Mighty Tasty Basic Pizza

Crust

(based on https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/46595/amazing-whole-wheat-pizza-crust/)

Ingredients

• 1 tsp sugar
• 1.5 cups wrist-temperature water
• 1 tbs active dry yeast
• 1 tbs olive oil
• 2 cups whole wheat flour
• 1.5 cups all-purpose flour, divided
• 1 tsp salt

Method

1. Rinse a large bowl with warm water (I used our stand mixer). Add the measured warm water and stir in sugar to dissolve. 
2. Sprinkle the yeast over the surface to avoid big clumps and let stand until the yeast gets foamy.
3. Meanwhile, combine whole wheat flour and salt in a separate bowl with 1 cup of the all-purpose flour.
4. Stir water/yeast mixture then add the olive oil.
5. Add the flour mixture to the yeast mixture and mix on low speed mixer setting with the dough hook (or by hand). Mix (or knead) and slowly add the extra half cup of all purpose flour as needed to prevent sticking. Dough is ready when it is smooth and elastic (about 2 minutes on low speed mixer setting). You may need a little extra all purpose flour.
6. Lift the ball of dough and pour a little olive oil underneath it then roll the ball of dough around in the oil to coat all sides. Cover with plastic wrap or a damp tea towel and let rise until doubled, about 1 hour. (This would be a good time to prep sauce and toppings)
7. When you are ready to make the pizza, preheat oven to 425F.
8. Divide the dough as desired (1 managed 4 very thin crust round pizzas, but you could divide it less for a thicker crust) and shape into rounds. I just put some oil on the pizza pan and used my fingers as a kind of rolling pin to stretch the dough out over it, but I could have just pulled out the rolling pin. Make sure to put some oil or cornmeal or something on your pizza pan to prevent sticking.
9. PREBAKE THE CRUST! Before you add toppings, put the crust into the oven on its own and bake for 5 minutes.. this helps to ensure the crust bakes evenly and doesn't get too soggy with toppings!
10. Pull the crust out of the oven and spread pizza sauce over top then add desired toppings. Bake another 10 minutes (or more if your crust is thicker), until the cheese is browned.

Tomato Pizza Sauce

This recipe came with our Cuisinart Food Processor and it is super tasty, especially if made with fresh oregano! We had a bit of a pepper and salt incident and had to triple the batch so we froze several small containers full... it might be a good idea to make a lot of this in the summer with nice fresh ingredients and freeze it to have on hand later.

Ingredients

• 2 large tomatoes, peeled, seeded and quartered
• 1 cup passata (crushed tomatoes)
• 1/4 cup tomato paste
• 3/4 tsp dried oregano or 1.5 tsp fresh oregano (best)
• 3/4 tsp dried basil or 1.5 tsp fresh
• 1 tsp sugar
• pinch of salt (they recommend kosher)
• freshly ground black pepper (to taste - not a teaspoon-full!)

Method

If using a food processor, proceed as follows. If not, adjust accordingly.

1. Add the fresh tomatoes to the food processor with the regular blade and pulse until coarsely chopped, about 6 times.
2. Add the rest of the ingredients and pulse 4 times to mix.

Topping Suggestions

Given that we are a pork-free household and we love pineapple, we generally stick with pineapple-mushroom-mozzarella as our favourite topping combo. The trick with mushrooms is to fry them up first with some butter, salt, pepper, and a splash of red wine so that they are extra-tasty and contain less moisture. It is great if you also fry up your pineapple to caramelize it a little bit.

Spinach-orange-almond Salad

Another Simple Salad that's mighty tasty! Quantities for the dressing ingredients are entirely made up here and may be off. Basically, it's a little more olive oil than balsamic vinegar and the rest can be adjusted to taste.

Ingredients

Salad

• spinach (1/2 - 1 bunch)
• orange (1 large navel or a few clementines)
• toasted almonds (I would use slivered if I had, but whole ones cut into chunks work too). 

Dressing

• ~ 1-2 tbs balsamic vinegar
• ~ 2-3 tbs olive oil
• 1/4 tsp of sesame oil (a few drops for flavouring)
• 1/4 tsp maple syrup or sugar (just a little sweetening is nice)
• salt
• pepper

Method

1. chop and toast the almonds in a dry frying pan - don't burn! set aside to cool.
2. wash the spinach and cut or tear into desired-size pieces - place in a large bowl
3. peel and divide the orange(s) into skafies and cut into bite-sized pieces (or if you prefer, cut off peels and slice into pieces instead). add to the spinach.
4. mix dressing ingredients together and shake well
5. toss the spinach and orange with the dressing then top with the toasted nuts