Dressed: Food I Love - Ooh! So Good Homemade Pizza

Hello World!, how is June going so far? Great I hope J. I am beginning to find some kind of rhythm with the food posts, I have decided to make it a regular feature on a weekly basis as much as I can. So I would do one food post every week, hopefully before Friday to give our 9 to 5 audience some time to get their ingredients together so they can try it over the weekend, how is that for some inspiration? J.

Today’s recipe is one of my favourite pizza recipe because it is so easy it's almost impossible to not get a decent pizza using this recipe, as well as being super tasty. The original recipe for the pizza base I got off allrecipes.com.

The recipe for the topping and tomato sauce I have adapted and perfected over time. It’s a great recipe to make and share with family and friends over the weekend. I usually make my base and tomato sauce during the week and freeze it, ( It keeps very well, just get it down to room temp at least 2hrs before you intend to use it), and then on Friday evening, all I do is chop up and saute my veggies and voila! Pizza is ready in no time.

Ingredients For the Base (Crust)

3 1/2 Cups Flour

2 tsp yeast

1 cup warm water

½ tsp salt

1 tbs Brown Sugar

Cornmeal or semolina

2 tbs Olive oil

Method

1. Add the yeast to your warm water and leave for about 5 mins, stir together if yeast still remains undissolved after time elapse.

2. Add olive oil, salt, sugar and flour to yeast mixture and stir. At first the dough might be a bit sticky, knead for about 10min to get a firm but elastic dough. If after kneading it’s still sticky sprinkle a little more flour, if too dry or hard add a little more water. Using my measurement I didn't need to add any more water or flour. If using a mixer use a low to medium setting to achieve this texture.

3. Place ball of dough in a bowl that has been coated lightly with olive oil and turn the dough around in the bowl so that it is coated with the oil. Cover bowl and let it rest in a warm place for about 1 ½ hour ( If you can afford to leave for longer please do because the flavor improves the longer you leave it). After this stage you can store in the freezer for later use.

At this point you can make your tomato sauce and topping

Ingredients for Tomato sauce

Chopped fresh tomatoes

Chopped onion

Chopped garlic

Vegetable oil

1tsp red wine vinegar (optional)

Italian seasoning or any herbs you like in your tomato sauce. I use Spice supreme's Italian seasoning because it has the kind of herby (Is this even a word? ) flavor I like in my tomato sauce.

Chilli sauce or black pepper if you like a little heat in your pizza (optional)

Tomato puree

BBQ Sauce or tomato ketchup, I prefer to use BBQ sauce because I like its smoky flavor.

Method

1. Heat oil and add garlic, onion and chopped tomatoes, allow to sauté for about 5 mins then add tomato paste allow to simmer or reduce until most of the liquid evaporates, (the Italians do this for as much as two hours to intensify the flavors, I do not have the luxury of time).

2. While tomato is reducing occasionally stir and mash or press down with a ladle to turn the tomato sauce into a chunky pulp.

3. When sauce is reduced add chili sauce and BBQ sauce, cook for another 5 mins then add Italian seasoning and a pinch of salt. Finally add your red wine Vinegar and a little water to loosen up the sauce, the right consistency should be able to coat the back of a wooden spoon lightly, that’s all! J

Ingredient for topping

Smoked Russian sausages ( You can use any sausage of your choice).

Smoked Bacon

Smoked chicken

Green bell peppers (chopped)

Large red peppers (chopped)

Onion (chopped)

Black pepper

Cheddar cheese (grated)

Mozzarella cheese (grated)

For this you can you use any two cheeses of your choice, I like to use a mix of Parmesan mozzarella , cheddar or Ricotta but for this recipe I used a mild German cheddar and some mozzarella

1. Add very little oil to a hot pan, had onion and then bacon and sauté together.

2. Then add sausages, chicken and finally the peppers and sauté all together for a minute.

3. Add a little salt and black pepper to season

Finally to Finish off your Pizza, Pheew!

Preheat oven to 250C for minimum of 30mins before baking, ideally 1hr would be best.

4. Sprinkle baking tray with semolina or cornmeal, this would prevent your pizza from sticking to the tray.

5. Punch down dough to deflate it, and allow to rest for another 10mins.

6. Place dough on a lightly floured surface and flatten with your hands starting at the center and working outwards until your dough is about 1/2in thick or you get to your desired diameter. ( If dough stops stretching at any point, stop and allow to rest for 5mins before continuing stretching).

7. Transfer flattened dough on to baking tray with the corn meal and brush with some olive oil to prevent it getting soggy from the toppings, also use finger tips to press down and make dents on dough surface to prevent bubbling. (If dough looses shape during transfer, lightly reshape back).

8. Spoon and spread tomato sauce generously on dough leaving a little off the edges, then add your sauteed veggie and sausages mixture and finally top with grated cheese ( You can go crazy with your cheese here but I’m doing sanity at the moment so I was a bit mindful of the quantity of cheese I added.

Do not load your pizza with too much topping or your crust would not be crisp.

9. Finally place pizza in the lowest layer of your preheated oven and bake for 10-15mins.