Opinions of a Wolf

People tend to not realize pizza’s versatility.  When it’s home-made, you can actually make sure it is quite healthy.  It all comes down to what you put on it and what type of crust you make.  There’s red pizza (using marinara for sauce) white pizza (using olive oil and garlic for sauce) and pesto pizza (obviously using pesto for sauce).  You can put pretty much any veggie on top of pizza.  If it’s something that takes longer to cook, like broccoli, just quickly boil it for a couple of minutes to prep before slicing it up and putting it on the pizza.  Even carrots and potatoes can go on the pizza.  Just grate them up and put them on right after the sauce.  The super-thin slices couples with the sauce makes them cook by the time you take the pizza out of the oven.  Also, don’t be afraid to put beans on your pizza for extra protein!  I’ve put everything from chickpeas to black beans on mine.

It took much experimenting with many pizza crust recipes and a bit of tweaking on the one I finally found that was close to what I wanted.  The crust is the core of the pizza, so I present to you–the perfect pizza crust.

The Result:
A wonderful warm, slightly crunchy, slighty bready, tinged with rosemary crust that perfectly holds its own to however many or few toppings you want.  It works for thin or thick crust.  If you want thin crust, either roll it out super thin and use a large pizza pan or divide it into two and make two regular-sized pizzas.  For thicker crust, just roll it out to a regular pizza-size.

The Recipe:
1 cup warm water
1 packet yeast
1 Tablespoon sugar
1 Tablespoon dried rosemary
2 Tablespoons olive oil
pinch of sea salt
1 1/8 cup whole wheat flour
1 1/8 cup white flour
More flour for rolling out the dough

Put the water in a large bowl.  Add the yeast and the sugar.  Allow the yeast to work for about a minute.

Add in olive oil, rosemary, whole wheat flour, and white flour.

Mix.  I use a hand-held electric dough hook, but it works by hand or with a real electric mixer too.  If you’re using a dough hook, the dough is ready when it starts to climb up the hook.  If you’re doing it by hand, it’s when the dough is no longer watery but still kind of sticky.

Put the dough in an oiled bowl in a warm location.  I use my microwave, personally.  Allow to rise for 30 to 45 minutes.  45 minutes is better, but if you’re pressed for time, 30 minutes is ok.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Prep your toppings.

Spread out flour on a surface.  Flour your rolling pin.  Plop the dough on the surface.  Flip it a few times to spread out the flour.  Roll to your desired size.

Top with whatever toppings you want.

Cook for 15 to 25 minutes.  How long depends on how many toppings you put on/what your oven is like/what mood the dough is in.

Enjoy!

Source: Tweaked recipe from Emeril Lagasse