Pizza Perfection!!

Being from the home of some of the world's best pizza, it has been a long-term goal of mine & T's to get close to replicating the pizza of my pre-Australian life. Throughout the years we've played around with all the variables- types of flour, sweeteners, mixing methods, cooking times, etc., and I thought I'd share our current leader in pizza dough recipes.

This dough is great- it's chewy, resilient under heavy toppings, doesn't rise too much, and gets crispy on the bottom with proper use of a hot oven and preheated pizza stone. And it's tasty too! Here's how we do it.

This recipe ends up making 4 pizza-stone size pizzas (5 if you stretch it). We usually make 4-5 and freeze/refrigerate some for work lunches!

1kg Plain Flour (Type 00 is preferred)
14g Dried Instant Yeast
15g Salt
2Tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil + extra for drizzling over dough
2 1/2 - 3C Warm (not hot) Water
Optional: A few teaspoons of dried herbs

Firstly, put your pizza stones in the oven and crank the heat to maximum! Then pour yourself a glass of nice wine. This is essential to pizza making success!

Now for the actual dough making... We use a Breville Scraper Mixer Pro (the apple green coloured love of my life) so I dump all the dry ingredients, including herbs if they're being used, in with the dough hook attachment. Turn it on low and then slowly add the Olive Oil & Water. How much water you need will depend on your flour quality and the weather, so it's best to add a bit at a time and check the dough consistency to know when you've added enough. Once all the water has been added, it's okay to turn it up slightly higher to increase the "kneading" power. I let it knead for about 2-3 minutes, or until the dough is smooth, shiny, and elastic. If you are doing this all by hand, add the ingredients together in a bowl and then hand-knead until you arrive at the smooth, shiny, elastic result. I expect it would take about 4-5 minutes longer.

I then form the dough into a ball, put it back in the mixing bowl, drizzle some olive oil to keep it from drying out, and cover the bowl with a damp tea towel. It's a good idea to put this bowl of dough near the oven so it stays warm (but not ON the oven as it may start to cook). How's your wine level? Do you need a top up? I usually do!

After about an hour, when the dough has doubled in size, it's ready to be separated into 4-5 smaller balls from which you will make your beautiful pizzas. I find that rotating and stretching the dough is the best way to make it pizza-sized, but you may prefer rolling it out if you don't like the rustic, hand-made look!

My tip for making uniform pizzas that will transfer easily to the stone is to use a metal round pizza tray to put the dough onto. That way you can have a relatively round pizza base and quickly flip the tray upside down onto the pizza stone. This requires a bit of practice, so if it seems like too much of a challenge, you can try forming the base on the bottom side of the pizza tray and sliding it onto the stone. Then you do a super-fast pizza toppings spread and pop that baby back into the oven to incubate!

As for cooking times, I generally leave the oven light on and check on the pizzas in about 7minutes. There seems to be a great variation in cooking times between ovens, and even where in the oven the pizza is. Cooking is an art and is all about feel, so as you make this recipe and become familiar with it and your ingredients you will start knowing what feels, looks, and tastes right and what doesn't.

Good luck and happy pizza making!!

Mmm Leafy Green Kale

Last winter was the first time that I tried to grow my own kale. I have long grown Silverbeet/Swiss Chard but hadn't thought much of kale since I am exposed to it so rarely- I can't recall one time that I've seen it in the supermarket or green grocer since moving to Australia four years ago! After hearing how amazingly healthy it is and having high hopes that it may be as easy to grow as silverbeet, I bought some seeds at our local gardening store.
The seedlings came up great and produced a fair few leaves before it got too warm outside and the plants went to seed. The way I dealt with this short but sweet harvesting period was to make a couple rounds of Kale Chips through a preparation method I had read about in a Vegetarian Times newsletter. Oh. my. lord. They were amazing and addictive, and I couldn't believe I was eating a food that has been touted as a "superfood" and "the most nutrient dense food that exists"! I CANNOT wait until its cool enough to grow some more- it will be a staple in my garden next winter.
In the mean time, I saw this article on "17 Ways to Use Kale" and thought I should share it because it helps make this somewhat unknown leafy green a bit more familiar. And if you do manage to find yourself some kale, A) Let me know where I can get it too!!! and B) Try some of these preparation methods!

http://www.care2.com/greenliving/17-ways-to-use-kale-slideshow.html

13 Green Kitchen Tips!

I stole these from www.care2.com, added a few in myself, and hope to continue compiling ideas like this in the future!

1. Cover pans while cooking to prevent heat loss.

2. Make sure your pan covers the coil of your range. If you can see coil peeping out from the sides of your pan, you are losing energy and you need a bigger pan!

3. Try one-pot cooking. Stews, soups, and other great peasant meals only take one burner to cook and they are so nourishing and satisfying!

4. Just before your food is cooked completely, turn off the oven or burner and allow the heat in the pot or pan to continue the cooking process for you.

5. The less liquid and fat you use, the quicker the cooking time.

6. Always make more food than you plan to use and freeze it for your own “fast food.”

7. Leftovers take less energy to reheat on top of the stove rather than in the oven.

8. Most of us eat a lot of pasta. Make extra, toss with olive oil, and keep in the fridge so you don’t have to heat an entire pot of water to the boiling point every time you want some.

9. If you have one, use a pressure or slow cooker. It really saves on energy.

10. Don't open your slow cooker until you absolutely have to!!

11. Look for baking recipes that only use one bowl, or tailor your recipes so that they use as few bowls as possible. Add the dry ingredients first with your glass measuring cup/jug, then add the wet. This allows you to use the same measuring cup (provided it shows all the measurements you need) and prevents the dry materials from sticking to the sides of the cup!

12. Put foods that you are warming up in the oven in as soon as you turn the oven on. In general, pre-heating is not necessary (except in the case of baking). What's the point of spending a half hour heating an oven just to open the door and reduce the heat again when you put the food in??

13. DON'T OPEN THE OVEN DOOR unless you are taking food out or putting it in!! Keep the heat in there and save the energy it would take to reheat it after every time you let the heat out.