Homemade Pizza

We really enjoy taking the time to make homemade pizza.  We have a crust recipe that makes fantastic crusts, it is nice and chewy and tastes great.

What you'll need for the recipe

• 2 packages of dried yeast
• 1/2 tsp sugar
• 4 cups flour, divided
• 1/2 cup warm water
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 cup cool water
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• olive oil for coating pan

You need to mix your yeast, and 1/2 cup warm water, and 1/2 tsp of sugar in a large cup.  Let rise for 15 minutes.

Mix the flour with salt, 1 cup cool tap water, and oil.

Add yeast mixture, and 2 tbsp of oil.

Knead dough on floured surface for 15 minutes, until smooth.

Place dough in bowl dusted with flour.  Let rise until doubled, 1-2 hours.  We put ours in the oven, with the light on (this makes just enough heat to help it rise)

 

Punch dough down, and then spread out on a lightly oiled baking pan.  push to stretch evenly leaving a lip up against the sides of the pan.  We then put ours in the oven to pre-bake.

After the dough has pre-baked, you can then start assembling your pizza.  We made our own pizza sauce as well.

We cut up an onion, and some garlic, and sauted them in a pot.

Once the onions are transparent we added one can of diced tomatoes

We then added one can of tomato paste

Then we added one can of whole tomatoes.

We added basil, salt, pepper to taste, and let the sauce cook down.

We both like different toppings on our pizza.  I put pineapple on ham on my pizza, and Steve put Pepperoni, ham, mushrooms, and onions

We grated some cheddar cheese and assembled our pizzas.

We baked the pizzas for 20 minutes in a 450 degree oven.

This particular batch of crust rose a lot, but it was still very light and chewy!

Chicken- Vegetable Soup

I often enjoy making different soups throughout the year.  This weekend I decided to make a chicken- vegetable soup, with carrots, red cabbage, onions, and celery.  Not a ton of ingredients, but still full of flavor.

I put the carrots, celery, and onions in the pot to cook down and bring out the flavours.  I then added the chicken stock to the pot.

Once the stock, carrots, onions, and celery cooked together for a while I added oregano, basil, salt, pepper, and garlic, about a teaspoon of each (a little more of the garlic).  You'll need to keep tasting the soup, until you are happy with it.  Once I was happy with the flavor I added the red cabbage.

The cabbage loses most of it's color after a while, so it might not be as colorful, but it tastes great! 

Fantastic Chewy Bread

A friend of mine shared this fantastic recipe with me a while ago, and we decided to try it out on the weekend.  The recipe is Michael Smith's No knead Bread.  It is chewy, light, and easy to make!  It has a thick crust and is so flavorful!  There is a hint of sourdough taste, but not too bad.  As my friend said "The kind of artisan bread you can usually only make in professional bakeries with a steam oven."

You will need to plan ahead to make this bread, as it takes over 24 hours to prepare.  You will need

• 4 cups all-purpose or bread flour
• 1/2 teaspoon of active dry yeast
• 11/2 teaspoons salt
• 21/4 cups warm water
• 4 sticks of room temperature butter (sixteen ounces)

Whisk the dry ingredients together thoroughly. Add the water and stir until a wet dough forms. Continue stirring until the dough incorporates all the loose flour in the bowl, about 60 seconds in total.  

Cover the bowl with a towel and rest in a warm place for 12 to 18 hours. It will double in size, bubble and long gluten strands will form. Lightly flour your hands and the work surface then remove the dough from the bowl. Quickly form it into a ball. Thoroughly flour a cotton towel and rest the dough on it. Cover it with another floured cotton towel.

You may also rest the dough on a non-stick ‘Silpat’ mat and cover it with just one towel. Rest the dough a second time. In 2 to 3 hours it will rise again and double in size once more. A half an hour or so before the dough is ready preheat your oven to 450 degrees. You may use cast-iron, steel, enamel or ceramic.

When the dough has fully risen slide your hand under the towel and quickly invert the delicate dough into the hot pot. Shake the pot a bit to settle it then place the lid on the pot and start baking.

Bake for 30 minutes with the lid then remove it and bake for 15 minutes more.

 We have made a lot of bread in the past, but this was by far the best bread we have ever made.

The first entry

My husband and I have been talking about starting a food blog for a while now.  We enjoy making different kinds of meals together, and thought we could share those with others.  We started going out about 9 years ago, and cooking has been something we've done together since the very beginning.  We are members of an 18 person supper club.  This supper club goes out once a month and tries different restaurants around our city.  Due to the rules of the supper club (and doesn't every good club have rules?) we cannot go to chains, or to the same restaurant more than once.  This allows us to try many new and interesting food from all over the world.  We have tried food from Ethiopia, The Caribbean, Greece, Italy, South America, all over Asia, Australia, and Britain.  Steve also makes his own wine and beer, and likes to try to make foods to pair with these creations.  So, hopefully you enjoy our culinary adventures!