My Culinary Adventures: Pizza Pizza!

Last Thursday I invited my English students to come over and bake pizza at my house, while learning the names of the ingredients in English.  It took a few hours, so we put on some merengue, bachata, punta, and American club music and danced in the meantime.  The pizzas turned out pretty good, except the crust was a tad bit flavorless.  It was however, as the recipe claims, crispy on the outside and soft and doughy on the inside.  We also made licuados, or smoothies, out of banana, peanut butter, chocolate drink powder, milk and ice.  I've actually developed quite an addiction for these smoothies!  That class was definitely more a time to relax and have fun; a welcome break from the twice-weekly classroom lessons to boost morale and keep them motivated (although they honestly are already extremely dedicated to learning!).

I had extra sauce, onions, and bellpeppers leftover from the day so decided to make my own pizza yesterday and add some herbs into the dough.  This time the crust tasted a billion times better.  I chopped up the dried rosemary I had from the spice bottle, added garlic salt, ground oregano, ground thyme, and Trader Joe's' 21 Seasoning Salute.  You can use whatever you'd like, but I definitely do recommend flavoring the dough, otherwise it turns out disappointing.  I kind of double layered the toppings, which I wouldn't suggest doing because it makes the pizza difficult to eat without a fork since the toppings weigh down the crust.

Oh yeah, did I mention it was stuffed crust?  :)

Recipes

Pizza Crust

Adapted from Allrecipes.com

I changed the Serving Size from 15 to 8 and followed the recipe from there.

Ingredients

1-1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast

1/4 teaspoon brown sugar

3/4 cup and 2 teaspoons warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon and 1/4 teaspoon olive oil

Herbs to flavor dough

1-3/4 cups all-purpose flour (or more depending on dough)

1. In a large bowl, dissolve the yeast and brown sugar in the water, and let sit for 10 minutes.
2. Stir the salt, oil, and herbs into the yeast solution. Mix in flour until dough can be transferred to surface.
3. Turn dough out onto a clean, well floured surface, and knead in more flour until the dough is no longer sticky. Place the dough into a well oiled bowl, and cover with a cloth. Let the dough rise until double; this should take about 1 hour. Punch down the dough, and form a tight ball. Allow the dough to relax for a minute before rolling out. Use for your favorite pizza recipe.
4. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C). If you are baking the dough on a pizza stone, you may place your toppings on the dough, and bake immediately. If you are baking your pizza in a pan, lightly oil the pan, and let the dough rise for 15 or 20 minutes before topping and baking it.
5. Bake pizza in preheated oven, until the crust is golden brown, then broil for a couple minutes until cheese is slightly golden, about 40 minutes (but keep an eye on it, time varies. Original recipe says 15-20 min).

Sauce

Adapted from Allrecipes.com

Ingredients

1 (8 ounce) bag tomato paste

8 fluid ounces water (or more, depending on how thick you like your sauce)

1 teaspoon minced garlic

2 tablespoons honey

3/4 teaspoon onion powder

1/4 teaspoon dried oregano

1/4 teaspoon dried marjoram

1/4 teaspoon dried basil

1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper

1/8 teaspoon dried red pepper flakes (I omitted these and instead opted to put them on top of the finished pizza slice with Sriracha sauce!)

Salt to taste

1. In a saucepan over low, combine tomato paste, water, garlic, honey, onion powder, oregano, marjoram, basil, ground black pepper, cayenne pepper, red pepper flakes and salt; mix together.
2. Sauce should simmer on low for 15 minutes to blend flavors; spread over pizza dough and prepare pizza as desired.

Pizza!

1. Use whatever toppings you want! Just spread the sauce on first, sprinkle a bit of cheese (quesillo is the closest thing to mozzarella that we have here), add your toppings (bell pepper, onion, salami, tomato, anything!), then completely cover with more grated quesillo.  I prefer Sula brand because it really does taste like mozzarella!  Bake according to instructions above and enjoy!