Salivating Saturday

Some days I am just plain lazy. I don't want to cook and after eating my weight in red vines, I need to make something with a little more nutrition. On days like this, I will make up a quick pizza. Pizza dough is the easiest thing in the world to make and you get to top your pizza with whatever you want. Although, I don't recommend red vines-yeah, not good.

The following is the easiest pizza dough ever! It will make 2 pizzas or one deep dish pizza.

Ingredients
1 teaspoon Instant Or Active Dry Yeast
1-½ cup Warm Water
4 cups All-purpose Flour
1 teaspoon Kosher Salt
⅓ cups Olive Oil

Sprinkle yeast over 1 1/2 cups warm (not lukewarm) water. Let stand for a 5 minutes.

In a mixer, combine flour and salt. With the mixer running on low speed (with paddle attachment), drizzle in olive oil until combined with flour. Next, pour in yeast/water mixture and mix until just combined, and the dough comes together in a sticky mass.

Coat a separate mixing bowl with a light drizzle of olive oil, and form the dough into a ball. Toss to coat dough in olive oil, then cover the bowl tightly with plastic wrap and set it aside for 1 to 2 hours, or store in the fridge until you need it.


When you are ready to make the pizza, grab HALF the pizza dough (recipe makes 2 crusts) and squeeze the dough toward the bottom to form a nice, tight, pulled ball. You can roll out the pizza with a rolling pin if you’d like, but sometimes it’s just as easy to throw it around and pull and stretch till it feels right. And when the crust is nice and thin, lay it on an oiled baking sheet or pizza pan. Drizzle a little olive oil on the dough and spread it with your fingers. Very lightly sprinkle some salt on the crust.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Top your crust with your toppings of choice. Then bake for 15 to 17 minutes, or until crust is golden brown and toppings are bubbly.

There ya go! Easy as pie...get it pie...HA! The second dough will last in the fridge for 3-5 days and in the freezer up to 6 months. I usually make a couple of batches, wrap the dough individually and freeze.