Sunday, March 2, 2014

A New Favourite Pizza Crust

I have been devoted to the same pizza crust for many years, now. I have posted it in the past, but I will re-post it here:

3 T. fast rising yeast

2 1/2 c. hot water
2 T. olive oil
2 T. honey
2 T. salt
3 1/2 c. EACH whole wheat and all purpose flour


Place yeast, water, olive oil and honey in a mixing bowl and let sit a few minutes until the mixture starts to foam. Add flour and salt and mix by hand or using a dough hook until it forms a shaggy dough. Knead for five minutes (or just keep that beautiful mixer running for five minutes while you do other things). Let rise, covered, for 30 minutes, or in the fridge overnight.

But I may be swayed by the "Ridiculously Easy" quinoa pizza dough recipe in Quinoa 365. I found it posted by another blogger, I Heart Fresh Food. While it has more white flour than I'm keen on, it makes a delicious, fluffy and versatile dough that is far more forgiving of freezing than my earlier favourite.


With the last batch I made, I pulled together a pizza out of some leftover roasted tomatoes, roast chicken, red peppers and cheddar (what I love about pizza in general is the way you can build an amazing one with just a few good ingredients). The pizza was simple, but good enough that the four of us (and remember, two of us are three and five years old) finished off two twelve-inch pizzas on a Friday night. I froze the remaining half of the dough and thawed it this past Friday, when I made calzones, again out of what I had available: roasted tomatoes, crumbled rosemary pork patties, and smoked cheddar. The dough was remarkably fluffy and tender, and the calzones passed the test of our new babysitter. He assured me he wouldn't be hungry, but I told him the calzones were there if he wanted them. He ate one and a half of them, and my husband scarfed down the last one when we got home from our movie.


Herein lies the reason that I still try new recipes even when I'm perfectly happy with a go-to standard. You never know—you may just take another step forward on your quest for perfection.