Question of the Day, Friday, February 8

Good morning!

Friday nights are usually pizza nights around here....I always have dough balls in the freezer. Sometimes we grill pizza, sometimes I just throw one together and flop it into the oven. We normally do not do take-out pizza, unless I'm feeling lazy. And then we'll call for delivery.

My favorite pizza right now is a crisper crust with chopped lettuce, chopped tomatoes, and a wee bit of freshly shredded Parmesan. With lots of shredded basil and oregano. And a dollop of olive oil.

Let's talk pizza!! What's your favorite pizza? What's your favorite pizza chain? How often do you eat a slice of pizza in a month? Crisp or chewy? Thin or thick crust?

It's a hickory steak and onion pizza, and l might have it tonight because l've got one in the freezer  

We love pizza in this house. We preferably thin crust, preferably wheat. We normally have chicken on it and when making one at home, add on whatever veggies we have in the fridge. When out, we often get chicken, garlic and spinach or chicken, roasted red peppers and caramelized onions.

We tend to stay away from the chains and will go for the more gourmet type pizza places. I don't like dominos at all. It's too thick, bland and salty. If I had to pick it would be a more local chain like Bertuccis or maybe Papa Gino's, but the latter is WAY too salty.

Local chain called Western Pizza. They have a lovely bread style crust, good toppings and don't serve it with the crust burnt.....er charred. pardon the mixed up of words. My fave is all dressed without the onions. There are also a few independants that make a good pizza. Pizza Hut will do in a pinch when I go to the city, simply because the one on the way out has a big enough parking lot for my truck.

I usually make homemade pizza on Saturday nights.

(It's cheaper to make my own & have to use veggie cheese anyway, otherwise would have to take a Lactate enzyme!) 

Martha White envelope of pizza crust is only about 99 cents, or even better, Walmart brand is 49 cents. (add 1/2 C. water, let rise 5min!)

One makes a small-med.depending on how thin you make it.  Two make a large.

After the initial baking before topping, I slide under it to unstick any places w/ the spatula, I top it, then slide it off my stone, & onto the wrack, so the bottom will be crispy.

 I love sauce, so always extra sauce. Toppings vary, depending in what I have, or buy. I like artichokes & roasted red peppers.

I will also add chicken, or turkey ham/sausage, if I have it. I also used to do roasted red peppers & pineapple. YUM!  Now I can't wait for pizza night!! 

I love Pizza Huts Deep Pan Pizza, we don't order pizza often. My fav toppings are peperoni and mushrooms. Sometimes we are more in the mood for Chinese food which I love also.
 

Fav is Godfather's Classic Combo, hold the onions. (Onions and I don't get along well. ) But since they don't deliver, most of the time I have Pizza Hut's Meat Lovers, pan style.

Do you make the pizza dough? If so, would you mind sharing the recipe?

I'm really picky about pizza (and most other foods   - have some "issues"). I wouldn't touch pizza for several years but am starting to think it is somewhat okay again. I've tried making dough in the breadmaker but it doesn't work out very well. I cannot bring myself to buy those ready-made crusts that have a "best before date" six months from now - it's BREAD. It's not supposed to last that long.

Anyway, I like black and green olives on pizza, and mushrooms and sundried tomatoes. Bacon is good, too, or any other meat that is NOT sausage, chicken, or ham. I don't like most of the pizza places around here so that's why I try to make it myself. 

My favorite pizza is Pepperoni with Pineapples for topping. My favorite chain is Pizza Hut. I eat pizza every 2 weeks or so. I like mine crisp and I like my crust, thin.

You can order ketchup on pizzas here instead of pizza sauce. 

Favorite is plain cheese. I've eaten wayyyyy too much pizza in the last month :lol3: We usually get it 2-3x a month but its been more often lately with being lazy after work and the Superbowl. We try and get it from a place called Baroni's most often - really good NY style, but my favorite is a place called Italian Bistro near my old house.

If I buy from a chain, its usually Bucks. Which isnt the best, but easy and I like the garlic dipping sauce.

The BF makes really good homemade pizza too. One of my favs had VT sharp white cheddar on it.

This is the dough recipe I normally use:


Pizza Dough for Bread Machines

(For a large-sized bread machine)

Add into machine in this order:

1-1/4 cups Water
2 cups white bread flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon dry milk
1-1/2 Tablespoons Sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons fast rise yeast or 3 teaspoons active dry yeast

Use "dough" cycle of your bread machine. Makes enough for 2 crusts.

Total pizza lovers here!!!!!!!!!! Larry and I go out almost every Friday night for pizza. We just moved so we are checking out all of the new pizza joints in town. I love deep dish, particularly Uno's, but there is no Uno's nearby. We would have to drive to Chicago. We found a great place in town YUMMY YUMMY sauce. Their thin crust is to die for.

Have not made our own pizza but Karen's recipe above has me thinking to give it a try.

Maybe twice a month -- sometimes more, sometimes less. Favorite is pepperoni pizza (or sausage). I still can't imagine pizza with pineapple. Guess it's gourmet, but I just can't picture the two together.

There is no pizza like my hometown pizza.  The kind that comes from mom & pop startup places...none of this chain junk. You don't need toppings on those; but some good Italian sausage on it is awesome too.  Any other place and I like it with pepperoni.  Diced tomatoes are a fav too.  The crust should be on the thick side and well....crusty!  The kind you give your baby to gnaw their new teeth on!  DS had his first crust this week while visiting family.  He couldn't get enough!

Down here it's hard to find good pizza.  The one place we get it from I always order with pepperoni or just plain cheese.  It's more the "floppy" kind of pizza; but it's the best we've got.  

I love pizza and wings.  Not the chewy kind you get from some places.  The good crispy, greasy kind.  We don't get them often; but when we do...I want to do them right!! 

Pizza with sausage,bell peppers pepperoni,and extra cheese. There is a place called The Pizza Cottage here which I love. Donatos,Dominos is near too. I like thick crust with cheese inside.

dejolane

WOW! Has pizza tonight! My fave pizza is thin crust supreme from Smuggla's. It has sausage, pepperoni, green pepper, onions, mushrooms and black olives. That and a Caesar salad and I'm all set

I had a spinich and egg pizza in France about thirty years ago and it's still my favourite.

Have to make it myself, though....

SwampWitch said:

Do you make the pizza dough? If so, would you mind sharing the recipe?

I'm really picky about pizza (and most other foods 

 - have some "issues"). I wouldn't touch pizza for several years but am starting to think it is somewhat okay again. I've tried making dough in the breadmaker but it doesn't work out very well. I cannot bring myself to buy those ready-made crusts that have a "best before date" six months from now - it's BREAD. It's not supposed to last that long.

Anyway, I like black and green olives on pizza, and mushrooms and sundried tomatoes. Bacon is good, too, or any other meat that is NOT sausage, chicken, or ham. I don't like most of the pizza places around here so that's why I try to make it myself. 

Click to expand...

I have a couple recipes I use for pizza dough; here is one from Allrecipes.com:

Pizza Dough  (makes 2 12-14 inch pizzas)

2-1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast
1/2 teaspoon brown sugar
1-1/2 cups warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons olive oil
3-1/3 cups all-purpose flour

In a large bowl, dissolve the yeast and brown sugar in the water, and let sit for 10 minutes.
 

Stir the salt and oil into the yeast solution. Mix in 2 1/2 cups of the flour.
 

Turn dough out onto a clean, well floured surface, and knead in more flour until the dough is no longer sticky.
 

Place the dough into a well oiled bowl, and cover with a cloth. Let the dough rise until double; this should take about 1 hour. Punch down the dough, and form a tight ball. Allow the dough to relax for a minute before rolling out.

Preheat oven to 450 degrees F (220 degrees C). If you are baking the dough on a pizza stone, you may place your
toppings on the dough, and bake immediately.

If you are baking your pizza in a pan, lightly oil the pan, and let the dough rise for 15 or 20 minutes before topping and baking it.
 

Bake pizza in preheated oven, until the cheese and crust are golden brown, about 15 to 20 minutes.
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My favorite is from Peter Reinhart, author of American Pie and The Bread Baker's Apprentice. It's a little convoluted, but it makes a great crust. You've probably read in several of my posts that when we want pizza, I usually take a dough ball out of the freezer and put it into the fridge the night before we make pizza. The dough ball is from this recipe; I use this recipe a lot. It also works beautifully for grilled pizza. I've used it for calzones and for stromboli, too. You can also add some herbs to the recipe, if you want.

PIZZA AMERICANA DOUGH (Peter Reinhart)                      

5 c. (22½ oz.) unbleached high-gluten flour or bread flour      

2 tsp. instant yeast

¼ c. olive or vegetable oil

3 Tbsp. sugar or honey                                                  

1 c. whole or low-fat milk (I use skim)
3 tsp. table salt OR 3½ tsp. kosher salt                                                            

¾ c. room temperature water

                                                                                                                             
With a large metal spoon, stir together all the ingredients in a 4-quart bowl or the bowl of an electric stand mixer until combined. If mixing with an electric mixer, fit it with the dough hook and mix on low speed for about 4 minutes, or until all the flour gathers to form a coarse ball. Let the dough rest for 5 minutes, then mix again on medium-low speed for an additional 3 minutes, or until the dough clears the sides of the bowl and sticks just a little to the bottom. If the dough is too soft and sticky to hold its shape, mix in more flour by the tablespoonful; if it is too stiff or dry, mix in more water by the tablespoon. You want the dough to pass the windowpane test (see below).
           

(If mixing by hand, repeatedly dip one of your hands or the spoon into room-temperature water and use it much like a dough hook, working the dough vigorously into a coarse ball as you rotate the bowl with your other hand. As all the flour is incorporated into the ball, about 4 minutes, the dough will begin to strengthen; when this occurs, let the dough rest for 5 minutes and then resume mixing an additional 2 to 3 minutes, or until the dough is slightly sticky, soft, and supple. If the dough is too soft and sticky to hold its shape, mix in more flour by the tablespoon; if it is too stiff or dry, mix in more water by the tablespoon. You want the dough to pass the windowpane test.) 
           

Immediately divide the dough into 4 equal pieces. Round each piece into a ball and brush or rub each ball with olive oil or vegetable oil. Place each ball inside its own zippered freezer bag. Let the balls sit at room temperature for 15 minutes, then put them in the refrigerator overnight or freeze any pieces you will not be using the next day. (If you are making the pizzas on the same day, let the dough balls sit at room temperature in the bags for 1 hour, remove them from the bags, punch them down, reshape them into balls, return them to the bags, and refrigerate them for at least 2 hours.)
           

The next day (or later the same day, if you prefer), remove the balls from the refrigerator 2 hours before you plan to roll them out to take off the chill and to relax the gluten. At this point, you can hold any balls you don't want to use right away in the refrigerator for another day, or you can freeze the balls up to 3 months.
 

The windowpane test: Use the windowpane test to determine when your dough has been sufficiently mixed. This is done by snipping off a piece of dough from the larger all and gently tugging and turning it, stretching it out until it forms a paper-thin, translucent membrane somewhere near the center. If the dough does not form this membrane or windowpane, it probably needs another minute or two of mixing. Remember to rotate the piece of dough as you tug. Even properly developed dough will rip if you stretch it in only one direction. This windowpane is a signal that the gluten protein has properly bonded in the dough.) Doing the windowpane test is much like blowing a bubble with bubble gum....you want that kind of translucency when you stretch out the dough (is that the word?).

Now....here's the complicated part. I don't make the dough that way. Even though I use instant yeast, I don't add everything to the bowl at one time. Why? Because sometimes I don't need and can't use the entire five cups of flour; it will get too dry on me. So I mix the yeast, milk, and water together. Then I add the honey (yes, I prefer honey over the sugar) and then the salt. Then I start mixing in the flour, usually with two cups to start. Then as I need more I add it by the cup. You can tell when you need more flour. I always knead my doughs by hand and when I have a nice dough that I can play with, I'll flop the dough onto my floured surface and start kneading from there and adding flour as I go. There are times that I can only get 4 or 4-1/2 cups of flour into the dough. And that's fine.

Now, you can use your KA stand mixer for doughs with the dough hook. I don't. I may use the mixer to start, but I always end up throwing it onto my floured surface and kneading by hand. I love how it develops its texture and I love watching (and feeling) the dough start out as a shaggy mass and then turning into this beautiful, shiny dough ball! (I know....weird.) If you don't have a stand mixer and want to try this with a bowl and wooden spoon, you can easily do so. Just make sure that you mix the yeast in well (give the mixture a really good stir in the bowl and by that, I mean a really good stir!) and make sure that you knead the dough well. That develops the gluten. And that's true of all yeast doughs.

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I don't make pizza without my stone. I'll put my pizza stone into the oven and immediately turn the oven on to about 425 degrees. (Usually about an hour or so before I'm ready to make the pizza. You want the stone hot. That way, when your pizza hits the stone, the crust starts to brown right away.) Then I'll start forming the crust right on my pizza peel that's sprinkled with cornmeal, working with toppings, etc. I always caramelize the onions and then add the peppers, and then the mushrooms. I have my own sauce (that's from Reinhart, too, and it's quite good). I put a very thin layer of freshly grated Parmesan right on the crust, then the sauce. Then I start layering my toppings; I start with the meat toppings and then spread the vegetables on top. And finish with a good variety of cheeses. 

I slide the pizza from the peel onto the hot stone and bake. (If you don't have a peel, you can also work on a cookie sheet with a big layer of parchment paper. Slide paper and all onto the hot stone, if you want.)

We were at this cooking store (Chef's Warehouse) in Conn a few years ago and I found a wooden pizza peel. I'd been wanting a peel for a long time, so Rick bought it for me. I use it all the time for pizza now and the wood is starting to develop a beautiful patina. 

Sorry.....I know that's way, way too much information for you! Can you tell that we really, really like pizza??? 

I read 'windowpane test' and had visions of chucking it at a window to see if it stuck

Good thing I read on.

I am SO impressed with your pizza-making skills