Crust Mix Part 1 Dry
Large tupperware bowl.
2 Cups 00 Flour or King Arthur’s Bread Flour
1 Tbsp rapid rise yeast
1 Tbsp Himalayan pink salt
stir dry ingredients
Crust Mix Part 2 Wet
¾ cup warm water
½ tsp sugar
Stir yeast into warm water. Add ½ t sugar, let sit for a minute
Pour wet yeast mixture into flour.
Stir with fork, scraping edges of bowl, moving the mixture towards the center. Keep it loose and fluffy. Don’t use an electric mixer. Keep stirring the dry pieces into the mixture until all the loose flour is incorporated and you have a moist ball of dough. Then start mooshing the ball with the heel of your hand, flip, moosh, flip, moosh until you have a consistent solid ball.
Cover with a rag… Ideally you let this sit for an hour or a couple of hours…
But if time and hunger are factors you can move directly onto the next steps.
Preheat oven to 450º
Clear a dry space out on your counter… give yourself some room to work. 20″x20″
Spread a layer of cornmeal on counter. about 1/4 cup.
Place dough on cornmeal and begin to flatten, flip, mush, and widen. Try to keep it even. (if it does tear, you can patch the tear with a little piece of dough from the edge). (Some people use a roller but I think they turn out better using the finger style mush and spread method. Mush the ball out gradually until you get at least 14″ diameter.
Transfer your dough to the pan you will be using to cook it with.
We use a pizza screen that an old friend gave us (he used to work at Domino’s) to get a crisper crust.
Pizza screen or pan… definitely want to have a lot of holes in the bottom of your pan.
Spray the top of the crust with olive oil spray and transfer to the oven and pre-cook for 10 minutes. It should be just a little brown but this precooking of the dough works really well to get a crispy crust.
Toppings Mix
1 Fresh Mozzarella cheeseball (slice it up)
3 tomatoes sliced thin (heirloom )
1 or 2 cups chopped mushrooms shitake and/or baby bellas
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 teaspoons Himalayan salt
1 cup chopped sautéed spinach is also a great addition.
Throw this mix into a bowl and smoosh it all together with your hands.
Cheese, tomatoes, mushrooms, spinach, salt, oil, Oh yeah… mix it up.
Remove from the oven and evenly place your toppings mixture onto the dough.
Cover the whole dough surface. Spread it around so the edges get a coating of the yummy oil/tomatoe juices.
Put it back in the oven for 11 minutes.
Remove from oven, cut it up.
Johnny’s special secret ingredient is white pepper. Sprinkle it on top after you take it out of the oven.
Superstitions and Pizza
In 2021 we made a lot of homemade pizzas.
I could probably come up with a pretty accurate number by looking at the 2020-2021 Colorado Avalanche hockey schedule but there was a definite connection between making a homemade pizza and the Avalanche winning their game.
Yup, all the training, practice, and play on the ice was part of it but the games were ultimately decided in our kitchen in Arizona. When we made pizza, they would win. When we got lazy and didn’t make pizza… LOSS
So the message is “DON’T BE LAZY, MAKE PIZZA”