Easy home baked pizza

This was an absolute winner  and completely my kind of a homemade pizza.

This is not at all difficult to make and has endless variations to it.

Pizza is a simple, delicious, global  delight.  There are so many pizza dough recipes one may choose from. I have a very simple pizza dough recipe that is according to  1 Base, 100 Pizzas by Rachel Carter  and one can  never go wrong with it. Pardon me, but I have done some alteration.This has been tested several times and is my favourite. 

Basic Pizza Dough

Makes two x 26cm/10 1/2 - inch round pizzas: or
four x 19-cm/7 1/2- inch pizzas; or
one x 38 x 26-cm/ 15 x 10 1/2 - inch rectangular pizza



300g strong flour white flour, plus extra for dusting

1 teaspoon easy-blend dried yeast

1 teaspoon salt (instead of 1 and 1/2 teaspoon)

175ml hand-hot water

1 tablespoon olive oil, plus extra for kneading



Method:

1.  Sift the flour into a mixing bowl and add the yeast and salt, making a small well on the top.  Mix the water and oil together and pour into the bowl, using a round-bladed knife to gradually combine all the flour to make a sticky dough.

2.  Lightly flour the work surface and your hands and knead the dough for about 10 minutes, until it has doubled in size.

3.  Cover the dough with some lightly oiled cling wrap or a damp tea towel and leave to rise for about an hour, or until it has doubled in size.

4.  Knock back the dough by gently kneading for about a minute, then divide  them into portions of any size you would like. To roll out the dough, flatten each portion and then using a rolling pin roll out on a lightly floured work surface. Roll the dough to the size and shape you want. [I have skipped this> giving a quarter turn between each roll]

5.  Preheat the oven to 220 Celsius.  Place the pizza bases on the baking trays, using the rolling pin to transfer them from the work surface.

For the toppings:

200g ready-prepared tomato pizza sauce

A handful of capsicum(ball peppers) , tomatoes, onion, squash, mushroom and pineapple 

50ml olive oil
1 tablespoon dried oregano
salt and pepper
200g grated mozzarella cheese

Method:

1.  Set oven to grill, and get the vegetables ready.
2.  Wash, dry, peel and cut the vegetables into slightly larger pieces.  Put all the vegetables in a big bowl, add the olive oil and the oregano; and toss well.
3.  On a baking tray lined with baking paper, pour the vegetables' mixture and place the plate about 10- 15 cm below oven grill until the vegetables are tender and have taken color for about 5 - 10 minutes and remove the plate and set aside.
4. Turn the oven to the maximum heat and bake the crust around 10 minutes, remove the pizza crust from the oven.  Cover the crust totally with pizza sauce, then spread the cheese and vegetables. Sprinkle with oregano, salt and pepper.
5.  Bake again in the maximum heat for another 5-10 minutes, until the cheese has melted.  Serve (almost) immediately. 

As if I am in the Mediterranean ...I can smell and taste it even as I am writing this..uhmmmm!
Bon Appetite!!




*PS.

The amount of toppings for your pizza would depend on the size of the pizza. If you think you have too much of your toppings prepared I would suggest you to keep and refrigerate the rest in an air tight container*.

This is a vegetarian pizza and the only outline of the toppings for any pizza. You can add your favourite toppings with a not too thick layer of your favourite shredded cheese, mushroom, red onion, tomato, capsicum, bacon, aubergine, sweet potato, potato etc and finally garnish with freshly grated parmesan if you wish. You do the same with meat pizza.

Spread only a thin layer of your favourite topping on your pizza. The thicker the layer, the longer the time it takes to be baked or else  the top is cooked but the bottom of the dough is still not baked.  It is quite natural  that not everyone would follow what is suggested in the recipe, we want to add more toppings, don't we? You see, I had a  bad experience with  pizza during my culinary study at TAFE in Sydney. What I did was the opposite. I barely scraped through my exam!