Pizza from the pantry

We couldn’t quite decide what to have for dinner tonight, but we all wanted something easy, simple, and familiar. Pizza fit the criteria.

Okay, the next question was whether or not we had the ingredients:

Mozza – yup, in the fridge. Pizza sauce – yup, leftover spaghetti sauce and leftover tomato paste mixed together would do. Mushrooms – yup, canned, in the pantry. Green and red peppers – yup, dehydrated, also in the pantry. Just soak in water while the dough rises, and they’re good to go. Sausage – yup, in the freezer. Pizza dough – easy.

Wait – pizza dough is easy? You bet.

I use the breadmaker all the time to mix up bread dough – I can do it by hand, but I like using the machine when I’m busy doing other things, which is always. All you need to do is make regular bread dough, with a more generous-than-usual shot of olive oil, and add some spices. Our bread recipe looks like this:

• 1 cup of water
• 3 cups of flour
• a shot of sugar
• a few sprinkles of salt
• half a lidful of yeast (trial and error has shown this to be the correct measurement – and using the lid from the yeast jar to measure with is terrifically convenient)
• a generous shot of olive oil (round and round the breadmaker container about 3 or 4 times)

That’s it. Put it on the dough setting and let it do it’s thing. If you forget it in there (yeah, it happens) and it’s too puffy when you finally do remember, just restart the dough cycle and let the machine knead it just a wee bit more before you take it out.

For pizza dough, we added Greek seasoning, garlic powder and oregano.

Once the dough cycle is done, take the ball of dough out and cut it in half. Use the rolling pin to shape the dough to fit your pan (we use a rectangular pan, so we make rectangular pizza), top with tomato sauce and your toppings. Shape the remaining half into bread sticks and pop the two pans into the oven at 500 degrees for about 12 minutes.

Voila – dinner!