Pizza!

'cause you know you want it.

you need-

• 3C + a bit flour
• 1C warm (~102-105*F) water
• 1tsp sugar
• 1T yeast (I like the active dry stuff)
• 1-2T oil
• ~1tsp salt

Put 2.5C of the flour in a good sized mixing bowl
put the sugar and yeast in the water, and stir it up- wait untill it's nice and cloudy, you may even get some stuff on the surface. this is good.
Mix the salt into the bowl of flour
dump the oil and water into the flour/ salt and mix it untill you can't anymore- try to get as much of the flour mooshed into the dough as you can.

Now for the fun part- sprinkle flour over your countertop, and coat your hands with it. Dump all that yummy nasty looking dough out onto it. Now start mooshing all that stuff together. Once you've squozed it into a kinda attatched ball, you get to kneed. And add in more flour if it gets too sticky.

How do you kneed? Well, you take your (vaguely) ball shaped lump of dough. and you stick the heel of your hand on the middle of it, and you push it away from you, and down, too, kinda stretching it. Then ya fold it back on itself, turn it a bit, and do it again. And again. And again. It'll look like your hand's kinda rocking. Sorta.

Or I'm sure there's a video tutorial somewhere on the web.

When it feels like something sick people would describe as "like a baby's butt" you can let it rest for a couple minutes. Use this time to get a drink, and clean out and oil that bowl you used before.

Kneed the dough again for a couple minutes. Then form it into a nice kinda ball, and swoosh it around in the (about another T) oil in the bowl. make sure all the surfaces are coated. Then toss a towel or something over it, stick the bowl in a warm (but not hot) spot, and leave it alone for a couple hours. Like 1-4 depending on how cold your warm spot is.

you want it to be about twice it's starting size. Bigger is ok too. When it starts smelling like beer, you've got problems.

But now! it's ready to cook and eat!

for pizza- cut it into quarters for personal sized pizzas, or halves for bigger ones. stretch or roll the dough to the size/ thickness you want, top that bastard, and bake in your oven at, oh, 450*F or 500*F, your choice, untill the cheese is melted, and the dough cooked thru.

For calzones- same as pizza, but if you have a pizza stone, or some quarry stone, or can get your cookie sheet nice and hot first, it really helps. build it on foil, then move the whole thing on the foil to the cookie sheet- and don't use too many wet ingredients, or it'll soak thru the bottom, and stick like you wouldn't believe.

For breadsticks- take 1/4 of the dough, and cut it into strips. I usually get about 6 or 8. mix olive oil, kraft parm. cheese, italian seasoning, and salt on a small plate. stretch and twist the dough untill you get kinda doubled up ropes, 3 or 4 inches long. Dip them in the oil mix, and bake them at about 350Ffor 10 or 15 minutes- well, untill they're done.

Optional- add garlic, italian seasoning, oregano to the flour/ salt, before mixing in the water.

or add cinnamon, and use the dough for cinnamon buns- rolled out and spread with butter, sugar or honey, nuts, cinnamon, raisins, whatever, and baked at 350 untill they be good and yummy and done.

or cut the dough into lumps about 2" on all sides, roll them out flat, and bake them untill they're puffy for home made pita bread

or use an extra half cup of flour, and make bbq pizza- roll them out, then pre-cook them for a couple minutes on the grill before you top them.

Or leave out the oil, and or use some milk, and make bread.

or roll out the dough and spread butter thick in the middle, folding over to make a kinda butter envelope, sealing it everywhere. fold it in thirds, like a letter, roll it out again, turn it 1/4 (so the side's in front of you) and fold and roll it again- 3 or 4 fold and rolls are fine. Then roll it out about 1/4 inch thick, and cut it into triangles. Roll them up and you've got kinda croissants. Well, after you bake them. Toss chocolate in the middle before you roll them and you've got pain aux chocolate.

I think that's enough to use the pizza dough with, right?

Next time, that student staple- potatoes.

j.