UPDATED: Saturday: Homemade Pizza

I love to make my own pizza, partly because I am the ARC and I love to have alls the controls and I hate paying a fortune for all the veggie toppings that I like. This is one of my favourite pizza dough recipes because it is sooo easy to make and it adapts easily to a relatively healthier version.

You will need:

2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast

2 1/4 c unbleached all purpose flour ( I am using white bread flour)

1 c whole wheat flour (or ww bread flour)

1 tsp salt

1/4 c extra-virgin olive oil

First, warm your oven for one minute at it`s lowest setting. Oil a large bowl and a couple of pizza pans. Assemble your ingredients. All 5 of 'em. So easy, right?? Dissolve your yeast in 1 1/4 c warm (around 100F degrees) water and stir to mix. Put your flours in the bowl of a stand mixer, reserving 1/4 c white flour and mix in the salt for 10 seconds.



Sometimes I just take a picture because the camera is there

Add in the yeast mixture and the olive oil, mix for 2 minutes with the paddle. 



Liquid gold

Switch to a dough hook and knead for another 3 minutes. Check the dough, if it is too sticky, add in the reserved 1/4 c flour until it smooths out. Knead for 2 more minutes.

It should be kind of doing that

Take the dough out of the mixer and place in your pre-oiled bowl. Cover tightly with saran wrap and put it in your pre-warmed oven for an hour.

After an hour, punch the dough down and let rise for another 30 minutes. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees (without the dough in it) and start your toppings prep. Here`s what I am using:



From the top left: onions, broccoli, mushrooms, jalapenos, green peppers, garlic and red peppers

And the rest:



From the top left: fat-free deli ham, taco beef, reduced fat cheese, turkey sausage, chili flakes and the crockpot salsa chicken from Thursday, diced

Flour your counter and knead the dough a few times. I am making two medium sized pizzas, so I am going to cut it in half. If you want to make a huge one, leave it whole. 

Take each chunk, shape into a ball and flatten with the heel of your hand.

The dough is going to be very springy and bouncy (or wobbe-ly) as my three-year-old would say. I find picking the dough up by a corner and working around in a circle can help stretch it out without adding too much pressure. 

Then use your fingers to press it up into the corners. It`s springy! Hang in there! When you have it all stretched out (just pinch together any holes that appear), brush the whole thing with olive oil.



Add your sauce:



I like lots

Add the rest of your toppings:



I like to put the garlic and jalapenos on bottom so they get more of a chance to roast



Then do a layer with a little bit of cheese

And another layer with the rest of the cheese



Bake for 12-15 minutes at 400 degrees, checking the bottom. This is a nice crust in that it holds up well to lots of toppings (including wet veggies) but doesn't taste too heavy. My pizza came out to 190 calories a slice, but it is so subjective that I don`t know how helpful that is to anyone else. The crust alone was 170 cal/slice. UPDATE: When I made pizza this weekend (July), I separated the dough into four pieces and was able to make a full-size pizza with just one quarter of the recipe, halving the caloric content to 85 per piece for the crust. Yay for less calories!

Enjoy!