Homemade pizza, either with homemade or purchased crust, has become one of my go-to quick dinners. I find that pretty much any leftovers can get dumped on top of a nice crust and make an acceptable pizza — often when I don’t have any idea what I should make, I just go digging for whatever I find in the fridge and the pantry, and throw it all together on top of some dough. Pop it in the oven for 15 minutes, and dinner’s ready! The best part, other than the surprisingly-delicious combinations we’ve discovered, is that there’s almost no cleanup. We have a house rule about always eating pizza on paper plates, so aside from washing the proofing tub and pizza cutter, there are no dishes!
I have to admit that the idea of making pizza dough from scratch really freaked me out initially. I used to only buy those pre-cooked crusts you find in the dairy isle of the supermarket and thought that was plenty “homemade” for me. Then I started considering buying the uncooked dough that’s available frozen from some better markets, and finally dove in with some when I saw it on sale at Whole Foods (aside: who knows why they put frozen dough on sale!?). A quick Google and some resting time later, we had a moderately decent crust baking in a hot oven. When we tasted it I realized WHY using fresh(er) dough is so much better! You really cannot compare the two!
Having said that, I’m usually far too disorganized to remember to start the dough ahead of time, so I’ve tended towards the store-bought fresh instead of making it from scratch. Yesterday, at about 5pm, I decided I wanted pizza for dinner, and nothing but homemade-from-scratch dough would suffice. I knew I couldn’t use the recipe in BBA because it requires a day-ahead start (and anyway, that recipe’s time will come!), so I went looking for a recipe that didn’t need the starter. I settled on this King Arthur Flour crust recipe and set to work the minute I got home.
Mixing and kneading this dough was some of the easiest bread-baking I’ve ever done, but shaping the crust? Not so much. Again, I’m too impatient. I need to learn to do some shaping, let it rest, then come back for some more. Yes, this is what it says in the recipe. But I was hungry already! I let the dough proof for only an hour after shaping it and then popped it in the oven, covered with leftover pasta sauce from the previous weekend’s dinner, fresh mozzarella (it was on sale from Fresh Direct!), leftover grape tomatoes from the previous night’s dinner, and some basil from my basil plant. By the way, have I mentioned how much I love my basil plant?
As you can see from the first picture, my shaping technique leaves a lot to be desired. The drastic difference in thickness led to some parts being almost burned by the time I took it out. I slightly overcooked this pizza, next time I will cook it a few minutes less for a chewier crust. Neither of these affected our ability to eat this entire pizza, though. Like bottom-of-the-’fridge pasta, pizza always comes out great!
In an effort to improve my chances of making homemade pizza crust more often, I’m going to try this no-knead version next week, and may also make another batch of the regular dough, pre-cook the crusts, and freeze them. That technique sounds like it has the most potential for last-minute-pizza-making . . .
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that looks delicious!!!!!!