Monday, January 2, 2012

Whole Wheat Pizza Crust Experiment

One of our go-to meals on busy weeknight is pizza.  Stretch store bought pizza dough, add toppings and make a salad while the pizza is baking.  Perfect. 

My grocery store carries a couple of varieties of wheat pizza crust.  The first ingredient of these items is typically enriched wheat flour.  From a whole food/whole grain perspective whole wheat flour wins every time.  Consider the following equations:

Enriched Wheat Flour = Iceberg Lettuce
100% Whole Wheat Flour = Spinach  
 
As often is the case, I get over my annoyance by finding my own recipe.  To get around the time factor I make additional quantities to freeze.  The perfect version will take some trial and error but here is the one I made tonight.

Wyatt modeling the honey and beer

Whole Wheat Beer Pizza Crust

1 package active dry yeast
1 cup warmed beer (approximately 110 degrees)
2 cups whole wheat flour
1/4 cup wheat germ
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon honey
Directions: 
  1. Preheat oven to 350.
  2. In mixer, dissolve yeast in beer. Let stand until frothy, about 10 minutes.
  3. Add remaining ingredients and mix with the dough hook attachment on the mixer until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl.  Adjust flour as needed. 
  4. Cover and set in a warm place to rise for 10 minutes.
  5. Flatten dough with floured fingers on a floured pizza stone and poke holes in it with a fork.
  6. Bake in preheated oven for 10 minutes.               
  7. Add sauce, cheese and toppings and continue baking for another 10 minutes.
  8. Let stand for 5 minutes before cutting.


I doubled the recipe and wrapped half in plastic wrap and foil and tossed it in the freezer. Overall it came out well. Next time I will get the dough thinner under the toppings but this one wasn't bad. It was surprisingly filling and the beer flavor was awesome with the sausage and peppers.

A general note on the blog: I've updated the settings to allow anyone to make comments.  I'd love to hear your feedback and suggestions!

"Gello" Gelatine - sans Bill Cosby endorsement

The boys love Jello but the ingredients make me jiggle (pun intended) in my boots.  My boys may have a crunchy mom but hopefully we can discover homemade alternatives that don't leave them out of the party.

This recipe was discovered on the back of the Knox Gelatine box.  I modified it to remove the  tablespoon of sugar/honey as even that seemed unnecessary and changed the hot/cold juice ratios. 

"Gello"

2 packages unflavored gelatine
1 cup cold juice
1 cup juice, heated to boiling

  1. Sprinkle gelatine over cold juice in a large bowl and let it stand 1 minute. 
  2. Add hot juice and stir to dissolve gelatine completely, about 5 minutes.
  3. Pour into a 9x9 inch pan and refrigerate until firm, approximately 3 hours.  Cut into 1 inch squares.
Wyatt and Patrick accompanied me to Target today and all they wanted were canned peaches. Two cans of peaches seemed like a good trade off for 45 minutes of well behaved kids! Watch out as they are adding Splenda to the fruit now and marketing it as "No Sugar Added!" UGH! The remaining juice was leftover Martinelli's Sparkling Apple-Grape cider from New Year's Eve. My mom used seltzer in our Jello when we were kids so this works! The boys helped stir and are looking forward to enjoying their juice dessert tonight after dinner. Best news yet, I know exactly what's in it.