The question of “What’s For supper” comes up every day at our house. We need to get on track and put our menu together so that it’s planned out in advance. Then each day, we won’t be in the never ending quandary of “what’s for supper”. When we used to buy pre-packaged food, such as pizza, it was easy. The typical answer was either “How about pasta?” Or “How about pizza?”
But now, we are trying to buy items without soy ingredients in them, such as “Soy oil” or “Soy Lecithin”. The reason we are trying to stop buying soy and soy containing products is that SOY IS BAD FOR US. If you don’t want to believe a single line on a small blog website, how about these sites: Natural Health Strategies, Men’s Health , Weston A Price Foundation, The Food Renegade? Each of these sites has a ton of information and links to other sources.
So what does Soy have to do with Pizza? Turns out Soy Lecithin is a common emulsifier which is a byproduct of the Soy Oil production line. Most of the pizza crusts contain soy lecithin. So out it goes.
In our case, we still like Pizza. What to do? How about let’s make our own pizza, crust and all?
I set off to find some pizza crust recipes and determine which one we would like best. The first one I tried is the one at America’s Test Kitchen. They call it a “Make Ahead Pizza” so that you can freeze it and then use it as necessary. But, instead of freezing the pizzas, I just popped them into the oven. This doesn’t make for a quick weeknight pizza, but it doesn’t take that long either. Just a little extra planning.
How does it taste? Great! For me, the crust either makes or breaks the pizza, and this crust is moist and chewy, just the way it should be. Now I have to work on the sauce…
- 1½ cups half-and-half, heated to 110 degrees
- ½ cup water, heated to 110 degrees
- 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
- 3 cups unbleached white flour
- 1 cup whole wheat flour
- ¼ cup cornstarch
- 2¼ teaspoons instant yeast
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon sugar
- 1½ teaspoons salt
- Heat the water and half-and-half in a measuring cup in the microwave. Mix the dry ingredients in a mixer.
- Once dry ingredients are combined, slowly pour in the liquids.
- Then mix for about 5 minutes. The dough will be very wet and sticky, but should clean the sides of the mixer bowl.
- Place dough into oiled bowl and let rise until doubled in size, about 1 hour. (note you could preheat oven to 200 and turn it off and place bowl in the oven)
- Remove dough from oven and divide in half.
- Roll out dough on parchment paper. I use a rolling pin to make it round.
- Top with sauce and cheese and toppings of your choice.
- Place pizza on parchment paper directly into the oven at 500 degrees. Bake about 25 minutes.
- (note the recipe is from america's test kitchen but slightly modified)
