Pizza

Despite, my first attempt when I was a teen, I have discovered that whipping up homemade pizza is EASY. I remember the first time as tedious and time consuming, and tasting nothing like pizza, it was actually pretty gross. I guess if I weren't so damn unrelenting I would still think of homemade pizza as a task for someone with mad skills and lots of time. Thank goodness I kept trying, because after learning a few elemental basics, I've got it down pat and turn out great pizza on the regular. I also have a deceptively simple pizza sauce recipe, adapted from here http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/five-minute-tomato-sauce-recipe.html And no, I don't make my own mozzarella, maybe a future project...

Pizza dough:

3-3 1/2 cups of flour
2 1/2 Tbsp. dry active yeast soaked in 1 cup of warm (105-115 degrees F) water for 10 minutes
1/2 tsp. salt
1 Tbsp. sugar

Dump the ingredients in the food processor, let it whir. Take the resulting ball of dough, coat it with oil, put it in a BIG bowl covered with a damp cloth, let it rise at room temp for about 1 hour, punch it down, re-cover and leave it in the fridge to rise overnight. Make sure bowl can accomodate rising dough without dough exceeding bowl height, dough usually doubles in size. The overnight rise isn't necessary but in my opinion gives a better flavor and texture. The next day divide the dough in two. Allow dough balls to rest on counter until room temperature, about 15 minutes, then roll each ball into 16-ish inch diameter circle and top. Bake at 500 degrees for 7-10 minutes.