A Hearty Pizza Crust & A Nifty Gifty

On Cyber Monday (can we pleasepleaseplease retire that term?) I caved and bought some goodies online. I am a sucker for gourmet boxes of food that come with free shipping (who isn’t?). I saw the deal via a Mambo Sprouts email. Then I promptly forgot about it till I heard UPS running away the other night. A big box sat outside. Oh wait, was this my goodie goodie box from Cucina Antica Gourmet? Oh yes it was. For $27.95 I got all this shipped to me, shipping included. It was well packaged as well. Frankly I ordered it so I could try the pumpkin sauce…..I had seen their products before at our local natural foods store, PCC, but hadn’t taken the leap to trying it.

If you have anyone to get a gift for, consider this box. It is cool, tasty and ummm…tasty. Fancy-pants too.

In the box was a 16 ounce jar of Pizza Sauce:

Well that meant I “needed” to make pizza. The menfolk of course were thrilled. The sauce is “accidentally” vegan (bonus) and oh-wow-so-good smelling. The kind where you crack open a lid and it smells as fresh as when it was made. This is good stuff. No questionable ingredients, no sugar, just wonderful flavor.

I spread it over two massive pizzas. Leftover pizza is a wonderful thing. At least in our house! The crust I adapted out of my copy of 300 Best Bread Machine Recipes.

Why did I pull my Zojirushi BB-CEC20 Home Bakery Supreme Breadmaker out of the cupboard and use it to make the dough? I couldn’t knead the dough. Why? Because my trainer at the gym worked me so hard I apparently had two useless arms on Tuesday…lol! Kirk normally sees the trainer we both go to 3 times a week, Monday he has a 1 hour workout. This Monday he was slammed with work – he was gone at a conference most of last week – so he said “want to take my place?”. Better that than us losing the money. I hadn’t done a 1 hour workout since spring of 2011. And John, our trainer, doesn’t take it easy on me. He has me back in the gym and his goal is to get me back where I was between babies. Anyhow, the thought of kneading dough wasn’t a pleasant one. So I let Super Machine do 99% of the work for me. Hehe.

Whole Wheat Pizza Crust

Ingredients:

• 1½ cups warm water
• 2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1¼ cups white whole wheat flour
• 1 Tbsp granulated sugar
• 1½ tsp kosher salt
• 2 tsp dry active yeast

Directions:

Add ingredients in order required for your bread machine (mine is liquids, flours, sugar and salt, yeast on top). Turn on ‘Dough’ setting, let machine do its magic (mine takes 1 hour, 50 minutes).

Lightly flour a work surface, take dough out of bread pan and lay on the flour. Cover with a large mixing bowl, let rest for 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, prepare toppings as desired. I like to sauté the vegetables until golden. Preheat oven to 400°.

Divide in half, roll out to size desired (I made ours rectangles, baked on parchment paper lined baking sheets).

Pop the crusts in the oven, bake for 10 minutes, flipping rack position halfway. Take out and top as desired. (Be that traditional or vegan….)

Return to oven, bake for about 20 minutes, changing positions halfway through.

Let rest for a couple of minutes, then slice and serve.

Makes 2 large pizza crusts.

~Sarah