(Yet Another) Perfect Pizza Crust

As I mentioned this morning on (never home)maker, baby! Stephen has been making our dinners for the past month. And he's become quite a cook. Especially with garlic knots and pizzas. After all, it was Stephen who invented the Garbanzo Garlic Knots.

File this pizza crust recipe away under your MUST MAKE ASAP heading. I know we've declared it many times, but we mean it more than ever: This crust is PERFECT. You'll make it over and over again.


PERFECT PIZZA CRUST

What you'll need . . .

• 1 cup chickpea/carrot puree (see below)
• 2 teaspoons yeast
• 1 cup warm water
• 1 cup bread flour
• 2-1/2 cups whole wheat flour
• pinch of salt

To make the puree, drain and rinse 1 can of chickpeas and 1 can of unsalted carrots (of course, you can steam your own carrots if you have time). Blend in a food processor until smooth. You will have enough puree to make this recipe twice. If you plan to make it soon -- refrigerate the leftovers. If not, freeze.


Method . . .

1. In a small bowl, combine warm water and yeast. Let sit until frothy, about 5 minutes.
2. In a large bowl, combine the flours and salt.
3. Whisk the yeast mixture and 1 cup of the puree together. Then add these wet ingredients to the flours.
4. Mix with a spatula, then switch to kneading with your hands.
5. Lightly oil another large bowl and let your dough rise in it -- covered with plastic wrap -- for 2 to 3 hours.
6. Once dough has risen, divide into two balls. Each is large enough to make a large pizza.

To bake:

1. Preheat a pizza stone at 425 degrees F.
2. Flatten out your dough into a round. Once stone is preheated, bake on one side for 4 to 5 minutes.
3. Then remove from oven, flip over and start building your pizza on the baked side.
4. Once topped with toppings, bake for another 12 minutes. Until browned and bubbly.

Toppings suggestions:

Mix of mozzarella/cheddar cheeses
Fresh tomato slices
Green onions
Minced garlic
Fresh basil, oregano, etc.


Today on (never home)maker, baby! -- we're celebrating our entry into the third trimester . . . at least we THINK. 27 weeks!

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Beet Pizza Dough. Seriously.

If you've been reading us for a while, you know that pizza (in its various forms) is basically our favorite thing to eat. So, when Stephen asked me what I wanted for dinner last night . . . on day 2 of our whole 5-day anniversary celebration . . . I didn't beg him to take me out. Nor did I beg for takeout (because we've been maxing out our funds on Indian lately -- woah!). Instead, I told him I'd take care of the meal. That what we were going to feast on was pizza, but that the rest was, well, a secret.

Thankfully, he was (and is always) game for my crazy creations.

OK. One of our best recipes on this site is pumpkin pizza dough. We use it for garlic knots, too. However, I've been getting a bit tired of pumpkin -- I mean, we've been using it in EVERYthing lately. So much that some of our Twitter followers have told us we make them feel like they're not getting enough orange in their diets. While this may be true, we took these comments as a wakeup -- we need to vary our routine a bit.

Foremost: I needed to find some sort of puree to use in place of pumpkin. A quick trip to the pantry later . . . BEETS were all I could think about. We had two shiny new cans just waiting to be used. Our last beet-tastic creation, Mose's Apple-Beet Muffins, were on the sweet side. So, putting the pretty stuff in pizza dough meant we could experiment with the savory side.


Basically, this dough doesn't taste weird. It's extremely pretty. And it's a new way to use beets, as if you were looking for one. Though, maybe you should be! Beets are "rich in natural sugar, sodium, sulphur, chlorine, iodine, copper and vitamin B1, B2, C and bioflavonoids" (Source).

BEET PIZZA DOUGH

What you'll need . . .

• 1 cup warm water
• 1 envelope active dry yeast
• 2 tablespoon agave nectar
• 1/2 cup beet puree (get a can of beets -- instructions below)
• 2 tablespoons olive oil (I used an herbed variety)
• 3-1/2 cups unbleached bread flour (I used King Arthur)

To make beet puree: Simply drain your canned beets -- but keep the water they came in (it's extremely red). NOTE: Since the beets are packed with a bit of salt, I've omitted the salt that typically is included in this recipe. Then place the canned beats in a food processor and add about a tablespoon of the beet water to them. Pulse until smooth. Add a bit more beet water until the texture resembles applesauce (or canned pumpkin). It's that easy. Store the remaining beet puree from sauce (recipe coming next week) . . . or whatever else you can think to put it in.

What I couldn't get over the whole time I was making this dough is the colors. Just vivid red. Gorgeous!


To make the dough, you can simply follow the instructions on the pumpkin dough page (just substitute your beet puree for the pumpkin).

Or here's the abridged version: Sprinkle the yeast into the warm water and stir with a fork. Let sit for about five minutes. Then add in the beet puree, olive oil, and agave nectar. Mix until well incorporated. Whisk the bread flour in a large bowl and use your fist to punch an impression (like a small bowl) into it.



Then pour your wet ingredients into this hole . . . stir with a spatula and then knead with your hands until the ball is soft and elastic. Let rise in the bowl (add a bit of olive oil) -- covered with either plastic wrap or a damp towel -- for 2 hours.



Make pizza as you would with any other dough (we recommend grilling, if you can). But stay tuned for some really crazy toppings we created, including a cinnamon-cocoa beet sauce (OMG, that sounds AWFUL when I write it) and a vegan mexican pizza.

Yeah. There's really some good stuff!!!

Bears.
Beets.
Battlestar Galactica.


When you're given the choice, do you prefer to go out to eat, get takeout, or eat in? More and more, we favor lavish at-home meals. They don't only save us money, but we have the opportunity to hone our cooking skills. We learn new techniques and utilize new ingredients -- loads of geeky fun! Just leave us a comment or email us at neverhomemaker [at] gmail [dot] com.

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Pumpkin Garlic Knots

Good morning, everyone. I'm celebrating 300 posts today, 400 twitter followers, and only being 4 people away from 900 subscribers! (And I don't believe I mentioned last week that we made it onto Ellen's StumbleUpon -- and webpage! -- for "favorite vegan recipes" and our chocolate-peanut butter whoopie pies) Woah. A lot of milestones -- all at once! Of course, this calls for a bread recipe. Garlic knots, specifically. But not just any garlic knots: Pumkin Garlic Knots.

I developed this pumpkin dough recipe mostly for its moisture content. As you know, we like grilling pizza . . . but often the crust burns quickly due to lack of moisture. Throw in a little canned pumpkin, and the crust stays good and moist, with only a hint of extra flavor. This dough recipe makes enough for one pizza and one hefty order of garlic knots.


What you'll need . . .

• 1 cup warm water
• 1 envelope active dry yeast
• 2 tablespoon agave nectar
• 1/2 cup canned pumpkin
• 2 tablespoons olive oil (I used an herbed variety)
• 1-1/2 teaspoons coarse kosher salt
• 3-1/2 cups unbleached bread flour (I used King Arthur)

First, you'll need to make the dough:




STEP 1:
Pour the warm water into a medium bowl and whisk in the yeast. Let sit until frothy -- about 10 minutes. Then add your agave nectar, olive oil, and pumpkin -- whisk until smooth.



STEP 2:
Whisk together the flour and salt in a large bowl. With you fist, make an impression in the center -- a "bowl" that's big enough to pour your wet ingredients into. Then pour in your wet ingredients.




STEP 3:
Start pulling everything together with a spatula. When you can no longer mix, use your hands to start kneading the dough. Keep kneading -- and adding more flour as necessary -- until you have a ball that's elastic, but not sticky.

STEP 4:
Lightly oil another large bowl and put your dough ball inside it -- flipping over once to coat both sides (again -- lightly) with oil. Cover with a damp towel or plastic wrap and let rise for 2 hours. Once the dough has risen, preheat your oven to 425 degrees F, put in a pizza stone (you may use a pan, too, but it works best with a stone), and divide the dough into two equal pieces. If you're planning to use the other half the next day, just put it in a large Zip-Lock bag and store in the fridge. You may also freeze the dough for up to three weeks.


STEP 5:
To create the garlic knots -- just take off sections of dough (about the size of two tablespoons, if that makes sense) and roll them into a snake shape. Then tie that snake in a knot. Set aside and continue with the rest of the dough. Once you've made all your knots, put them on your stone (or on your pan) and let bake until golden brown on the tops (anywhere between 10 and 15 -- or more -- minutes, depending on how big your knots are).

STEP 6:
While you're waiting, in a large bowl mix together 1/3 cup olive oil with 3 to 5 cloves of minced garlic . . . as well as some salt, pepper -- and if you're feeling cheesy, Parmesan or nutritional yeast -- to taste. There's really no right or wrong mixture, just what you like. Feel free to taste test. When the knots are done, dump them into the bowl and mix well to coat. Stephen likes to crush the knots a bit to let the oil seep in.

Enjoy -- and check back tomorrow because I'll give you a super gourmet grilled pizza recipe that involves brie, a balsamic-tomato-walnut sauce, and lots of roasted veggies!


And if you haven't already -- go check out this month's Blog Love Fest. It's a special edition because we're not only sharing the links in a list this month. We're creating a categorized blogLOVEroll. For all the gooey details, just visit the BLF post.

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Gluten-Free Adventures: Pizza Crust

Emma asked us: "I'm a pizza lover myself, but recently found out that I might be wheat intolerant. Know of any good gluten-free pizza dough recipes?" Well, I certainly tried my best this weekend to create a gluten-free, wheat-free crust with items we already had in our kitchen (part of the whole budget-friendly part of this blog). I don't think I achieved the best results ever (tastes amazing, doesn't totally stick together) . . . but for improvisation, I think I earn an A-.

Let's take a closer look at what's inside . . .



All homemade and clockwise from left to right: Rice flour, cornmeal flour, flax meal (OK, that one wasn't ground by me), oat flour, and cashew flour. What I found when I started looking up gluten-free pizza crust recipes is that they all seem to have 1,000,000 types of flours in them. All of which I didn't own. So, I tried making my own with the base ingredients -- grinding them in our food processor. Some worked better than others.



For example, oat flour (above) is super simple to create and I use it in many items. I'm new to the whole gluten-free arena, but I've heard oats are an iffy subject. Can anyone fill me in on that? I did also read that some believe they're totally gluten-free, which is why I ultimately decided to include them in the recipe.



The rice "flour" on the other hand was much more difficult to create, and it never totally took a complete flour texture. It was more like cornmeal. And it also took a good 10 minutes to reduce to this grainy texture. I may have also lost some hearing in my left ear. Ouch.



The cornmeal (above, difference between flour and regular meal) did grind nicely into a powdery stuff with enough pulses (and I happened to have a gluten-free variety on hand from Bob's Red Mill).



As did the raw cashews. There are much easier ways to make these things, but instead of going to the grocery store and buying a whole new stock of flour . . . I'm pretty proud of the results.

Basically, to create the flours, I just took the raw ingredients and pulsed them in our food processor until they took on as many flour characteristics (powdery-ness, no lumps/bumps, etc.) as possible. This isn't the best way to perform this process, and I know there are mills for this sort of endeavor.

My friend Meg wrote an article about using a flour mill. Though her writeup features wheat flour and L'Equip VitaMill, I think it would also work on all the ingredients I include in this recipe.



What you'll need . . .

• 3/4 cup oat flour
• 1/2 cup cornmeal flour
• 1/4 cup rice flour
• 2 tablespoons flax meal
• 2 tablespoons raw cashew "flour"
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 package active dry yeast
• 1 teaspoon agave or honey
• 2 teaspoons olive oil
• 1-1/2 teaspoons cider vinegar
• 1/2 cup warm water (wrist temperature)
• Extra flour of any kind for dusting (I used the rice)

Method . . .

1. Grind all your flours ahead of time so they're ready. Then sift them all together with the salt and yeast granules.
2. Make an impression in the dry ingredients with your fist -- a hole where you'll put the wet ingredients.
3. Then pour the warm water into the hole, followed by the agave or honey, olive oil, and cider vinegar.
4. Mix for 4 minutes -- until fully combined.
5. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
6. Transfer to a clean work surface dusted with flour of your choice. Form into a ball, cut in half, and then transfer each to a piece of parchment.
7. Using a piece of plastic wrap on top, roll out the dough into a circular shape -- until thin. Repeat with next dough round.
8. Then bake -- without toppings -- for 5 minutes, until the dough has hardened. This is called parbaking. Repeat with other crust. Then continue on to your toppings. We put salsa as our tomato base, fresh mozzarella, some of our leftover cheese from the Vegetarian Juicy Lucy, black beans, and avocado (after baking).
9. Bake for another 7 to 10 minutes, until cheese is lightly browned.

Stephen and I both thought the crust was really good. But it was extremely easy to break apart. You can't pick up a piece of this pizza. You have to scoop it. It tastes quite good, but -- again -- the texture isn't quite "normal" . . . so I think I'll set out on another gluten-free pizza adventure sometime soon. I found a variety of recipes since this project that look more like "real" pizza crust.

So, here's my question to you all: What you're favorite gluten-free, wheat-free pizza crust recipe? The one that's most authentic?



Thanks to Emma for asking us this great question! If you have anything you want to know related to the content in this blog, just email us at neverhomemaker@gmail.com -- and we'll be happy to take a stab at answering for you! You also still have until this evening to enter our Martha Stewart's Cooking School cookbook giveaway. Just our little way of celebrating reaching 500 (and now 630) subscribers.

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My Favorite Pizza Dough Recipe

If you ask me what my favorite food is, I won't try to lie. It's pizza. Plain and simple. (Well, I do very much like plain pizza -- but the kind we make at home is usually piled high with veggies because we don't have to spend $1.50 per topping.) However, until this year, I never liked to make my own at home. It was one of those things (like bagels, which I eventually successfully made myself), I thought I just couldn't replicate with the same taste and texture, specifically with the crust.

We often bought pre-made dough at Wegmans or other grocery stores to try out. The wheat kind was usually too dry. The white was, well, blah. And even when we did choose one we liked . . . we were baking it entirely wrong. The middle was always be soggy and the sides always burned. Ick.

We eventually put a couple local pizza joints on speed dial.

I kept at it, though. Experimenting with multiple recipes and methods -- until one day, I discovered something that actually worked. And now I can share it with YOU! (If you're wondering, the answer is yes. This pizza is what I was talking about yesterday with my Weekends Off -- No More post. It's not terribly unhealthy. We just made it TWICE this past weekend.)

Ashley's AMAZING Pizza Dough

What you'll need . . . (to make two 14-ish inch pizzas)

• 1 tablespoon active dry yeast (I use Fleischmann's)
• 1-1/2 cups WARM water (not hot, wrist temperature)
• 2 cups unbleached bread flour
• 1-1/4 cups whole wheat bread flour
• 1/4 cup flaxmeal
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• Pinch of Kosher salt

Method . . .



Step 1: In a small bowl, whisk together the yeast and water until well incorporated. Let sit for 5 minutes (until frothy, like in the photo below).



Step 2: In a very large bowl, whisk together the flours and flaxmeal. In the center of the mixture, make an imprint with your fist that's almost like a little bowl of its own (you'll be putting the yeast in here).


Step 3: Pour the yeast, the olive oil, and the pinch of salt into the impression you made with your fist. Then with a rubber spatula, start mixing everything together.

Step 4: You'll find after a while that you'll want to start mixing/kneading with your hands. If the dough is very sticky, add in a bit more whole wheat bread flour. Continue kneading for a few more minutes until dough ball is smooth and elastic.

Step 5: Transfer dough ball to a lightly oiled bowl (first place the ball inside the bowl, then flip over to get both sides lightly oiled). Cover with a piece of plastic wrap, cut an X in the top, and let rise for about 2 hours. I've had success only waiting for 1-1/2 hours, so if you're pressed for time, you should be fine.

Step 6: Punch down dough and cut into two pieces (above is when I made two batches). On a lightly floured work surface, use your hands to work dough into your flat pizza crust. We often refrigerate the 2nd of the two rounds the recipe yields and use it for another pizza later on in the weekend or garlic knots (recipe coming soon!)

COOKING METHODS

GRILLING: The hands-down BEST way to cook your pizza is on the grill. Really. Even in these cold temps, if you can do it -- start up your grill (I'm talking charcoal, I've not tried this on a gas) . . . and follow these steps (you'll need a charcoal grill, pizza/bread peel, and large round pan) . . .

1. Heat up the grill -- it should be very hot, with charcoal displaying white ash, etc.
2. On a floured surface, roll out the dough as thinly as possible. Make it super, super flat and then transfer to a floured pizza peel.
3. Transfer dough to the grill. Really! It won't make a horrible, burned mess. Just put it on there . . . and cook until you see the bottom start to brown, but not burn. This takes approximately three minutes. Oh, and you don't need to close the grill for this part. You will later, though. Just let it breathe!
4. NOTE: You will notice the pizza puffing up with tons of bubbles. Pop these bubbles gently with a fork.
5. Slide the half-done pizza onto the peel again . . . and flip it, uncooked side DOWN, onto a floured work surface.
6. Drizzle the top (the DONE part) with olive oil.
7. Add all your toppings at this point (to the DONE side). Don't go crazy -- because the heavier the pizza is, the harder it is to transfer back onto the grill. And a little goes a long way . . .
8. Put the pizza on the peel again and transfer back onto the grill. Immediately cover with your grill top (this will help cook all the toppings).
9. Again, wait about three minutes, or just keep obsessively checking like I did to make sure the bottom isn't burning.
10. When it DOES start to burn, your pizza most likely won't be entirely cooked. This is where the pizza pan comes in. Slide your almost-done pizza onto the pan (that goes directly on the grill) to finish the cooking process. It is still possible for the pizza to burn while on the pan, so keep a close watch. The total cooking time varies depending on how thick your crust is. Keep checking it -- and it should be done, on average, around 5 to 8 minutes.
11. What you'll find is that you want to take the pizza off JUST before you think it's done. It might still be even the slightest bit doughy, but that's OK -- that's how it's supposed to be.
    

OVEN: For those nights when you don't feel like grilling out (or if you don't have a charcoal grill), this cooking method will work out great.

1. Invest in a pizza stone.
2. Preheat your oven to 450 degrees F.
3. Make sure you let the pizza stone preheat as well. Roll out your pizza dough to the size of your stone.
4. When the oven is finished preheating, use a pizza peel to transfer the dough onto the stone. Cook until the bottom is lightly browned (you'll want to pop any air bubbles that form, so pay attention.
5. Then take out, flip over so the cooked side is the one you place your toppings onto . . . do your topping thing . . . and use the peel to transfer the whole thing back into the over for another 15 minutes or so. Until cheese and lightly browned and bubbly.
   

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