Homemade Pizza

Cheese Pizza

Originally uploaded by jamieraecline

Here’s a picture of the pizza we made using the recipe below.  It’s actually a pepperoni pizza, the picture was taken and uploaded by a friend.  We still like her .

Homemade Pizza

Why order greasy pizza from a chain for your Super Bowl party when you can get professional quality pizza for less than half the cost by making it yourself?

My wife has been working on finding a great pizza recipe to make at home and she’s found it.  You can find it below.

• 1/4 cup warm water
• 1 package yeast (2 1/2 teaspoons)
• 1 teaspoon sugar (doh!)
• mix together and let rest for about 5 minutes
• 3 cups regular flour
• 1 cup whole wheat flour (for a slightly “better for you” pizza)
• 1 1/4 to 1 1/3 cup cold water (remember, you can always add water, but you can’t take it out)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• add to the yeast mixture and mix together (with mixer or by hand)
• cover and let rest in a warm place for about 1 hour
• separate into 3 or 4 equal pieces (we do 4 because it makes the pizzas more managable)
• roll (or toss if you’ve got the skills) into the pizza shape (frankly, whatever shape you want)
• place on parchment paper that has cornmeal sprinkled on it
• add your favorite toppings
• slide parchment paper onto a preheated pan or a pizza stone and place in a 500 degree oven for 8-10 minutes
• If you aren’t using fresh mozzarella, I mean the real stuff, then add your cheese halfway through baking or it will likely burn.

If you don’t have access to high quality ingredients, you can usually get decent pepperoni at the best price at the deli.  For other easy to find ingredients, I also recommend Dei Fratelli pizza sauce, a good deli sliced ham, the 1 lb roll of Italian sausage (Bob Evans’ brand isn’t bad), Roma tomatoes, fresh baby spinach, pinapple chunks (fresh or canned), grilled chicken, freshly cooked bacon, white sauce, and to give your pizza a more robust flavor, a sprinkling of pizza seasoning (can be found at your local grocery store).

Nothing New Under the Sun

It can be very hard to not get in a rut with the meals we eat, especially when schedules become hectic.  Sometimes we even forget completely about meals we used to eat all the time or ones we tried and liked and said we’d have to make again.

So I enjoy stealing reciepes.  When we go out to eat, we try new dishes (my philosophy is why buy the meals we can make at home) and if we like it, we figure out how we can make them at home.  We often end up changing some of the ingredients, but who cares, it’s something new.  Well, not exactly, but at least we haven’t eaten it every other day for the past 2 months.

Sweet Rice

When you have a rice cooker, rice is the easiest side dish to experiment with.  To that end, I came up with a nice little addition to our repertoire of rice sides (by repertoire, I mean two other kinds, plain and Apricot).

I make this by guesstimation when cooking three cups of rice so just play around with it because rice is cheap.  Also, part of the timing for when to put each ingredient in is dependent on doing the work after starting the rice to cook.  So I started the rice, then chopped the carrot and put it in, then cut up the apple and put it in.  (If you don’t have a rice cooker, I can’t help you if you aren’t experienced in cooking rice on the stove top because I am terrible at it.)

• Start your rice cooking.
• Add in one medium carrot sliced into uniform pieces. (About 1/4″ thick, if you want thicker carrots, put it in before you start cooking the rice, if you want thinner or smaller pieces of carrot, put it in when you put in the raisins.  Also, wash and/or scrub the carrot, but do not peel it.  The best flavor is in the part that most people peel off.  No wonder so many people don’t like carrots.)
• Cube two small or one large apple and add it in (I prefer Gala apples and I leave the peel on.  If you use an apple with a tougher peel, you might want to peel your apples first.)
• Add in about 1/4 cup of raisins.
• Stir in about 1 tablespoon of cinnamon (adjust to taste).
• Continue to cook until the rice is done.

This dish is fantastically sweet and soft without being mushy.  It goes great with fish, chicken, and even sandwhiches.

Rye Bread

We found a great recipe for rye bread at King Arthur Flour’s website.  It’s a bread recipe meant specifically for sandwiches and it turned out just as great as they said it would.  It’s a little more difficult than some other recipes, so if you’ve never made bread before, don’t start with this one, try the Multi-Grain Honey Wheat Bread and pay attention to the tips found on their recipe.

We used a rye flour instead of pumpernickel (because it was all we could find around here).   When we saw that the rye bread called for pumpernickel flour and we couldn’t find rye flour in the recipe, we were wondering what the deal was.  We’ve heard of rye bread, and pumpernickel bread, and never paid that much attention.  Turns out that they are basically the same thing in that they both derive from the rye berry.  The pumpernickel flour (or meal) is usually coarsely ground using the whole grain, whereas rye flour is only made from the endosperm.  So in the tradition of healthy whole grains, follow King Arthur Flour’s recipe and use pumpernickel flour.  (After some checking, the rye flour we have is made from the whole grain.  So I guess you can’t just go by the name on the box so check the ingredients.  I suppose ours is called rye flour because it is finely ground.)   We also found it to be a little strong on the pickle flavor (pickle juice is one of the ingredients if you haven’t yet checked out the recipe).  I’ll hold judgement until we try it with pumpernickel flour and I imagine that the bread is even better than we made it.  As it was, it came out quite nicely.  After discovering our flour used the whole grain, I believe we’ll try cutting back on the pickle juice a little bit.  But it’s still good as is.

Sugar Sugar!

We know and understand that alot of people don’t really believe that sugar is that big of a problem for young kids.  However, every time we allow our little ones to indulge in dessert, we are reminded with ever strengthening results of the toll it takes on their little selves.

The past few days the girls have been allowed to have a couple oreo cookies.  Nothing extreme, even in this household of strict dietary controls.  Today they have been completely different children.  Normally they are obedient (in as much as we enforce the rules we set), caring, patient, and mild mannered.  Not today.  Today they have been throwing fits and tantrums, not wanting to be near us and wanting us to hold them (sometimes at the same time), and generally being bi-polar.  We’ve seen this before, it always comes sometime after the sugar intake.  It will pass as we restrict sugar from the diet again.  But it strikes us how drastically their behavior is modified by eating a little bit of a certain kind of food.

Good Choices = Less Work

Simple is good.  There is a deluge of information, advertisements, articles, tv spots, etc. talking about losing weight and eating right.  Many of these sources focus on one or two aspects of a person’s diet.  There are a few good sources that utilize a proper balance, and many of those have an inherent aspect to them that I am about to discuss.

In the midst of all the information and all of the advice (some good and some bad) stands two things to do to maintain a healthy life: (1) eat right and (2) exercise.  Many of us have trouble doing one or the other (or both) and that amounts to discipline.  But a lot of people that have trouble eating right say they aren’t sure what to do.  What should I look for?  What should I avoid?  Indeed, the brief time I spent reading packaging labels left me frustrated, upset, confused, lost, and overwhelmed.  No wonder people that count calories have such a difficult time at it.  But here’s the deal, unless you have a food allergy, or have been given specific instructions by a doctor to avoid certain foods (i.e. to prevent drug reactions) then you don’t have to keep count or track or whatever you call it.  There are some simple guidelines that you can follow to make eating right a whole lot easier to follow through with.  These guidelines all center around understanding what a good choice is for your diet so that more often than not, you are making a good choice.  (I use the term guideline because when the majority of your choices are healthy, the few that are unhealthy will not be detrimental to eating right.  In other words, it’s not the end of the world and there is no failing.  The only real failure is when you stop making healthy choices altogether.)

Fresh is Best – Out of the garden or in the store.  This includes both individual items you might eat (an apple or bannana for a snack) as well as entire meals and even seasonings.  Flavors also come to life when you use fresh ingredients.

Keep it Simple - When you need to buy something manufactured for you (for whatever reason), try to keep to the more simple products.  If you can’t pronounce it, don’t even buy it.  Fewer ingredients also often mean it’s going to be better for you.  I know, I know, I already said that you don’t have to read labels.  I still check ingredients (well, I might read the nutritional labels too, but that’s just for fun) but it’s only every once in a great while, often when we are trying something new, and all it takes is a glance.  If you turn the package over and you see the name of the product it’s supposed to be and salt, it wasn’t all that big of a deal.  But if you turn it over and you see 10 things… and it’s peanut butter, then aren’t you glad you looked?  Also, when you follow the first guideline, you don’t have to worry about this one as often.

Now, I could list all sorts of things not to eat, but I really believe that if you follow these two guidelines, all of the calorie, fat, etc. intakes that people are so concerned about will be taken care of.  Food should be enjoyed, even the pursuit of what to eat.

Breakfast Burritos

We call these Breakfast Burritos because they have breakfasty foods in them, but we make them for any meal.  It’s the same concept you’ve seen at a dozen different fast food restaraunts: eggs with other ingredients in a tortilla served hot.  At home, they are quick and easy and are a great way to use up leftover baked potatoes.  Of course, once we started making them, we had leftover baked potatoes on hand all the time. 

These aren’t necessarily the most healthy of foods, but it just depends on what ingredients you stuff them with.  We normally make them with scrambled eggs, ground sausage, home fries (left over baked potatoes cut into cubes and fried in the pan in a light coating of cooking oil), and cheddar cheese.  This is the standard for our house simply because that’s what we have on hand.  When we have something different, we’ll often use it.  Change up your fillings and your seasons and you could have a different breakfast burrito every meal of the day for over a week.

These are very satisfying without being too heavy, they travel well, and they can be pretty cheap to make depending on your fillings.

*Update – Shortly after writing this I discovered this post at The Nourising Gourmet  (HT: Trying Traditional) and thought this meal fit well with the idea.  So check out the links.

Baked Potatoes

Yup.  Baked potatoes.

They’re delicious and if you don’t like them plain (who does?) they provide a fantastic base for pretty much any kind of topping you desire.  I prefer butter, salt, and pepper.  Every once in a while I’ll add some real bacon bits.  But that’s not why I bring them up.  I want to talk about baked potatoes because I never really knew what a good baked potato was like until about a year ago and because the leftovers will be discussed in the next post.

I remember growing up having potatoes that were wrapped in foil and cooked in the oven.  I always thought that’s what a baked potato was.  In fact, I’d been to numerous restaraunts (even more expensive ones) that served potatoes the same way.  Well apparently those kinds of potatoes are technically steamed.  Who knew?  A baked potato is pretty much just thrown in the oven.  Sure, you can do some things (see below) to make them extremely yummy, but the only necessary thing is to put it in the middle of the oven and heat it a while.

Kind of vague, I know, but the great thing about baked potatoes is that you can cook them at any temperature that you are going to be baking other foods at.  The lower the temp., the longer it needs to bake and the higher the temp, the shorter amount of time it needs to be done.  This is especially nice if you have other foods to cook in the oven.  Another great thing about these potatoes is that the skins are crispy and delicious.  I never ate a potato skin from a steamed potato, I just didn’t like them.  I eat these all the time.

To prepare the most delicious baked potatoes:

• Wash the potatoes thoroughly.
• Stab with a fork a few times (you don’t want the potato to explode in your oven).
• Lightly cover with your choice of oil. (We use canola, but use whatever you have or like best.  We have also found that the pump sprayers are wonderful for applying the oil as you get an even spread without wasting a bunch of oil or using too much.)
• Sprinkle to taste with Kosher salt (or any larger grain).
• Bake.  (We usually bake around 400 degrees for 35 minutes for a medium size potato.  If you want something more specific (not that I think it matters) there are numerous resources online that will give you the temp. and time for the size and number of potatoes you have.)

I know it’s a basic food, but when done well, it can be a great food.

Whole Grain, Multi Grain Honey Wheat Bread

This is the bread that my wife makes at least once a week.  It makes a fantastic regular loaf for sandwiches but she also forms it into delicious rolls and hoagies.  It started as a simple whole wheat flour bread found on the bag of King Aurthur flour.  She adapted it to our needs and desires over time and below is the recipe she uses as of now.  This recipe is great if you have a bread machine.  My wife uses the dough cycle on our bread machine and then finishes it and bakes it in the oven.  This is the best bread!

Multi-Grain Honey Wheat Bread

• 1 1/2 cups warm water
• 1/4 cup nonfat dry milk
• 1/4 cup oil (canola)
• 1/4 cup honey
• 3 cups whole wheat flour
• 1/2 cup 10 grain flour (pre-packaged bread mix)
• 3 tablespoons milled flax seed
• 1 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 1/2 teaspoons of yeast.

Place all ingredients in bread machine and set to dough cycle (for instructions on how to form the dough without a bread machine, see the website for King Arthur Flour above).  When the cycle completes, remove to an oiled surface and punch down.  Form into whatever kind of loaf/shape you desire.  Let rise for 30-40 minutes.  Bake large loafs at 350 degrees for approximately 40 minutes (reduce time for smaller loaves or rolls).  Cover loosely (tent) with foil halfway through baking.

Enjoy!