Pizza pizza day

Thursday is pizza pizza day in our house.  Why Thurs?  No idea; it just evolved.  I found this recipe on the King Arthur website, but have changed it to fit how we like to eat and how I want to make pizza.  This is a thin crust pizza.  Ordinarily it's a little thinner than today's pie; that's just the way it is.

Ingredients for the dough, which I make in the bread machine.  Kneading is hard on my hands.  You can adapt the recipe for hand kneading or using the Kitchen Aid or whatever.   This is a fluid recipe; it changes every time. But this is my basic formula.

1.5 tsp kosher salt
1 cup warm water
Splash of olive oil

2 cups 00 flour; I use Anna.  This makes the dough easy to roll out. Very little shrinkage here.
1 cup all purpose flour.  I use either King Arthur or Hecker's.
1 TB non-fat dry milk 
A scant tsp sugar
1 tsp of oregano crumbled up in your hands to release the flavor
1 tsp instant yeast.  I use Fleischmann's which I buy in bulk.

Place the salt, water and olive oil in the bread machine.
Add the remaining ingredients, placing the yeast in a depression on top of the flour.  You want to keep salt and yeast away from each other initially so that the yeast will work.

Use whatever knead cycle your machine has.  If you're working by hand, then knead it up to a smooth, round ball.

Give it a 60 minute first rise.  If your kitchen is cool, as mine is, you may need more time.  My dough looks as if it's not fully risen.  It is, but it began its collapse as I moved the bucket to photograph it.

When your dough is risen, remove from the bucket.  You will now divide it and put half in a greased bowl, and the other half on a greased piece of plastic wrap.  Wrap the second piece, put into a ziplock bag and then into the freezer.  Now you have next week's dough.  Cover the bowl with another piece of greased plastic wrap, and put into the fridge.  It can sit there for hours, slowly rising and developing flavor.

About 45 minutes before you want to start baking, take the bowl with the dough out of the fridge and place on the counter.You can remove the cover.  It will have risen a bit in the fridge, and will start to rise a bit more now that it's in a warm place.

While your dough is warming up, you can assemble the toppings:

Tomato sauce
Grated cheese(s)
Anything else you like on your pie.  We get lazy and just use sauce and cheese.

My tomato sauce is very simple, but surprisingly delicious.

1 8oz can of unsalted tomato sauce (you can use regular sauce, but the cheese adds a lot of salt)
1 tsp tomato paste
Dollop of olive oil
Salt and pepper
Oregano or a combo of Italian herbs, rubbed in your hands to release the flavor. 

Whatever grated cheeses you like. I used mozzarella, cheddar and TJ's Toscano with black pepper.

About 15 minutes before baking, preheat oven to 425.  Place 1 rack on the lowest spot and one in the middle.

Shaping the dough:

Take 2 pieces of parchment paper.  I use King Arthur's parchment, the one that you can use over and over.  Grease both pieces of paper.  Place the dough onto one piece and cover with the other one.  You now have a parchment paper/pizza dough sandwich.

Take your rolling pin and roll out the dough until it's about the size of the paper.  Because you used 00 flour, it will roll out easily without shrinking back.  (The goofy lines on mine are impressions of the paper.)  Place on a cookie sheet and let rest until the oven is at temp. 

When your oven is hot, place the pizza onto the bottom rack and bake for 5 minutes.  NO toppings yet.

Remove from oven, place all of it onto a large cutting board, and proceed to put on your sauce and cheese, plus whatever other toppings you want.

Place back in oven, this time on the middle rack.  Bake for 5 minutes.

Remove from the middle rack and place again on bottom rack.  Bake for 5 minutes and then your pizza is done!

Remove from oven and slide the pizza without the parchment paper onto your cutting board.  Cut into slices, eat and enjoy!

 Don't toss the parchment paper.  Brush off any food, and then fold up, place in a container, put in fridge and use another time.  I can use the paper 5-6 times easily.  There's nothing on it to go bad.

This sounds like it takes forever, but it really doesn't.  You can prep your sauce and grate your cheese while the pie is on its first bake on the bottom rack.  The clean-up is minimal:  whatever you kneaded it in, the bowl for rising, and whatever utensils you used for the sauce and cheese.

You can make both pies, or freeze half the dough for the next time.  The frozen dough should be taken out in the morning to thaw by late afternoon, and it will roll out easier and be thinner than the first dough.

And that dollop of tomato paste?  The one you opened a can for and now what do you do with the rest?  Put a piece of waxed paper onto a small cake rack, dollop the tomato paste into it, and freeze. when frozen, just peel off and put in a ziplock bag or small container and back into the freezer.

The reason for the placement of the pizza in the oven:  you are trying to mimic a professional pizza oven the revolves.  Placing the dough on the bottom rack both at the beginning and at the end helps it get crusty.