A beast among mothers

YOU GUYS. This past weekend it felt like full-on summer. 80 degrees! Sun! Pool! Thinking-I-should-turn-on-the-dang-air-conditioner-but-sweating-it-out-instead!

I’m feeling like a beast among women for all the stuff I tackled. Our weekend started off with running the Maple Grove Half Marathon. Beautiful course, but holy hills. My mantra for the 13.1 miles became “I EAT HILLS FOR BREAKFAST!”

Whatever works, I tell ya.

Then the rest of Saturday and essentially all day Sunday was spent in the yard digging up our landscaping. The goal is to eventually get a fence and instead of having unkempt rose bushes, have unkempt raspberry bushes. Undigging roots and ripping them up is a bear of a task and I’m proud of everything I accomplished (ok, with some help from the husband).

Our reward was a tasty meal of grilled pizza while the kiddos played in the pool.

Grilled pizza is one of those things that seems intimidating, especially the dough. Anything that involves yeast makes me nervous. Do I have to knead for exactly five minutes? How do I know if I’m kneading hard enough? WHAT IF IT DOESN’T RISE?

Here’s what’s become my foolproof recipe. I let the Kitchen Aid dough hook do the work, but you could also easily make this by hand.

Pizza Dough

3 ½ cups flour (I like a combo of half bread flour, half whole wheat flour. Bread flour yields a crispier crust, but I like to add the whole grain component of whole wheat flour as well)

1 teaspoon white sugar

1 envelope (1 ¼ tsp) instant dry yeast/active dry yeast

2 teaspoons salt

1 ½ cups water, 110 degrees F

2 tablespoons olive oil, plus 1 teaspoon

Measure out your hot water using a Pyrex. I just let my faucet water run hot, then add it- using an instant thermometer lets me gauge when it gets close to 110. Then I stir in the sugar, then sprinkle the yeast on top and let sit for five minutes.

Meanwhile in a large bowl, stir together flour and salt. If you have a stand mixer with a dough hook attachment, use that. If not, a wooden spoon and muscle power will be fine. After yeast-water has sat for the five minutes, stir it in to the flour along with the olive oil.

Stir until well combined and it’s formed a sticky doughy ball. At this point you could wrap tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate for up to a week. When you’re ready, resume with below.

In a separate large bowl, smear remaining 1 teaspoon olive oil. We don’t want the dough to stick to the bowl as it rises. Place the dough in the oiled bowl and turn around until it’s nicely coated with the oil. Cover the top tightly with plastic wrap and let sit in a warm place to rise, at least an hour. Hint- it was a warm day in our kitchen to mine was pretty well risen after just 45 min. In winter months I’ll turn my oven to 200 degrees for a few minutes, then turn off, and put the dough in the warmed oven to rise.

Dough is ready once it’s doubled in size. Spread some extra flour on your countertop. Cut dough in half. Roll out each half using a rolling pin- I tried to get mine as thin as possible, but go for whatever thickness you like. You can go circle-ish or rectangle-ish. Because our pizza was going on the grill, I spread some cornmeal on our baking sheets so we could easily slide the pizzas from the pan onto the grill. If you’re baking in the oven, you could omit the cornmeal.

Top with sauce and your favorite cheese and toppings combo. I love fresh grated mozzarella and fontina. Get creative with it.

Looking forward to seeing more of you real soon, summer.