Happy Friday everyone!
Today was such a relaxing and beautiful day! I bummed around in the morning and watched my latest TV series obsession: Avatar: The Last Airbender. This was an extremely popular animated series that played on Nickelodeon when I was in high school, but sadly, I didn’t have extended cable, so I totally missed out. 😦 This is pretty crazy, but I started watching last night and now I’m on episode 14 out of 20 of the first season! When something is so captivating and interesting to watch, it’s hard to stop hahaha. Better now then later since in a few days, Fall quarter is going to start and that will be a whirlwind of busy-ness = not as much time to watch.
Aang is so cute!
After a few more episodes, my friend came over to make pizza! Both of us have never made pizza from scratch before and we’re both terrified of working with yeast! We had a tough experience trying making Chinese BBQ pork buns a while ago by ourselves and it didn’t turn out too well…it became rock hard!
We wanted to try making this as a test try for my friend’s Farm-To-School event where her team will be educating children and locals about where their actually food comes from and how everyday favorites like pizza are made everyday! Pizza doesn’t just magically appear and are ready made for us as some little ones may think hahaha.
Anyway, throughout the process we were pretty anxious on how the dough would turn out. The dough took a while to get smooth and elastic and we had to add a good amount of flour to get it not so sticky and slime-like. We even watched a video on how a real pro make the dough…the person made it look so easy! We then allowed the dough rise by the window, by the sun, for about 30 minutes and it doubled in size! It’s so cool cuz usually I read that people usually stick it in a heated oven for in an oven with hot water underneath when letting it rise.
Then we punched the dough down to release the air bubbles and allowed it to rise for another 15 minutes. The we split the dough in half and each got to make our own pizza.
We proceeded to roll out the dough. Now this was quite a challenged. It took me a few tries to roll and press it out. I kept getting holes in the dough because I couldn’t get the dough rolled out evenly! Finally, after the dough was rolled out, we decorated the pizza with the toppings. We made a basic vegetarian pizza with simple ingredients (we were too lazy and cheap to get some meat :P). The basil was an excellent touch – so fresh and aromatic!
learned how to chop basil from Gordon Ramsay by watching him on youtube 🙂 – roll ’em up and chop away!
my work of art
My friend got extra fancy and decided to stuff her crust with tomato sauce and cheese! Genius! She told me that in Korea, some people actually stuff their crust with sweet potato and cheese! Yummm, that sounds mouthwatering. I love sweet potato!
My friend’s work of art
Then we decided to brush our ring of crust with some olive oil seasoned with oregano to give it a nice golden color and flavor.
After baking for 15 minutes, it came out, to our surprise, absolutely delicious! The crust was actually soft, like a real pizza! Well, actually my friend’s pizza was the soft one since it was on the top rack while mine was on the bottom, so mine came out pretty toasty and crunchy. That’s totally fine because I love a good crunch. 🙂
nomnomnom!
We were extremely proud of our 2.5 hours of hard work was rewarding results.It was only logical that we celebrate by digging in and watching some more Avatar. 😀
Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!
Homemade Vegetarian Pizza
Dough:
- 3 1/2 cup all purpose flour + more for kneading
- 1 1/2 cup warm water ((100-110˚F)
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 2 tablespoons olive oil with 1 tsp oregano
Toppings: shredded mozzarella cheese, tomato sauce, fresh chopped basil, sliced roma tomatoes, mushrooms (I also sprinkled some oregano and crush red pepper on top for even more flavor)
Directions
- Combine flour, yeast, and salt in a large bowl.
- Make a well in the center and pour in the warm water. Mix until dough forms. Knead the dough on a floured surface with floured hands until the dough becomes smooth and elastic.
- Put the dough back in the bowl, cover with a damp towel, and let the dough rise for 30 minutes in a warm place to double in size (some people preheat the oven and then turn it off to put in a heated oven or put in an oven with hot water on the lower rack).
- After dough rises, punch the dough a few times to release air bubbles. Cover and let rise for another 15 minutes in a warm area.
- Preheat your oven to 450 degrees.
- Using a floured rolling pin, roll out your dough on a floured surface until your desired shape is made.
- Add your toppings and brush the crust with olive oil and bake for about 15 minutes.
- Let cool for a few minutes and dig in!