Hi Guys! How are you? The kitchen was once the heart of the house. Everyone
gathered around the table sharing jokes, talking about their day, and waiting
to see what mom made for dinner. The first lessons about healthy eating start
at home in the kitchen. Today I want to talk about pizza. Pizza was, is, and always
will be an interesting subject because it is so versatile you can do whatever
is in your mind with pizza dough. You can make bread, garlic sticks, crostini
to use with salads and antipasto instead of bread, or even sweet pies: brush
the dough before you bake it with sugar syrup and then add sweets, whipped
cream, cherries, and strawberries… whatever you like! I’m not saying you need to stop going to your
favorite pizza shop to order a classic pizza, but this is a fun way to
entertain your kids and yourself in the kitchen by discovering the pleasures of
being a kid again.  Small pizza (serves 4) For the
dough (makes 4, at 5 oz each): 16oz all
purpose flour 1 and 1/2 tsp salt 1oz olive oil 1 packet dry yeast 12oz water For the sauce: 14oz can plum tomato (chef’s cut) 1 tsp salt 1/4 tsp black pepper 1/4 tsp dried oregano You will
also need 2 cookie sheet pans. In a stand
up mixer with a hook, add the flour and salt and start mixing on a low setting.
Add the water, oil, and the yeast. Let this run for a few minutes until the
dough starts to form a soft ball. Take it out and transfer to a big, oiled
bowl. Cover with saran wrap and let rise until it doubles in size (about 1 hour
to an hour and a half) in a warm place. (Right now, with this weather, pretty
much any place in the house will do!) If you like,
you can make the dough the day before, which will give the dough time to
develop a better flavor. If you do this, let the dough rise for just an hour
and then transfer—tightly covered—to the refrigerator. If air gets into the
bowl, the dough will develop a crust. It isn’t the worst situation, but it
doesn’t look great. If you want
to keep your pizza white, vegetables make a great topping. The fastest
way to make the sauce at home is just throw all the ingredients in your
blender. The sauce will cook when your pizza is in the oven. Remember when
working with plum tomato to drain all of the water before you crush them. When
the pizza goes in the oven, the tomatoes will release even more water and the
sauce will become very runny and ruin the pizza crust. When you’re
ready to do the pizza, preheat the oven to 475 F. Cut the dough into 4 pieces.
On a sheet pan, put a little oil and start to stretch the dough (2 pieces to a
pan). Have fun stretching the dough with your hands- it will still taste great
no matter what the shape comes out to. Try rectangle or circle, but have fun
using your hands to play around. For
toppings: Use your imagination! Mushrooms, pepperoni, sausage, ham and
pineapple for a Hawaiian, go crazy! We made 2 with ground beef, sauce, peas,
and mozzarella, and two with mozzarella, artichoke hearts, and bacon. Top your
pizzas with whatever you like and then place the sheet pans on the bottom rack
of the oven and cook for about 6 minutes.
Enjoy! Liam’s
Tomato Pie This recipe
is for one of my favorite little customers, Liam and his Dad, Ben. (Hi Liam! Get your dad to
make this recipe for you!) For one mini
pizza, you will need: 5 oz pizza dough (see recipe
above) 2oz plum
tomato (chef’s cut…be sure to drain the water…see the warning above) pinch salt pinch black pepper pinch dried oregano 1 oz diced onions 1/2 oz olive oil 1/2 lb sweet sausage (or you can
buy more and Dad can make sausage, peppers, and onions for his dinner) To cook the
sausage, preheat the oven to 425 F. Put the sausage in a baking pan that is at
least 2 inches deep. Add about a cup of water. Cover with tin foil and cook for
25-30 minutes. While the
sausage is cooking, put the tomato, seasonings, onions, and olive oil in a food
processor and pulse a few times. You still want it to be a little chunky, not
very smooth. When the
sausage is done, remove from the oven and raise the temperature of the oven to
475 F. Stretch the dough on a sheet pan coated with a little bit of oil. Put
the sauce on the pizza, and add your slices of sausage on top. With this
recipe, be careful when removing the cooked pizza because there is nothing to
keep the sauce in place without cheese and it will run all over the oven and
make a huge mess. This will cause your wife to kill you and then you will both get
made at me! Bake for 6 or 7 minutes and make Liam happy! Want to know
how to make one of your favorite dishes from Antica Trattoria at home? Let us
know in the comments! Bon Appetito! |
 |
|||||||
 
|
|
 |
|||||
    |
|||||||
