Tuesday, January 4, 2011

A-Pizza Pie!!

I need to stop slacking and write more often.  But I'm too busy baking and Zumba-ing and hanging out with Amy and working, so now this post is like a week late and I still haven't written about New Year's.  Perhaps that's for the best... for now.

Two weeks ago on the train home, I thought to myself, hmm, what could I possibly be getting for Christmas?  All I asked for was a Fordham sweatshirt, sweatpants, and some new socks.  So what would I get for a surprise??  And I heard a voice... a Kitchenaid mixer.  And even though I didn't really think that I'd get one, I started daydreaming about making pizza dough from scratch and tossing it in the air like an Italiano and having a pizza night and inviting all of my friends over for delicious gourmet pizza and becoming popular and rich and famous.

It might have also been due to the fact that Pioneer Woman had a post about fig and prosciutto pizza and I didn't eat very much before I got on the train.  This is further proof that my stomach and Internet habits dictate my life.

But guess what?  Unlike ninety-nine percent of my other grand schemes, it all came true!

Well, no.  That's a big of an exaggeration.  But you should be used to that by now.
However, I did make pizza dough and invite all of my friends over for pizza.  And this is part one of the proof that I am, indeed, telling the truth.


I decided to use the Pioneer Woman's recipe for pizza dough because it was easy and I want to be her one day.  So I started off by sprinkling a packet of active dry yeast on some warm water.

Note: this pizza dough event was delayed by a day because the grocery bagger forgot to put the yeast in my bag.  It was that, or my father threw it out by accident.  Either way, I tried to make pizza dough and couldn't because of the lack of yeast and was very sad.


Then, I poured out the yeast and water because I reread the recipe and realized that I was only supposed to use one teaspoon of yeast.  Oops.


There, that's better.  Let the yeast and water sit for a little while.


In the meantime, put flour and salt into your beautiful new mixer.  Hello, beautiful.


Then, with the mixer on low, drizzle in some olive oil.


Make sure you drizzle it really slowly if you're a bit incapable like me and forget to turn the flash off at first.  That way, you can take another picture and pretend like nothing happened.  But don't worry, you'll reveal it all on your blog anyways because you're cool with the fact that you tend to do these things a lot.


Then, pour in the yeast/water mixture.  Make sure you get the picture right the first time because if you try to pour the contents of the bowl in slowly, a disastrous mess will occur.  I speak from experience.


Mix it until it's just combined and really gooey.  Warning: this dough does not taste good right away.  Don't eat it.  Really.  It'll just taste like yeast.  Again, I speak from experience.


Form your dough into a ball and try not to throw it in the air.  You'll probably drop it.

I didn't actually do that.  But I would assume that could occur.


Next, put the ball of dough into a bowl that is lightly coated with oil and toss the dough so that it becomes coated as well.


Cover the bowl tightly with plastic wrap and set aside to rise.  This may require tape.  Especially if you brought the good plastic wrap back to your apartment with you and left the crappy plastic wrap at home.  This decision will now bite you in the ass.


And if you really, really love making pizza dough with your new Kitchenaid mixer, you can make it again!  Or even three times!  Which I did because once is just never enough for me.

PS: If you're not going to use your dough within a couple of hours, refrigerate or freeze it!  Otherwise, you're gross.  Like one of my former roommates.  But that's a story for another time.

Pizza party pictures coming soon!

Love,
Courtney

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