Pizza...doh!

I made the most AWESOME pizza yesterday. (Honestly, sometimes I impress even myself...hehe) I believe that my recipe is now ready for publishing! Wash your hands, take off your rings, roll up your sleeves and grab an apron as this can be a messy one!

1. Mix 1 cup of warm water, 1 tbs of active dry yeast and 1 tbs sugar. Let stand for about 5-10 minutes while you prepare your flour mixture. It will start to foam and look pretty unappetizing, but this is what you want to happen.

2. In a large bowl, combine: 3 cups of all-purpose flour, 1 tsp salt and some spices (e.g. oregano, thyme, sage, pepper, garlic seasoning?). Mix this this up with your fingers.

3. Add two tablespoons of oil (canola, veggie or olive) to your yeast liquid, and pour the whole thing into your flour mixture. With your hands, combine the wet with the dry until it forms a ball.

4. Flour your countertop and knead your dough for 8 minutes. Kneading is really fun and a pretty good workout. Just grab a corner of the dough with one hand and press down with the heel of your hand into the middle of the ball. Do the same with your other hand. Repeat until the 8 minutes is up or until you have a nice evenly blended elasticky ball.

5. Rinse and dry out your bowl. Drizzle about at tbs of oil in the bottom of the bowl. Drop your ball of dough into the bowl and turn it around in the oil to coat it. Drag it up onto the sides of the bowl too so they get greased too.

6. Cover with a towel and let rise for about 30-60 minutes. The dough should double in size. While the dough is rising, now would be a good time to prepare your pizza toppings.

7. Preheat the oven to 375 deg F.

8. Punch the dough down and transfer your dough onto a floured surface. With the palm of your hand flatten out the dough to about 1 inch thick. Dust the top with flour, flip and flatten some more. Transfer dough to greased jelly roll pan. Work it so that you have an even layer of dough on the bottom of the pan.

9. Top as desired and bake fore 20-25 minutes or until crust is golden brown. Let it cool before slicing and eating!

(Note: My pizza was topped with chopped spinach, sauteed portabello mushroom, onion, garlic and red bell pepper, and mozzarella cheese. OMG. Sooooo good...)