Posted by Loulou on Jan 26, 2016 | 12 comments

I play with my ball until the pizza or focaccia is ready, then mama calls me to taste it.  I tried to stir the dough once…oh, boy.

Well,  a reader loves bread and I suggested to her that she go to an old blog entitled Bread Winner and see how easy it is to make focaccia, real focaccia, not the pasty, awful stuff sold in bags that one often finds in markets.

The thing is, bread is very, very simple to make.  Mama and papa have pizza every Sunday night and mama makes the dough in a food processor (a small, inexpensive one, by the way, not one of those humongous things that takes up half the kitchen) in…let’s see…40 seconds?

Then she puts it in a plastic storage thing with a lid, twice as big as the ball of dough, and lets that rise to double.  If you make the dough about an hour before you want to make pizza, the dough will be ready to stretch out on the pizza pan (rectangular baking sheet, non-stick, preferably).

You oil your hands and stretch the dough, being careful not to make holes in it with your ring or fingers (but if you do, just patch it with a little piece of dough), and you stretch it to the edges of the pan, very, very thin, and if there seems to be too much, just cut it off with scissors or a sharp knife.

You can find all of this, too, in an old blog Take Another Little Pizza My Heart, but I see that actual ingredient measures are needed.  Okay.

For 1 pizza for a standard baking sheet:

2 full cups of flour (cheap flour is best)

1 package of dry yeast

1/2 teaspoon salt

A scant cup of warm water

4 tablespoons olive oil

Mix the flour and yeast and salt in a large bowl or the bowl of a food processor.  Stir in the water and olive oil to make a fairly wet dough but one that pulls away from the sides of the mixing bowl.  If the dough is too wet, add a bit more flour.  If the dough is too dry, add a bit more water to make a spongy dough that does not stick to your fingers.  Form it into a smooth ball and put it in the Tupperware-type thing mentioned above. Cover and let rise until you want to make the pizza, about an hour.

Easy tomato sauce: 1 can tomatoes, 1 small onion, chopped fine, olive oil, let simmer about 15 minutes, salt to taste and use.

Mozzarella, fresh basil and anchovies (optional but papa loves them!)

That’s it.  It’s all in mama’s book, No Need to Knead, but the recipe is on her website, too, I believe: www.suzannedunaway.com or www.rome-at-home.com but if you need help, mama is ALWAYS ready to help you. After all, homemade pizza is going to knock those other pizzas right out of the oven, haha.