A nice whole wheat dough with milled flax seeds adding their goodness ... a thick and spicy hearty sauce .... fresh spinach peaking out of the mozzarella.... ahhhhhhhhhh.....
I developed this recipe to its current drool-worthy state when I was dating Jeff. Every time he saw me making pizza he would look at me with lovey dovey eyes and fall to his knees in silent worship of the Goddess of the Kitchen .... ok maybe I'm stretching it a little but he did ask me to marry him after I made this final version so something must of been right :)
The key to making a knock-out pizza of course is the dough, but the sauce is just as important. I usually measure out ingredients by the palm full but today when I made this I made sure to check exactly what on earth I was doing. Don't be alarmed at the lack of heavy doses of salt in this, cheese naturally is salty so when it all merges together it comes out perfect. Also of course fresh basil is divine to drape on the top of the pizza with the spinach but we are on a budget these days so I didn't include it in this recipe. The cost of making this pizza is less than $5 so it definitely is healthier and cheaper than just buying a pizza.
I do have a habit of being distracted while the dough rises (one day I WILL pay attention to my timer) but never has the dough come out bad cause of going over like 15 minutes; going under 15 minutes is never good though. One trick to letting rise in a warm place if our house is too cold is turning the oven to warm, turning off a little before the ready timer goes off, and placing the dough in there to rise. Once I forgot to turn the oven off when the dough was in there and it came out hard as a rock so don't forget to turn it off, preferably before it reached the set "warm" temp.
I'm not a professional baker by any means and I know a chef is probably crying somewhere at my little shortcuts, but hey, they work for me!
Ok long introduction for just a pizza but this one has a history :)
Enjoy!
Whole Wheat Homemade Pizza
Pizza Dough
Ingredients:
- 1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour (you can do half regular flour and half whole wheat)
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1 tsp rapid rise yeast
- 1/2 - 3/4 cup warm water
- 1 Tbsp olive oil
- 1/4 cup milled flax seed (optional)
1. Sift flour and salt together in a large bowl.
2. Stir in yeast and flax seed. Make a well in the center, pour in water and oil.
3. Mix with a spoon till crumbly.
4. Using your hands finish gathering pieces of dough into a ball - adding a little warm water or extra flour if necessary.
5. Kneed on a lightly floured surface for about 10 minutes until smooth. Form into a ball.
6. Place in a lightly oiled bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm spot till doubled in size (about 30-45 minutes). Meanwhile prepare the sauce recipe below.
7. After rise punch down dough and kneed for 2-3 minutes.
8. Roll out on lightly oiled baking sheet or baking stone. Don't worry about being a perfect shape on a cookie sheet...its homemade!
9. Pinch up edges to form a rim. Let rise again for about 20 minutes.
Sauce:
Ingredients:
- 1 (14.5 oz) can of unsalted Diced Tomatoes
- 1 tsp dried oregano
- 2 tsp dried basil
- 1 tsp fresh ground pepper
- 1/4 tsp sea salt
- 1/2 tsp olive oil
- 3 medium cloves of garlic, crushed or grated
- 1 bay leaf
1. Open can of tomatoes and place in a food processor with all spices except garlic.
2. Pulse till tomatoes are chopped.
3. Heat olive oil on medium lo heat in a small/medium saucepan. Add crushed garlic and saute for 1 minute. Remove from heat and carefully add tomato sauce mixture.
4. Return to heat, add bay leaf, and simmer on low for 30 minutes.
And it all comes together:
Ingredients:
Ingredients:
- Tomato sauce recipe above
- Handful of fresh spinach leaves
- 8 oz of Mozzarella
- 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese
1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Remove any large stems from the spinach leaves and roughly chop them. If using mozzarella from a block of cheese chop into pieces.
2. Spread sauce over crust, you will probably have about 1/4 cup left over (I save this for sandwiches or mix with spaghetti sauce later). Sprinkle half the mozzarella on top of the sauce.
3. Sprinkle all of the chopped spinach on top of the mozzarella.
4. Sprinkle the rest of the mozzarella on the pizza.
5. Add grated Parmesan on top and extra fresh ground pepper.
6. Bake at 425 degrees for 15-18 minutes till the top begins to brown.
7. Let pizza cool about 5 minutes before serving.
Gosh this looks good!
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