Day 94 of 365
It’s pizza season, and I love it. It’s the time of year when the tomatoes and peppers and onions are ready in the garden, and I make homemade pizzas with the freshest ingredients. I love homemade pizzas because they are not only delicious but also most of the ingredients are from the farm. It’s the cheese I have to buy at the store. We have no dairy from our farm. If we were younger, we would definitely have goats. But we are not, so I buy the cheese.
I wanted to share the pizza dough recipe because it’s so good and not too much work at all. You just have to plan and start it early in the morning to make sure it’s ready for cooking in the evening. I hope you enjoy and hope you will be able to make rounder pizzas than I can. I always say my cooking is a bit ugly, but it’s very delicious.
*This recipe is adapted from Alana Chernila’s pizza dough recipe in The Homemade Pantry.
Pizza Dough
Ingredients
6 cups all purpose flour (you can also mix this up and use some combination of wheat flour; we grind some wheat flour to mix with the white flour, but the total us about 6 cubes give or take depending on your flour)
2 and 1/2 cups warm water
4 teaspoons active dry yeast
2 teaspoons sugar
2 teaspoons salt
4 teaspoons olive oil (plus some oil for greasing your bowl)
Directions
In a very large mixing bowl, add your water, sugar, and yeast. Mix the ingredients a bit and let them sit for 5 minutes. When the yeast is bubbly in five minutes or so, add your oil and salt and then add the flour a couple of cups at a time. Mix and little and then add more. Keep going like this until you have added all of your flour. Once the dough is good and thick, flour your hands and then dig into it. You will form it into a ball and then knead it for about five minutes.
I have just one giant bowl, so I pull out the dough and set it aside and then wash the bowl. I then dry the bowl completely and then use olive oil to grease the bowl. Add your ball of dough, flip it, and then cover your bowl with ling wrap or a wet flour sack towel. It’s important that the dough does not dry out. Put the bowl in a warm place. In the summer, most everywhere is plenty warm. In the winter, you will need to place it near a stove or in an oven set to proof.
Let your dough right for about 10 hours. The longer the better. This recipe makes two very large pizzas or three medium pizzas.
To make your pizza, cut your dough into two or three pieces and roll them into circles. Add your sauce, cheeses, and then whatever fresh ingredients you prefer.
Cook in a very hot oven (about 450 degrees) for about 15 to 20 minutes for the larger pizzas and less time if you are making three pizzas. I check on mine often. Essentially, I just try to make sure the edges are golden brown and the cheese is bubbly.
Farmer-ish 