Louanne's Kitchen: Lazy day pizza

Sunday, March 21, 2010

Lazy day pizza

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Sunday dinners around here range from the elaborate to sandwiches on paper plates. Today's dinner is more toward the sandwich end of the spectrum. Our Sunday morning was incredibly laid back to the point that I didn't venture out to the grocery until 11:30, which meant I wasn't home until nearly 1:00. I fully expected to be greeted by the starving masses, but was pleasantly surprised. No demands for food, no whining. Nice. The plan was to make fried chicken and mashed potatoes, but I like to marinate the chicken for at least 6 hours. If I went ahead with the fried chicken menu, we'd be eating at 8:00 pm. What to do? I remembered reading a no-knead pizza dough recipe in the King Arthur Baker's Companion and figured, why not? The recipe is incredibly easy even if you're not a yeast bread aficionado, and the end result is tasty. It's not your regular thick-crust pizza; the texture was more like focaccia. Still, it's good, simple, and perfect for lazy days.

No-knead Deep-dish Pizza
3 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 cups lukewarm water
2 tablespoons instant yeast
2 tablespoons olive oil
Pizza sauce
Toppings
Cheese of choice

Grease a 13x9 baking pan, and set aside.
In a medium bowl, combine all ingredients and mix. The dough will be wet, sticky, and soft. Cover with plastic wrap and a kitchen towel. Let the dough rise for 30 minutes.
Remove dough from bowl and place into prepared pan. Cover and allow to rest for 15 minutes, then pat out dough to fit the pan. Cover and let rise again for 30 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Spread the pizza sauce on the dough and bake for 15 minutes. Remove from oven and add desired toppings. I used a mixture of mozzarella, colby, and parmesan cheese. Return to oven and bake for another 10 minutes. Allow to cool before cutting into squares. Printer-friendly recipe
Enjoy - my guys certainly did!