Pizza - Baking for A Sweet Punch

Pizza should get its own country and rule it. Such is the worldwide appeal for this one humble pie which originated in Italy. While the pizzas in Italy are thin and flavorful, pizza takes its own size and shape and characteristic in every other country where it is served on the dining table. Either made at home or delivered within 30 mins. 

At least in the US now, there's deep dish, pan pizza, stuffed crust, thin base and also dessert pizza. And I do know someone who loves his cheese so much, he would order a cheese stuffed crust pizza with extra cheese! And about those Chicago style deep dish, take one bite into them and you can feel the gates of heaven open. New Yorkers disagree and they think their thin, wide and roll up easy pizzas are worthy enough to be hoisted from the top of Empire state as a national flag. The fight can go on, and I can watch as long as I have a piece in my hand to bite into and eat it down with a sip of diet soda. I only require a little in life to be content.

Making pizza from scratch seems intimidating but I can assure you that its pretty easy to make at home once you get the hang of it. I still can't toss and turn it around in mid air like the pros - but hey, my pie still turns out tasty enough to gorge and without all that excess oil.

This recipe provided by the Sweet Punch team is a classic from Pioneer Woman.  Here are the basic ingredients required for the pizza base. You can customize the toppings as per your taste - there is just not enough things that you can top a pizza with.

Ingredients

FOR THE CRUST (MAKES TWO CRUSTS):

1 teaspoon Active Dry Or Instant Yeast

4 cups All-purpose Flour

1 teaspoon Kosher Salt

⅓ cups Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Start with adding the yeast to warm water - this is perhaps the most crucial step that determines how airy your pizza will turn out. Make sure the water is warm and not hot and not even lukewarm. When you add the yeast and let it sit for a little bit, you'll be able to see frothy yeast forming at the top - that's a sign that you picked the correct temperature. I added one small pack of the rapid rise yeast. 

Take 4 cups of all purpose flour in a mixing bowl. Add salt to it and using a paddle, just mix it up a little. Then with the paddle attachment on, start adding the olive oil a little at a time to incorporate it with the flour.

Once all the oil is added, start adding the yeast mix little at at time and you'll start to see the dough coming together.

Give it a good whirr until all the flour is mixed well.

Using oiled hands, just remove any excess dough from the paddle and form a ball of dough and smoothen out the ball.

Move the ball of dough to a well oiled mixing bowl. Cover with foil and let it sit for a couple of hrs. Now, Pioneer Woman suggests that you can make this dough the previous day or even a couple of days earlier and she asks you to put the dough in the refrigerator. However, I made it the same day and in order for the dough to rise, I actually placed the mixing bowl inside the oven and switched on the oven lights for a constant warmth. I let the dough sit for about 2 hrs first, then took it out, punched out all the air, and let it sit again for 2 hrs.

This is how much the dough had risen in just about 2 hrs. Punch down the air and make a ball again, cover again and let it sit for about an hour or two before you start making the pizza.

So, here's the dough risen again after the 4th hour.

Just to show you how airy and light the dough feels.

You can roll out the dough and then toss it around a little bit. This is the first pizza I made and instead of using a pizza pan, I used a cast iron skillet to prepare the pizza in. Before placing the dough in the skillet, spread about 2 tsps of oil on the skillet - this will help to make the base crispy and tasty.

Place the rolled pizza base and pull up the dough along the edges.

Preheat the oven at 375F and place the plain dough inside the oven to prebake it a little bit. This step is important and this will ensure that the base is not too soggy with the pizza sauce.

As you can see here, the base is not pre baked for about 5-7 mins and you can see that its risen up a little already. Now, this pizza is ready to be topped with everything your heart desires.

Add a couple of tbsps of pizza sauce - you can even use a regular marinara sauce or just a tomato sauce cooked with a few Italian spices like oregano, dried basil etc. Spread the sauce around and make sure there are no big pools of sauce anywhere.

Next, add your favorite toppings. We all love broccoli and carrots in our pizza (thanks to Pat&Oscars). I also added some red onions and mushrooms. Top off the veggies with lots of mozzarella cheese and also some Parmesan cheese for a real flavor kick in. Bake the pizza in the oven for about 10-12 mins or until all the cheese melts and starts to turn golden. Or until however long your family can wait without starting tantrums.

My other pizza was a simple super thin pizza. The edges are still thick but the center on this one is super thin. I love this kind of thin pizzas and to me, this is a lot more satisfying. My topping here were kept to a minimum - just a few red onions, lots of sun dried tomatoes and a little peppercinis.

But this pizza was topped off with a lot of parmesan and some mozzarella cheese. Let your little one help you dropping all the parmesan on top. Or not.

Bake again for about 10-12 mins or until the cheese melts and turns golden.

Here's my first pizza done and ready to be devoured!

Cut up, serve and start the fight for the biggest slice.

And because she helped me with sprinkling the cheese, she gets her pizza in her own pizza plate!

And this is my favorite thin sun dried tomato pizza. Trust me, all that parmesan tastes absolutely delicious on this baby! Loved Loved it!

Can you see how thin this turned out? Thin enough so you can eat as many slices as you want!

So, don't wait - make that pizza and eat it too. 

Enjoy. Peace Out.

Asparagus Pizza - My 200th Post!!

To all my dear friends and readers of this blog - Today is a big day! Its my 200th post on the blog! Mriganayani has come a long way ...and wants to go even further. Thanks to all of you who leave your love and comments here - those few words are the fuel that keeps the blog moving along! Thank you much for the few minutes of your lives everyday when you stop by here to read, look at pictures and leave your feedback. 

A special thanks to all my readers who actually try out the recipes here and leave me feedback that they liked what they made - that's the best compliment a blogger could get. I'm blessed to have many of those!

Thank you to all the facebook followers too and the instant feedback I get when I publish something new! You keep me glued on here and I'm not complaining a bit!

Thanks to all of you who have referred the blog to your friends and family and co-workers and neighbors..I owe you all one, big time.

Today's post is a very special post for me and I thought I should post something that is new, creative and colorful for all of you - so here we go!

Asparagus is one of my favorite veggies and I found some fresh and great tasting asparagus at my farmers market. I got 3 whole bunches of it! Of course, I had to put it to good use. I always make a simple Asparagus stir fry but this time I was needy. I needed more from my thin and tender sticks. So, I googled and came across this and I thought why not make something like that.

But, I was going for a non cheesy version of a pizza. The dough has enough carbs and calories needed. Why add more in the form of cheese? You've probably seen my Veggies with White Sauce post. So, I decided to make that same white sauce and add that as the sauce on top of the pizza and then top off with the asparagus.

So, here's the quick low down on the sauce.

In your blender or a pan, take 2 tbsps of all purpose flour.

Add 2 tbsps of unsalted butter. I used the Country crock spreadable non-real butter - the one with no hydrogenated oils or trans fats. The relatively healthy kind. Really.

Add 1 cup of really hot milk to the butter and flour.

Add 1/2 tsp of salt to the rest of the ingredients. Now, give everything a whirr in the blender. The hot milk will help in thickening the sauce as the ingredients get mixed up.

Move to a sauce pan and heat on medium for a few mins until the sauce thickens well.

And here comes the kicker - I added about 1 tsp of pav bhaji masala for some spice and kick in the sauce. You could just add red chilli powder or paprika as my inspiration recipe calls for.

I bought store pizza dough - from my favorite store of course, Trader Joes! I love their pizza dough - they do have these in plain, whole wheat and garlic herb flavors. For this recipe, I used just the plain pizza dough. Follow instructions on the packet and prepare the base. You could also make this from scratch or use a ready to use pizza base.

Now, apply the sauce evenly on top of the pizza and spread out completely till the edges.

Now, throw in some roughly chopped onions and tomatoes. And then start arranging the Asparagus pieces around the pizza. You could also just chop up the asparagus and add all around if you'd like that.

And then arrange them all over. I had to kick it up a notch - and so I added some silvered almonds on top! And man, oh man, what a bite they provide. Don't skip that - if you don't have silvered almonds - use crushed almonds. The almonds combine very well with the white sauce and the asparagus!

Bake in a preheated oven at 350F for about 20 -25 mins or until the crust turns golden. Does that look good or what? Remember this pizza has no cheese on top - and loads of goodness from the veggies!

I also made one other pizza using the store bought pizza dough - stretched it out to fit a baking sheet and all that stretching  gave me a wonderful thin and crisp pizza.

I added broccoli, spinach, olives, red onions and tomatoes. Simple and healthy.

And then a little bit of feta cheese on top.

Bake again at 350 F or until golden brown.

I also made a side salad for the pizzas - just my favortites thrown and tossed together - Fresh baby spinach, shredded carrots, strawberries and some silvered almonds on top - a very little spraying of lite italian dressing. Simple and tasty salad!

And not to stop just there, I also made my favorite Ginger Carrot soup to complete the meal. And just so you don't judge, we were 6 people in the house - I normally don't make so much for just me.

So, how did you all like the Asparagus pizza? Do leave me a comment - I'd love to hear from you! If you like what you see, pass it on to your friends and family too!

If you're not yet "like"ing this on FB, do that soon - its much more interactive and fun out there!

Once again, thank you all for all the love and encouragement and support you give me.

 I just have to leave with one more last obsession shot!

Enjoy. Peace Out!

Soup, Salad and Pizza Dinner - Part 3 of 3 - Quick Pizza

Here's the final part of my three course dinner! Pizza!

I promise you that one of these days, I'll blog about making pizza dough from scratch. But, until then, I'll use my favorite grocer Trader Joe's readymade refrigirated pizza dough. Here are two packets placed side by side - yeah I'm making 2 pizzas.

This is the first pizza. This is not round like a typical pizza - this happened to be this shape because my daughter was standing next to me and pulling the dough on one side as I was trying to make it round - so I gave it and we created a fun pizza shape.

Before adding sauce or toppings, I semi bake the base for 5 mins exactly. This will ensure that the base stays crisp and does not become soggy because of the sauce.

 

Now, take out the semi baked pizza base. Add some sauce and spread it around. I did not make pizza sauce but used pasta marinara sauce instead - a good substitute. Do not add a lot of sauce and as will again make it too soggy.

Sprinkle mozzarella cheese around.

 

Add your favorite toppings - for this one, I added Pineapple, Jalapenos, Black Olives and Red peppers.

 

Here's my second pizza and my personal favorite - Brocolli, onions, olives, red peppers and pineapples.

 

Bake them at 350F until the cheese on top starts to turn golden.

 

I've topped off the second pizza with cheese - ready to go for its sauna bath..waiting on the other guy to get out!

 

And finally, Ladies and Gentleman, Here it is. Our hero of the day!

 

Does that look delicious or does that look delicious?

 

I was trying to make a few pieces, but the edges are already missing - happens with a few hungry people in the house.

 

And there's our plate - Soup, Salad and Pizza! All of this done within an hour. So worth everything!

 

Enjoy! Peace Out!