PIZZA ALL AROUND - PART TWO

All right, pizza lovers, you know how to make the dough, now it's time to make the sauce. Unlike dough, making sauce is more art than science. I eyeball most of my measurements and taste as I go along, so every batch of sauce turns out a little different. This is really more of a general guide to give you an idea of how to make fucking epic pizza sauce that will impress all your friends.

PIZZA SAUCE

12 tomatoes, quartered (you want them all roughly the same size)
3-4 tablespoons olive oil (you want to just barely cover the bottom of the pot)
~6 cloves garlic, finely chopped (I usually use a little more garlic, but I am also a total garlic fiend)
1 tablespoon tomato paste
~2 tablespoons sugar (depending on how sweet you want your sauce)
1/3 cup fresh basil, chopped
salt and pepper (add to taste)
any seasonings you think sound good in the sauce, ie. oregano, garlic powder, minced onion, etc.

Heat the olive oil on medium in a large stockpot. Add the garlic and saute until the garlic gets really aromatic. Add the tomatoes, stir, and let cook down. This takes quite a while. Use a spatula to mash them down every once and a while (every 8-10 minutes or so). Once they're more liquid than solid (about an hour), add the tomato paste and seasonings. Knock it down to simmer, and let it do so for about another hour, or really as long as you want.  The longer you let it simmer, the thicker and more flavorful the sauce will be. Stir occasionally.

When you decide it's done, let it cool and blend it til smooth in a blender. Make sure to let the sauce cool, as trying to blend it when hot can be fucking disastrous (trust me). If you want your sauce to be chunkier, blend only part of it and then add it back to the non-blended part. I like my sauce smooth, so I usually blend all of it. I also like to add a little more chopped fresh basil after blending to add some color.

This recipe makes a really good amount of sauce; it usually lasts me a week or two and I use it for pasta, too. You can freeze it if you don't want to use all of it within the week.

PIZZA ALL AROUND - PART ONE

 If you talk to me for even just five minutes, you'll probably find out that, while I have mad love for ALL food, my heart truly belongs to pizza.  I even have a pizza tattoo. No, really.

So, I decided it would make sense if my first real entry for Land of 1000 Lunches was about pizza. Specifically, I'm going to share my killer pizza dough recipe with you. It's a tad time consuming, but totally simple; most of that is just sitting around waiting for the dough to rise. This recipe makes enough dough for two pizzas, as well, so you can freeze it or stick it in the fridge it for later.

So, here y'all go. Enjoy!

PIZZA DOUGH

Ingredients:
1 cup warm water
1.5 tablespoons sugar
2.25 teaspoons dry active yeast (1 packet if you prefer buying those, I prefer the jars, myself)
2 tablespoons olive oil, plus a couple teaspoons for the rising bowl
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
cornmeal

Combine the water, sugar, and yeast in a small bowl and let sit for a few minutes so the yeast can proof (bubble up).

In the meantime, combine the flour and salt in a large mixing bowl. Once the yeast has proofed, add it to the flour mixture. Add the olive oil, as well.

Mix together until it starts resembling dough and won't take any more flour. Sprinkle some flour on the countertop (to prevent sticking). Take your dough out of the bowl and move it to the counter to knead it. You have to knead it until it's fully mixed and feels a little bit sticky.  If it feels TOO sticky, add a little bit more flour. Form it into a ball when it feels ready.

Put a couple teaspoons of olive oil in the bottom of a large (it needs to be at least large enough for the dough to double in size), clean mixing bowl and place the ball in it, then roll it around in there until the whole surface of the ball is lightly oiled. Cover and let rise for an hour.

This is my favorite part. When you come back, give the dough a good solid punch down, deflating it. Take it from the bowl and knead it for a few minutes, so that it feels like dough again. Once again, form it into a ball and put it back into the bowl to rise.

Wait another hour (or up to two, the longer you wait, the more stretchy and awesome your dough will be). When it's ready, take the dough from the bowl and tear it in half. This recipe makes enough dough for two large pizzas, so you can refrigerate the extra dough for a couple days if you don't want to use it right away.

Sprinkle a bit of cornmeal on the pizza pan to keep the dough from sticking. Stretch the dough out before putting it on the pan. Your first few pizzas probably will probably be kind of misshapen and awkward-looking, but with some practice you'll get better at stretching it, I promise.

Oh, and to make your pizzas even better, use a pizza stone instead of a pan. I swear to you, it makes a HUGE difference. I invested in a $15 stone about three years ago and it's still going strong. Just NEVER wash them with soap, as the stone will soak it up and all your pizzas will eventually start tasting like soap, too.