Thursday, April 10, 2014

Meatless Fridays

This week is a super frugal meal that takes just a bit of fore thought and planning.  If you can remember to start the dough several hours in advance, you can have a delicious meal with little effort and for pennies a serving!  This week's Meatless Friday meal is:

PIZZA 
(dough)

 We make pizza quite often around here and use the "no knead" method for our crust.  It does take a bit of fore thought because this dough needs to ferment anywhere from 8-18 hours.  You can do it in less time, but the result is a thicker, denser crust.   
For the dough you will need:

6 cups of all purpose flour
1 tsp. active dry yeast
2 tsp. fine sea salt
3 cups of water

Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl and whisk together.  Add the water and mix ingredients.  This should be a very wet dough and you can add up to another 1/2 cup of water if needed.  Cover bowl with damp towel and place in a warm area of your kitchen.  18 hours is ideal BUT I have made this dough in as little as 6-8 hours and it comes out fine.  
Your dough should be bubbly like the picture above 
and smell very "yeasty".
Take two large sheets of parchment paper (about the size of your baking sheet) and coat with a nice layer of olive oil.  With oiled hands, divide the dough onto the parchments.  Gently spread and stretch the dough to your desired shape.  Allow the dough to rest 15-20 min.  Top with your favorite toppings and bake at 450 degrees for 18-20 minutes.



For our meatless Friday, I used a bottled alfredo sauce fortified with some roasted garlic as well as a can of chopped artichoke hearts and spinach from the garden. 


The picture above speaks for itself!  
The kids devoured this pizza...
vegetables and ALL!

4 comments:

  1. I am always on the lookout for pizza crust recipes. This sounds and looks fantastic! I will have to try it next time I make pizza!

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  2. A quick question - have you ever tried this with whole-wheat flour? Do you think it would work?

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  3. Yes, I've tried it with wheat and it makes a really dense crust. You can substitute 1/3 cup wheat for white, or you can use half and half and a little bit of "vital gluten" (also found in the bread aisle) to lighten the dough.

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  4. OK, thanks for your response!

    ReplyDelete