Pizza

Okay, so maybe it's not so healthy. But it is homemade, yummy, and the whole wheat crust and veggies have gotta count for something, right? I love pizza. It's pretty much the perfect food as far as I'm concerned. And I don't mean delicate thin-crust with a sparse paucity of fromage. I mean chewy gooey cheesy substantial pizza. Here's how to make it:

Margaret's Pizza
Time: 1 1/2 hours from start to finish. A lot of that is idle time, though, while the dough is rising. It actually only takes about 10 minutes to make the dough.
I do this with a cuisinart (with dough setting). You could use the same recipe with a variety of machines, I imagine, but I think it would be difficult to make by hand because the dough you want is so sticky, it would be difficult to work with. You could try, though, and let me know how it turns out!

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups hot water
• 1/2 tsp sugar
• 1/2 tsp honey
• 2 1/4 tsp baking yeast
• 1 cup unbleached white flour
• 2 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
• 1 1/2 tsp flaked kosher salt (less if you're using regular salt)
• 1 tsp or so of olive oil
• Toppings (see below)

Method

1. Dissolve sugar and honey in hot tap water (not super-hot, just hotter than warm), and stir in yeast. Set aside to proof for a few minutes while you prepare other things.
2. Put the dough blade in the cuisinart, and add the flours, salt, and half of the olive oil. Pulse process to mix and distribute.
3. Your yeast water should be frothy on top by now. If not, leave it a minute or two more. If it doesn't wake up either (a) your yeast is dead, (b) your water isn't hot enough, or (c) your water is too hot. Either way, go back to step one and do it again until you have some frothy happy yeast water.
4. With the machine running (on dough speed), pour the yeast mixture into the flour mixture in a continuous stream, as fast as it will absorb it until it forms into a ball and cleans the sides. If you hear sloshing around the bottom, stop pouring and let it absorb, and if that doesn't work, stop the whole machine and mix it in by hand. Depending on the humidity and how dry your flour is, you might need more or less water, but I usually use it all. You want to make a very sticky dough, ultimately.
5. Once the dough has balled up and cleans the sides, continue processing for 45 seconds to knead.
6. Get a large bowl out, and pour the remaining olive oil in the bottom. Turn out the dough, shape into a ball, and place in the bowl turning to coat the dough ball with oil. Cover with a damp warm dish towel and leave in a warm place to rise. Alternatively, you could put it in a sealed plastic bag (with plenty of room for it to expand of course). 
7. Let rise for 45 minutes to an hour, depending on the temperature of your kitchen, etc., until it has doubled in bulk. Meanwhile, prepare your toppings.
8. Preheat your oven to 500 F (seriously). Oh, and turn on your fan - your smoke alarm is probably going to go off at some point, especially if, like me, you never clean your oven. You want to allow a good 10-15 minutes for your oven to preheat before the pizzas actually go in.
9. Punch down the dough, and cut in half (for two medium thick crust pizzas). Let rest for a few minutes for the glutens to relax.
10. Shape the dough by patting, pulling, stretching, beating, and occasionally resting into pizza bases. Bear in mind that when you work the dough, it gets tougher, when you let it rest, it relaxes - you need to work with it like a personal trainer to get it to that perfect elasticity that will mean perfect chewiness later.
11. Lay out on baking sheets, and pierce with a fork all over
12. Top however you like (see below for suggestions)
13. Bake until done (cheese bubbly and browning, crust browned), watching closely and rotating when needed, particularly if you have more than one in there, about 10 minutes. Watch your face when opening the oven!
14. Let cool for 3-4 minutes or so before you cut it - this will prevent the toppings from sticking to the knife and sliding off.
15. Enjoy!

My Topping Suggestions

• Sauces
• Tomato Sauce (from a jar) - spread over prepared dough
• Pesto - splattered around here and there on top of tomato sauce, or thinned out with olive oil on its own
• Tomato Paste Mixed with Pesto - this is my Mom's idea, and it is really good. It's thick and a bit sweet, which works really well with the large amounts of spinach she throws on - yummy stuff.
• Aromatics
• Garlic - minced finely and spread through the sauce (sometimes I just stir it into the sauce before I start)
• Herbs - dried or fresh
• Caramelized Onions - or raw, if you like them that way. 
• Veggies
• Bell Pepper - red, yellow, whatever, diced - if I have no fresh peppers, I sometimes use roasted, but there's usually a pepper of some sort involved.
• Broccoli Florettes - my favourite pizza topping, chop up and blanch beforehand, rinse in cold water to keep the colour.
• Mushrooms
• Artichoke Hearts - canned, rinsed, chopped up a bit.
• Spicy Eggplant - the pickled stuff, chopped up a bit - yummy
• Spinach - fresh baby spinach can be heaped up on top, and then weighed down with cheese - it'll collapse as it wilts and the cheese melts. 
• Meat
• You know what to do here.
• Ian puts Italian sausage on his along with all the veggies, pre-cooked (otherwise it gets too greasy).
• Cheese
• Mozzarella, grated. Lots.
• You could mix in other cheeses, they're all good, but mozza really is king where pizza is concerned. Monterey Jack can sub in for mozzarella effectively, and blends well. Cheddar can bring some tang to a blend, but gets too greasy and not soft enough on its own. Parmesan, romano, asiago, any hard cheese, really, will up the flavour ante, but you're still going to want a good melting base.
• Seriously, you need more cheese on there.

Banana Oatmeal Muffins

I adapted this from a recipe I found at www.recipezaar.com, which is a site with a great "recipe sifter" engine, although the quality of the recipes varies a lot. I've changed this one a lot though - for instance, it wasn't muffins before, it was a flat bake. I suppose they are technically not muffins now, since they don't have any flour in them, and don't rise up much, but they're muffin-like. Anyway, they are a yummy breakfast, and are easy, quick, and reasonably nutritious - a big hit around here.

You can make these with over-ripe bananas, and what I do is toss any bananas that are getting brown into the freezer, where they hang around until I thaw them for banana bread, or these tasty muffins, etc. They turn dark brown, but they taste just fine.

Ingredients

• 1 large egg, beaten
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 1/3 cup brown sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 or 2 mashed bananas
• 2 cups quick oats
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 3/4 cup milk

Method

1. Preheat oven to 350 F
2. Spray a 12-muffin tin with cooking spray, or grease
3. Mix together oil, brown sugar, beaten egg, vanilla, with a fork
4. Mash in bananas - lumps are not a problem
5. Add oats, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and milk, and mix well
6. Pour into prepared pan
7. Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until they are pulling away from the sides of the tins.
8. Munch on a couple for breakfast, perhaps with a piece of cheese or two. Leftovers, if you have any, should freeze well (am testing this theory with today's leftovers).

I'm thinking about trying these with chopped apples instead of bananas next time. The original recipe had raisins. I bet you could use any kind of fruit, really, but just watch the cooking time, as it may vary a bit depending on the moisture content.