cooking @ home

Some things I put off trying (for a while) having convinced myself that the item, the recipe, the dish is too intimidating. Oddly pizza was one of them. I know, silly — such a simple thing too! I think I know what it is. Failing something complicated seems fine, but failing something simple seems wrong. Thing is often the simplest things are the most difficult. No shame there. Plus, some of my best successes began as failures the first time out. Long story short, at long last I’ve gotten to make homemade pizza. And you know what? Don’t you put it off like I did. You’re missing out on some fun and some good stuff here!

I’ve tried a few homemade chinese dishes, all worked out. Already have my steak quesadilla recipe up as well. And now pizza. Am I going to stop doing take-out now? Heck no. Am I going to stop buying DiGiorno’s? Nope, there’s still that occasional late-night pizza urge that hits me after the store has closed and when I just don’t want to do much work. Besides, I don’t know about you, but I like to be treated or pampered once in a while, and having someone else do the cooking for me is just grreat. And the second best is sticking pre-made in the oven. Especially the delcious self-rising frozen pizzas of today!

That said, being able to do some of your favorite dishes that you normally get delivered or hat you run out and pick-up is a very “liberating” experience. Not only is it nice to say “hey, I can do that as well as they can” (and sometimes better) … but when you get to “home make” your take-out favories, it gives you tons more freedom. What does that mean?

It means you can give yourself more of what you like — with Chinese or pizza, more meat or more toppings. You can control the degree of spiciness — as with homemade quesadillas. Or, as with pizza, you can give yourself greater variety than what’s otherwise normally available. I must have no less than 25 pizza places covering where I live. Not a single one has ham and pineapple as toppings! Definitely none of them venture anywhere near the realm of the “dessert pizza”. (We’ll get to that again in a future recipe.) But making them myself, the sky’s the limit as to what I want, how I want it, how much of it I want!

That said, some tips and then the simple recipe. First off, almost everyone makes the mistake of putting on too much pizza sauce. A little goes a long way. Place some down on the dough. Move it all around with your tablespoon or big spoon or whatever you’re using. Looks like it needs more? Chances are it doesn’t. (Like everything else, practice makes perfect. You’ll figure out if it’s enough or not).

Next tip: Dough doesn’t have to be round. It’s tough, especially at first to make a round pizza. Don’t get hung up on how the overall shape looks. Homemade remember. No Jeffrey Steingarten or Ted Allen around to judge you on “shape concaveness” or whatever other ridiculous element. So, just chill out. This is meant to be one of the more fun things you’ll ever cook!

Also, keep in mind that pizza dough can be forgiving — up to a point. If you go too thin and make a hole (check out the one photograph above) you can even rip off a piece elsewhere and sort of “plug” the hole. That said, over kneeding or using a baking pin or recombining from scratch into a new ball — anything major such as that — will make for too tough of a crust.

One last tip for now. Either: get frozen pizza dough at the market, or buy some from your local pizza place (yes, some sell it) or, make it your own from scratch (seriously) — but whatever you do don’t use that Pilsbury silly puddy thing they sell. It doesn’t behave like normal dough. It has a mind of it’s own and it is stubborn. It also tastes more like a pretzel than a pizza.

Ok, not one but two pizza recipes here. Same recipe, different toppings. Try your own creations!

Homemade Pizza
©2007 Harry Kenney

ingredients:

Pizza dough
Spaghetti or tomato sauce
Bag of shredded mozzarella or Italian mixed cheeses
parmesan
garlic
basil
oregano

Follow the instructions if frozen dough, for mine, it said take out, put in bowl and let sit at room temperature for six hours. I did. But I also put a bit of olive oil all around it. And since I didn’t want any flying insects or dust or whatever, I also placed a paper towel on top of the bowl and got some string to hold it loosely there so it had a “breathable” lid. From there, six hours later, again, followed the instructions, stretching the dough out.

I find putting some spice down right on the dough before adding spaghetti sauce works great. For me, I sprinkle some garlic powder, dried oregano and dried basil on the dough. Plus a light dusting of parmesan. Then put down the sauce and then the shredded cheese and finally the toppiings.

Pepperoni and Jack Pizza

My local convenicnce store, Wawa, has a fresh snack section where one of the items they sell is this plastic cup or glass thing with two crackers in it, tons of sliced pepperoni and some monterey jack cubes. So I used those to make up the first pizza. More spices on top, into the oven.

Pineapple and Pork Roll Pizza

I wasn’t going to use the sliced boiled ham, too thin. I did have some premium ham in the freezer but that was frozen. Ah, Taylor’s Pork Roll next to the bacon and eggs in the fridge. Dunno what it is, it’s a cross between ham and sausage, basically smoked ham and spices. Think Canadian bacon with a definite sausage edge instead of a ham taste. A can of Dole Pineapple rings, cut into chunks. And then the spices on top and bake.

My instructions said 350F for 14 minutes and then turned out perfect. Out of one clump of dough (see photos) I got two pizzas, thin crusted. The pepperoni one I got eight slices out of it. The pineapple and “ham” one, I got six. Your mileage may vary.

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