Saturday Night Snack

  Saturday night means something in our family. In our house, Saturday's official title is  "Movie night". It's the night we play wii, watch movies, play board games and have snack foods. The kids, look forward to this night. Trev and I do as well. You might remember that as part of our goals for the new year, our rules on junk food got stricter. Only on weekends is the new rule. By only on the weekend we mean, only on movie night.

  I'm sure that you all have a snack night too. in an effort to have a little more direction, and write in my blog more I thought I would start doing a  "Saturday night snack" post each week. This week it was pizza. I know that homemade pizza, although delicious, can be a pain to make. It's certainly not hard to make, however the process is very long. As a busy mom I don't always have an hour and a half to wait for the crust to be done. This was one of those times. It was 5pm and there was no way I could wait until 6:30pm or 7:00pm to serve dinner! I went in search of a recipe for a quick crust.

   I found a pretty good one, and adjusted it a bit. I modified it to use half whole wheat flour. This of course meant adjusting the yeast and I found I needed some more water. You could use all whole wheat flour if you want. I probably will next time. Also I should mention that this crust was fairly thick. I made a 15" pizza with it. I could have easily made two 12" pizzas by spreading the crust thinner. Here's the recipe:

Basic pizza crust

1-1/2 Tsp Active dry yeast

1 cup warm water
2 Tbsp olive oil
1 Tsp sugar
1/4 Tsp sea salt
1-1/2 cups whole wheat flour

1 cup unbleached flour

Pizza toppings of your choice.

    Place 1 cup warm water and yeast in a bowl. Allow to process for about 5 minutes. Add the oil, sugar, sea salt, and flour. Mix until a smooth and fairly elastic dough has formed. If your dough is too dry add some of the remaining 2 Tbsp water until dough is the right texture. Don't worry if you add a little too much water and the dough gets sticky. Just sprinkle in some extra flour and that will fix the problem.

  When dough is finished sit on an oiled pizza pan, or a pizza pan and allow to rest about 10 minutes. The dough will not really raise. That's ok. After 10 minutes spread your dough on pan. Bake at 400 (425 if your oven runs on the cooler side) for 8-10 minutes; until lightly browned. I would recommend watching the dough and poking a few holes with a fork if it's bubbling a lot. A huge air bubble tried to form in my crust.

   Remove from oven. Top with your favorite pizza toppings. We used 1/2 jar of pasta sauce, onion, green pepper, and mushrooms. We often also add olives, pineapple and tomatoes. Sprinkle lightly with sea salt and ground pepper, then top with about 1/2 a large brick mozzarella cheese, shredded.  Bake an additional 8 minutes. Remove from oven. Allow to cool 5 minutes. Cut and serve.

Have a fantastic weekend!!