Another Pizza Post!

Friday night pizza just got even better! Yesterday, I decided that I would make my own dough from scratch. There was more than a slight chance of eating subpar pizza, but I didn't care. I was feeling adventurous, darn it, and I wanted to stop relying on pre-mixed doughs, dough from cans, and anything having to do with dough in boxes and/or lovable, obese dough boys. I googled "pizza dough recipes", clicked on the very first one, made a few adjustments, and watched my hope and anticipation rise along with the dough.

And rise it did. As you can see from the pictures below, the dough expanded like Charlize Theron preparing to be in the movie Monster. And it turned out really well! I had to ask Amanda several times while we were enjoying the pizza if she really liked it, because I have found that I genuinely enjoy things that I make for myself regardless of whether they are truly good or not. After several confirmations that, indeed, the pizza was one of the best we had made, I feel like I can declare this a success.

Friday Night Pizza Dough

1.5 tsp dry active yeast

1 cup warm water

2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil

1 tsp salt

2.5 tsp white sugar

2 tsp basil

2 tsp oregano

1. Dissolve yeast in warm water. Let stand about 10 minutes.

2. Stir yeast mixture in with the rest of the ingredients. Cover and let rise. Preheat oven to 350 while you wait.

3. Roll out on pan, pizza stone, or whatever you are baking with. Top with pizza toppings and enjoy!

Pizza!

For the last few weeks, we have set one dinner a week as pizza. I think I can say with some certainty that our unofficial "Pizza Night" is here to stay. And as a hungry college student with access to some wonderful cheeses, I am quite happy about it.

Since beginning this blog, our weekly pizza has already evolved. We used to buy those Pillsbury cans of dough at the supermarket (which, don't get me wrong, are very delicious), but have advanced ourselves to buying mixes of "95% organic ingredients" dough from the Co-Op. Not only does it taste much better, but we're putting more of our dollar back into the community by shopping at the Co-Op than at County Market. We also don't buy those convenient bags of pre-shredded cheeses that are ubiquitous at all big chain supermarkets. Instead, we buy cheese that we know is from Wisconsin (and preferably from Rudolph, WI - Dairy State Cheese Co.) and shred it ourselves. These changes may seem small, but it is ensuring that (1) we have the freshest ingredients, (2) the ingredients have less food miles on them, and (3) more of our pizza money stays within the area.