Friday, August 10, 2012

Pizza Crust

Again, Nanci's.

Pizza Crust 

3 TBS yeast
3 cups hot/warm water (95-100 degrees)
3 TBS oil
9 C flour
3 tsp salt
1 1/2 TBS oregano
1 TBS garlic salt
This makes enough for 3 pizzas. 

In a large bowl mix, yeast, water, and oil.  Wait 5 minutes for the yeast to activate (turn frothy on top) In a large bowl, mix flour, salt, oregano, and garlic salt.  Stir the wet and dry ingredients together and add small amouonts of water if dough feels dry.  Mix or knead for 8-10 minutes.  Dough should be elastic.  (You can freeze dough at this point.  Cut into 3 pieces and place in a large freezer tip-top bag. Label and freeze for up to 6 months. To use, defrost in the microwave on high 20 seconds then roll out for pizza, or calzones.) 
Lightly oil your countertop and roll out each pizza with a rolling pin.  Fold over edges and press down to form a crust.  Poke pizza dough all over with a fork to cut down on bubbles in the crust. Place pizza dough on pans by folding over half of the dough on your forearm and then lift dough onto pizza pan.  Bake 4 minutes at 500 degrees.  (At this point you could also cool and freeze if you don't want to freeze at the dough point.  Just wrap with plastic really well.) 
Pull out hot crust and top with 1/2 C cheese first. This will keep the pizza dough from getting soggy.
Prepare pizza sauce and pour on top of cheese.  Pile on toppings of your choice.  Top again with cheese.  Bake 10-15 minutes at 500 degrees or until cheese is melted and crust is golden.

This is the sauce recipe that came with the crust:

Pizza sauce:
1 8 oz can tomato sauce
1 TBSP oregano
1 tsp minced garlic
Open can and pour oregano and garlic right into the sauce. Stir carefully so it doesn't spill and pour onto pizza dough. (I think that only half a can is plenty of sauce but that is just me.)

Annie actually used a sauce she found on the internet because we hadn't seen this recipe at first. She also added some fresh basil from the garden and I am sure you could do that with this one as well. I think that the sauce should just barely cover and not be that thick but that is a personal thing. Maybe it doesn't matter if you bake the crust a little first. I had never done that and my pizza was always too soggy which is why I stopped making homemade pizza years ago. This recipe has made me re-think that decision. Or maybe I'll just hand it over to Annie. :)

Squash Bars

These are from Nanci; Lauren just put them on the blog. So the comments etc. are from Nanci.

Squash Bars

4 well beaten eggs
2 C sugar
2 tsp soda
1 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1 1/3 C oil (scant)
2 C flour
1 1/2C cooked mashed zucchini (you can use pumpkin or butternut or any other squash you think would be good)   I usually put the cooked squash into my food processer and puree it that way.  It is much faster than mashing by hand.

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour an 11 x 15 jelly roll pan. Mix well all ingredients except squash. Then add the squash into the mixture and beat to mix in well.  Bake in 11 x 15 pan for 20 minutes.  Frost with cream cheese frosting and sprinkle with chopped nuts.
Cream Cheese Frosting

4 TBSP butter or margarine
1 / 2 tsp vanilla
1 8 oz package cream cheese

2 C powdered sugar

Blend all ingredients well.

OK, I have to admit I have never actually made this frosting recipe. It came with the squash bars recipe and I usually just use frosting from the store, so I can’t verify the goodness of this recipe.But how different can it be?