February 15, 2011

FIVE INGREDIENTS OR LESS: Pizza Dough!

Posted by Ethne~

I really love to use my Cuisinart food processor.  It got LOADS of use making baby food and in the summer I make homemade roasted tomato sauce with FREE tomatoes from Thrifty Nana’s garden.  I make steamed cauliflower ‘mashed potatoes’; and I shred my own cheese in it.  So when I got this pizza dough recipe from a friend, it was a match made in heaven.

I love you Cuisinart!

This recipe couldn’t be easier, and takes literally less than 5 minutes, most of which is taking the 5 ingredients out of the cupboard and washing the processor bowl and blade when you’re done.

The FIVE ingredients you’ll need:

1 tsp. yeast
2 tsp. salt
3 cups flour (I sometimes use part whole wheat flour to get more of that into our diet)
1 cup water
2 tablespoons olive oil (canola would work too)

Optional ingredients:  I often add extra herbs or spices to the dough such as red pepper flakes, rosemary, oregano or basil.  Gourmet!!

Five ingredients: does water count as #5?

SUPER EASY Instructions:

Have all of the ingredients measured out before you begin.

Put the dough blade in your food processor.  Add the yeast, salt and flour, and pulse for a second or two to mix them together (this is the time to add your herbs too).  Turn on the processor and add through the feed tube – in a stream – the water and olive oil.


Add some heat - red pepper flakes

The dough will be crumbly bits for a short time.

Crumble time

Very quickly the dough will form a solid ball.  When it does this, turn the machine off. 

Ball o' dough

Take the ball out, place it on a lightly floured surface and knead a few times.  I cut the dough in half since we like thin crust pizza.  If you like thick crust, leave it whole.  Since each dough batch takes less than a minute to make, I make 2-4 batches at a time.  Cut in half, that yields 4-8 dough balls – each of those is a meal for my family!

Easy Mac 'n' Easy Pizza Dough

TO FREEZE:  I wrap each dough ball in wax paper or plastic wrap and put in the freezer.  Once the balls are frozen, I put them all together in a large Ziploc bag to prevent freezer burn, then use as needed.

4 ready to freeze - 1 ready to bake

TO BAKE:

A) FRESH: Grease a bowl with olive oil, canola oil, or cooking spray (Misto!).  Put the dough ball in the bowl and cover with a damp cloth.  Let rise (1-2 hours) or cut rising time in short if in a hurry.  There is no secret to whether it needs to rise or not.  I often use the dough right out of the food processor and it works and tastes great.

B) FROZEN: Take the dough ball out of the freezer, put in the greased bowl (as above), and cover with a damp cloth.  Allow to thaw for several hours and it will be ready to use.  I often do this in the morning before I leave for work and by the time I get home, the dough will be ready to use.  There are no dairy products in the dough, so sitting out during the workday will not hurt anything.

Of course, if you have any allergy concerns, check with your doctor first.

ALTERNATIVES:  If you do not have a food processor, you can check online at sites like foodnetwork.com and allrecipes.com for pizza dough recipes.  If you have a bread machine, you can make dough in there too, though the dough will take longer to make.

THRIFTY BREAKDOWN:  Each pizza crust is super cheap.  3 cups of flour cost less than $1.00, likely much less than that; 1 tsp. of yeast is probably $0.10; 2 T. of olive oil are probably around $0.20; the salt and water are virtually free because you already have those in the house.  At the most one crust will cost you $1.50, or even less!

Scrum-diddly-umptious!


3 comments:

Unknown said...

Yum, this looks good
I enjoy the thrifty breakdown of the cost too.
keep it up.

Species 8472 said...

I've made this pizza dough several times now. It's far more practical than many fancier recipes - and just as delicious! The only other things I do is use lukewarm water and drizzle olive oil on the crust before baking. Thanks for this.

WOM-MOMS said...

I'm glad you like the dough! It's so easy I usually make several batches at a time to have lots on hand in the freezer - thanks for letting me know it's working for you! ~E