Make your own take-out, part 1.

Ahh....pizza.  A staple of the student diet, this beautiful circle of food is just as good (if not better) for several days after it is first brought home.  Unfortunately, there are several drawbacks to take-out pizza. For starters it can be an expensive habit, and depending on where you order from the toppings are not always high quality.  It can also be hard on your waistline...and this is the biggest concern for those of us trying to avoid the dreaded "freshman" fifteen.

The good news is that pizza can be made by anyone, not just the professionals.  But it takes a couple of steps, and this can be intimidating for people who don't do much cooking.  In order to take some of the intimidation out of the process, I'm going to walk you through the steps with photos so that you can see what the dough should look like at each stage.

It also requires several different ingredients, which can look like a big investment for a single meal.  The thing you have to remember here is that most of the ingredients required are pantry basics.  One of the recipes for dough that I've included only requires flour, salt, yeast, and hot water...all ingredients that you might already have on hand, and all ingredients that (a) keep for a long time and (b) pop up in recipes over and over again.

The recipe that I personally use for pizza dough comes out of the Looney Spoons cookbook, and incorporates whole wheat flour and ground flax for a healthier crust.  Of course this is not for everyone so you'll find a basic recipe here as well...don't worry, the steps to making the dough are exactly the same in both cases.

Ingredients for whole wheat & flax dough          

-1 cup all-purpose flour

-1/2 cup whole wheat flour

-2 tbsp ground flax

-2 tsp quick rising yeast

-1/2 tsp salt 

-2/3 cup very warm water

-2 tsp olive oil

-2 tsp liquid honey

Ingredients for basic pizza dough

-2 cups all-purpose flour

-2 tsp quick rising yeast

-1 tsp salt

-3/4 cup very warm water

-2 tsp olive oil

Step 1: Combine your dry ingredients in a bowl, mix well.  If you're making the whole wheat and flax dough, also combine the water, olive oil, and honey in a separate measuring cup.  If you're making the basic recipe, do the same with the warm water and the olive oil.

Step 2: Pour water over dry ingredients and mix to form a ball.

Of course it won't be a "ball" so much as a "semi-solid collection of dough," but you get the idea.
Once the dough sticks (mostly) together, then it's time to move on.

Step 2.5: Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead for about 2 minutes.

It's hard to capture the exact moment you should stop kneading in a picture, but consider yourself done when the dough is smooth and elastic.  Add more flour as required to prevent the dough from sticking to the counter/your hands.

Step 3: Spray a medium sized bowl with cooking spray and place the dough inside.  Cover with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place for about 20 minutes, until the dough has doubled in size.

After your dough has doubled in size, it's ready to go into the oven.  Turn it out onto a lightly floured surface and roll into whatever size and shape you need (the above recipes should comfortably fill a 12 inch round pizza pan).  Top as desired, and bake at 425 degrees F for about 15 minutes.

Stay tuned in the coming weeks for some of my favorite pizza toppings!!