought...use tarragon in your sauce, it is sweet and will be better than sugar.
Second, use motzeralla (sp?) for stringyness like restaurant cheese. Most Pizza places use at least 3 sheese Motz and cheddar are definates..try any other real cheese for fun and find a great flavor combo.
I thought of you when I made pizza yesterday :) I used this dough recipe and it was awesome.... http://www.recipezaar.com/50101 I used my breadmaker to knead and rise it as the recipe suggests, but it can easily be done by hand.
I have to admit though, we don't do sauce from scratch. We buy a the giant family size Prego and use it for several things during the week.
One more thought... if you have struggled with yeast are you making sure it is room temp before you use it?
breads are one of the few things I have success with!
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