Pizza, plain and simple

Sarah and I eat Pizza often. Maybe too often. This is the recipe I use and it's done me well so far. A note however: if using mushrooms, saute them in a frying pan before adding them to the pizza. This way all the water in the mushrooms won't gush all over the top of your pizza.

The dough:

Ingredients: For 2 thin-ish pie crusts

3 1/2 cups all purpose flour (or 1 cups whole wheat flour, ~2 cups all purpose)
1 cup warm water
2 1/4 tsp. active dry yeasts
2 Tbs. honey or sugar
1/4 cup olive oil
1 tsp. salt

Prime the yeast in warm water (1/3 part boiling to 2/3 part ice water) for about 10 minutes. If using sugar add to the priming water, if using honey, wait until the first of the flour is added. I've found that yeast don't like honey overmuch.

Add the first cup of flour to the water and mix by hand until just incorporated. Add to this batter the olive oil, honey if using, and salt. Mix this in by hand too.


Begin working in the rest of the flour either by hand or by machine. If using machine, the dough is ready when it starts to climb the dough hook. If doing this by hand, work in as much as you can with a spoon, then turn out onto a floured surface and knead lightly for about three minutes. We're going for a relatively soft dough here, so don't over knead or work in too much flour. We do this, and the crust becomes really tough and unpleasant to eat. Be gentle with the dough; love it, and it will love you...to eat it.

Turn dough out into a lightly oiled bowl. Turn once to coat, cover with a damp towel or plastic wrap, and plop the thing in a warm place to rise for about an hour.

Ta da!

Punch the dough down and turn it out onto a floured surface. Kinda squish it out into the semblance of a round flat shape with the tips of your fingers. Leave it to rest for about 10 minutes. This will allow the gluten in the dough to relax enough so that it will just collapse into the pizza shape when you roll it.

I have no idea how you throw a pizza dough into shape. I've seen it done and it makes no sense to me what-so-ever. It's magic.

The Sauce:

Ingredients: Makes enough for more than one pizza (it freezes well)

1 Tbs. olive oil
2 cloves garlic
1 tsp. oregano
1/2 tsp. red pepper flakes (or more to taste, some like it hot)
1 tsp. red wine vinegar
1 15 oz. can tomato sauce
1 6 oz. can tomato paste
salt to taste

Warm the garlic and red pepper flakes in the olive oil over medium heat. Don't let any of this burn.


Add in the rest of the ingredients and cook over low heat until reduced a bit, about 15 minutes.

The Pizza:
Pre-heat oven to about 475 degrees at least half an hour before the pizza goes in the oven. If you have a pizza stone, great. If so, make it 45 minutes, an hour is better. We want that oven HOT!


Roll out the dough and slap onto a cornmeal dusted pizza peel. Or slap it into a cornmeal dusted cookie sheet; whatever is available. Slather on the sauce. Give the peel a little jiggle so that the dough slides around a little bit, we don't want the dough to stick to the peel. If waiting a while for the oven to heat, shake the peel a few times until baking to keep the dough loose.

Slather on the toppings. In this case: kalamata olives, garden tomatoes, and mozzarella cheese.

Slide the pizza right off the peel onto the hot pizza stone. Bake for about 7 minutes, or until the cheese starts to brown in the center. Slide the pizza out, cut it up, open a beer, and stuff your face.