Pizza dough (again)

I got news for Scientology, that empty feeling we all feel is called hunger. Have a pizza!

The difference between Bread, and Pizza Crust, is really moisture control. Breads are drier, and therefore less flexible. Pizza is wet and springy. So how do you convert a good or favourite bread recipe into a pizza recipe? There are couple of tricks to it.

Add more water or milk. It's that simple! But don't add too much. For example even a tablespoon difference can make great pizza crust. If your recipe calls for a 1 1/4 cups of water, you might change that by adding just an ounce more, to be 11 oz (+2tbl) instead of 10 oz. Moisture control is what makes a great loaf bread, a great loaf of bread, but this pizza, it's far more forgiving, and easier to control with higher moisture.

That wet dough is very, very sticky, so use that old trick of putting it down on corn meal, on top of your peal (pizza paddle). I use a wooden peal to drop the pizzas into the oven, and a metal one to take them out. And use a pizza stone for those awesome toasted crusts. It takes 20 minutes for a pizza shop to make a pizza, but it's just 10 minutes in the oven!!! There's your clue not to over cook the thing, they're done in an instant, when it's not frozen. I like mine to bake at 420 for about 12 minutes- reason I like so long? Harder bake on the crust, and less stringy (browned) cheese, 14 minutes and it's burnt pizza, so set that timer!

The type of dough, makes your topping taste different, which I'm sure most of you just filed under 'well duh'. The more whole wheat there is, the sweeter your pizza will taste. The more rye, the more pungent. If you want a crust that is very thin and chewy, you want higher glutton. You want thick, but flaky, you want almost no glutton, so you might want to kneed it by hand.

With a home made pizza like my favourite is rye bread, it's a good idea to increase sour flavours like using sharp cheddar cheese. The more whole wheats, the more mushrooms, is one of my rules.

With pizza, because of all the carbs, it's like sitting down a giant bowl of CANDY for dinner. So, no more than two pieces, no matter how GOOD it tastes!!! You know to use low fat cheeses, still your going to take in a lot of that too with meats and sausages. So always have salad to help push that through you, and curb that appetite some, eat as much salad as you need. Take your Lipitor the day before and after! And the day after eat some oatmeal for breakfast, to help your digestive system push it all through. Oatmeal is a great cleaner for your Colon, it really is.

Uncork the red wine- never the white for pizza! Red Wines contains fat busters, and anti-aging goodies, that allow the French to eat all that real butter! Sorry but red wine is health food, more than most of the crap they say you should eat. But listen to the advice of Pete Townshend: A little is enough! Two slices of pizza, and two glasses of red wine!

There are all the secrets to indulgent and yet healthy living. Sorry Scientology, I don't have that empty feeling inside. But some would say I'm full of shit, too. Which isn't all that far from the truth either, so I eat my oats. If you're feeling empty inside, I still recommend pizza over religion- it costs less.

Now hit those labels on the bottom of this post, and you can read my rye bread pizza recipe, along with this one.