Bread Machine Pizza Dough

Pizza is a hands-down favorite meal at my house.  What's not to love about it?  A complete and balanced meal on a disc of perfectly cooked crust!  I have to admit, I was using ready-made, store-bought pizza dough for years (GASP!) because I was too nervous to try and make my own.  It was a total crutch for me.  But for the past several months, I have been slowly perfecting the easiest bread-machine pizza dough ever!  Let the machine do all the work!  All you have to do is form it and par bake it.  That's it!  I really don't know how it could be any easier.  And best of all...it tastes great!  It's got a nice crispiness on the outside, and a soft, fluffy center.  It is a nice thin crust (but not too thin) that really holds it shape when cut into pieces and loaded with toppings.  I mean, what's worse than picking up a beautiful piece of pizza and having the crust collapse and all the toppings fall off before it even gets to your mouth?   That won't happen with this recipe!  I hope you try it and make pizza even more often at your house!  :)

Ingredients (makes enough for 2 medium pizzas)

3 1/4 C flour

2 tsp sugar

1 1/2 tsp salt

2 Tbsp olive oil

2 Tbsp cornmeal

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1/2 tsp onion powder

1 1/3 C water

1 1/2 tsp yeast

Directions

1. Place all the ingredients into your bread machine and set it on it's pizza dough setting.  Mine takes about 45 minutes from start to finish.  When it's done, it will look something like this:

3. Preheat your oven to 450 degrees.  Dump it out onto a lightly floured surface.  Gently shape it into a ball and cut it in half.  (To save the second half for the next day, I simply wrap it in saran wrap and keep it in the fridge overnight.  Allow it to come back to room temperature the next day before forming).

4. Work the dough and form it into the desired shape.  Dust your pizza stone with corn meal and place the crust on top.  Lightly brush with a thin coating of olive oil.  

5. Par-bake it for about 10 mintes.  Remove from the oven and assemble with desired toppings.  Turn oven up to 475-500 degrees.  Bake pizza until cheese is melted and golden.  Enjoy! 

Weekly Menu

Happy Monday!  Boy, we had a cold and cloudy weekend here in Southern California, well by cold I mean 60 degrees.  Hey, that's cold for those of us born and raised here!  :)  But this week should be getting bright and sunny and back into the 80's .  I am so ready for that kind of weather!  We have a great menu planned with our selection of produce this week.  We have some kale, TONS of spinach, beets, carrots, cilantro, sugar snap peas, baby sweet Maui onions (for cooking and planting), blood oranges, and strawberries.  We will be making the following this week:

• Sweet Potato Kale Pizza with Rosemary and Red Onions and a side of Baked Beet Chips
• using the kale and beets

• Egg Salad Sandwiches with Baked Sweet Potato Waffle Fries and Roasted Carrots
• using the carrots

• Spinach Enchiladas with Cilantro Cream Sauce and Mexican Layered Dip
• using the spinach, cilantro, and baby sweet Maui onions

• We will be playing around with smoothie recipes using the remaining spinach and kale, snacking on the blood oranges (my new favorite!) and sugar snap peas, and having the strawberries for dessert.