My FAVORITE Food

I'll eat pretty much anything put infront of me, but if it were up to me I'd eat mexican food or pizza every day.

Over the last few years I've experimented with different pizza dough recipes, desperately searching for "the one." It was a hard task considering I wanted a great whole wheat crust. Some came out too dry, too chewy, too bland, too stiff to work with.

Last week I resumed my search for the perfect crust, and I do believe I have found it. I found it somewhere on 101cookbooks.com. I made a couple of changes in that I didn't use white wheat flour, just regular whole wheat flour. Also, I couldn't wait til the next day to try it so I made some without chilling overnight. I saved a couple balls of dough and did use them later and it was about the same.




Ingredients:
4 1/2 cups (20.25 ounces)White Whole Wheat flour
1 3/4 (.44 ounce) teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon (.11 ounce) instant yeast
1/4 cup (2 ounces) olive oil (optional)
1 3/4 cups (14 ounces) water, ice cold (40°F)
Semolina flour or cornmeal for dusting

Mix ans knead dough by hand or with your mixer( use a dough hook) for 5-7 minutes. Cut dough into 6 equal pieces, gently round into balls. Place in a ziploc and refrigerate over night to let them rest.

Uncover or unwrap the dough balls and dust them with flour. Working one at a time, gently press a dough round into a disk wide enough that you can bring it up onto your knuckles to thin out - you should be able to pull each round out to 12-inches or so. If the dough is being fussy and keeps springing back, let it rest for another 15-20 minutes. Place the pulled-out dough on the prepared sheet pan, and jerk the pan to make sure the dough will move around on the cornmeal ball-bearings (you don't want it to stick to the pan). Bake at 450-500 for 5-8 minutes.



I also LOVE pizzeria type crust, and have long searched for a good, hand tossed dough. As it was with the whole wheat, there were many bad pizzas going to the dog. Last night I found a recipie that was FABULOUS. I wandered across it somehow...and don't remember how I found it. Sorry, no link. So I'll just post the recipe below.





Ingredients
Olive oil spray
1 cup warm water (105 - 115 degrees F)
1 package (1/4 ounce) active dry yeast
2 teaspoons sugar
11/2 cups + 4 tablespoons unbleached flour + additional for work surface
3/4 cup bread flour
2 teaspoons salt
Lightly mist a mixing bowl with oil spray. Set aside. In a small bowl, combine the water, yeast, and sugar. Whisk until the yeast is dissolved.
In the bowl of a food processor fitted with the dough blade, or in a mixing bowl, combine 11/2 cups unbleached flour, the bread flour, and salt. Pulse several times or stir with a wooden spoon to mix. When the yeast mixture starts to bubble, add it to the bowl. Process or stir for about 1 minute, or until a sticky ball forms. If the mixture is too sticky, add up to 4 tablespoons unbleached flour, 1 tablespoon at a time.

Process or stir until a smooth ball forms. Turn onto a lightly floured work surface. Knead by hand several times, until the dough is smooth and elastic. Place the dough in the reserved bowl. Lightly mist the dough with oil spray. Cover the bowl tightly with plastic wrap. Set aside in a warm place. Allow it to rise for about 1 hour, or until doubled in size.

Makes dough for 4 Personal Pan Pizzas or 1 Hand-Tossed style Pizza.
Each serving (based on 1/4 of the recipe): 270 calories, 9 g protein, 56 g carbohydrates, less than 1 g fat, trace sat. fat, 2 g fiber.


If you love pizza, but don't like how bad for it typically is, then try these recipes, and enjoy a healthy dinner!