You need an easy Homemade Pizza Dough recipe in your life! Something that is quick and low maintenance so you can crank out pies on a whim. For real! If you’ve been ordering pizza out our purchasing store bought dough you are missing the simplicity of pizza being a house staple. I like to think of pizza as a catch-all. It’s one of those last minute concoctions that can be quickly thrown together. Yeah, yeah yeah… dough has to rise but the truth is, the dough is typically good to go by the time you are finished prepping all your other ingredients. Just start the dough first. I’ll also remind you that pizza is a “flat bread” meaning, if you screw it up and the dough doesn’t rise, it’s not a problem. Thin crust is still good crust! and this is not up for debate!

Anyway, the need for this dough recipe is not for banging out pies. It’s for managing food going bad in your fridge! I think just abut any ingredient can be turned into a pizza topping and honestly that’s were your culinary creativity will truly shine. If you don’t believe me, throw a random ingredient in the comments and I will get back to you with how I’d work it into a pie. Pizzas can go beyond that of tomato sauce and mozzarella. Gawd, half the time, I’m out of those things entirely. But never out of pizza. Ever! Below is a spinach, artichoke, Alfredo pizza with Parmesan and the other is a breakfast version with bacon, eggs and cheese. There are so many options. Just get down with making your own crust!

Pizza Crust Recipe

Ingredients:

3 cups flour
2 tsp yeast (rapid rise and dry active are both fine)
1 1/2 tsp sugar
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups warm water
1 tbsp oil

Directions:

In a large mixing bowl add all the dry ingredients and combine.
Add the warm water and oil and start mixing.
Mix until the dough starts to come together and pull away from the bowl and then dump out onto a lightly floured surface.
Knead the dough until it comes together and forms a ball.
Continue to knead for about 10 minutes until the ingredients are well combined.
At this point you can either divide the dough into two balls for 14 inch pies or split into 4 dough ball and make personal pies.
Grease a sheet tray and place your dough balls on it. Lightly oil them with a thin coat then cover and let rest for 30 minutes to an hour or until doubled in size.
Once doubled it's pizza time! If baking on a sheet tray, oil it and then plop your dough ball onto it and gently stretch towards the edges. If using a pizza pan/screen you can either lightly toss the dough if you have them skills or flour the counter and roll it with a rolling pin. Then transfer the dough onto the pan.(Do not roll the dough out on a pizza screen. This will cause it to stick to the screen when baking. (If either technique has the dough springing back on you, refusing to hold the stretch, pause, let it rest for 10 minutes, and then come back and continue the process.)
Once your dough is in place, go about adding your sauce, cheese and toppings.
Bake at 550F degrees (or the highest temperature your oven will allow)on the top rack for 10 to 15 minutes keeping an eye on the cheese for browning.
Remove after baking and let cool slightly before slicing.

For real! If you don’t know how to use an ingredient, drop it in the comments and I’ll give you a pizza “flavor profile”. Building unique pizzas is my jam! I love the basics, but I also all love the non-traditionals…

Happy pizza making!

I made this Thai Red Curry Poutine a few weeks back sparking lots of interest in a recipe. I was kinda making it up as I went, throwing stuff together somewhat haphazardly. At the time I was only thinking about how best to stuff my face with some left-over french fries that were hanging in my fridge so my how-to specifics here are a bit vague. When I posted this on social medial many of you asked about a recipe so I thought I should try and write one out. Granted, I'm going off memory here so measurements might be a bit wonky but more importantly, this is the type of dish you can gauge more on appearance. If the gravy is too thick, add more coconut milk. If it's looking too soupy, let it simmer down. This gorge-fest is a far cry from rocket science. You can wing it. Have faith!

Ingredients

Some left-over french fries or baked potato
1 can coconut milk
1/2 ground meat (beef, pork, or chicken...)
2 thinly sliced green onions (keeping the whites and greens seperated)
2 cloves minced garlic
1 TBSP minced ginger
1+ TBSP Thai Red Curry Paste (or more if necessary for taste)
1/3 cup shredded, mild white cheese like Mozzarella or Provolone
1/4 cup fresh cilantro
dollop of plain yogurt or sour cream
lime wedge

Directions

Reheat your french fries on a baking sheet in 350 degree oven
In a pan sauté the white parts of the green onions with the red curry paste.
Add the ground meat, minced garlic, and ginger cooking it all together. (I used ground pork but you can use whatever.)
Once the meat is kinda cooked and broken up, stir in 1/2ish the can of coconut milk and simmer lightly. You want to cook it down so it thickens into a "gravy". Add more or less coconut milk if necessary. You can also add more curry paste if you need to.
After heating your fries (or baked potato?) top with the "gravy" and the cheese and melt it in the oven.
After heating it up, remove from the oven and add the green onion tops,fresh cilantro, dollop of sour cream (or yogurt) and then squeeze with fresh lime.

If I had any sense about me I would have topped this all off with some runny-yolked egg and called it breakfast but you know... Still good! And for anyone in need of council, I'm here for you. Like I said, my measurement are roughly a guess at good estimates so let me know how it goes if you make this, which you should probably plan to do ASAP. Enjoy!