Daniel's "Rock-Your-Socks-Off" Pizza Dough

[Disclaimer - empirically, may not actually rock your socks off]

To be honest, I just haven't really felt the sandwich-eating urge these last few days, and so my motivation to make another lunch-bread loaf has been severely lessened lately. So, I decided to mix things up a bit this week and try something a little less bread-like than usual. Still, objectively I consider pizza pretty squarely in the natural realm of this blog - you'll know I've really jumped the shark when I start posting about cake or waffles or whatnot...

Anyway, start off by proofing 2 1/2 teaspoons of yeast in just less than 1 cup of warm water. Pour the yeast/water mixture into a bowl with 1 cup of all-purpose flour and 2 teaspoons of salt, and stir. Add in 2 1/2 tablespoons of olive oil and another cup of flour, and stir until you get a mixture with a consistency somewhere between pancake batter and more normal bread dough. Throw in two minced medium-sized cloves of garlic (or as approximately minced as your kitchen knife skills allow, as in my case), and some arbitrary amount of dried rosemary. I probably should have measured just how much, but since I was just making everything else up anyway I didn't bother. Stir all this together until it seems well blended. Decide that you can't see any of the rosemary in the dough and add more (let's pretend, for argument's sake, that we've just added a total of 1 1/2 teaspoons of rosemary). Stir in another 1/4 cup of flour, and then get to kneading.

[NB - As it turns out, adding rosemary to dough makes for an even more fun (and much more ticklish) bout of kneading than usual. Good to remember.] Knead in about another 1/2 cup of flour, until the dough attains that usual elastic sort of consistency. Since I had to work in so much more extra flour than usual, I probably kneaded this dough much more than I normally would have, and I'm not sure how much of a difference that made. But anyway, use some olive oil to coat a large bowl, put the dough in, cover, and let sit for the

First - and only - rising (2 hours and 30 minutes)
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Nothing much to report this week...other than the massive quantities of torrential rain that is pouring from the skies today, and the blustery winds that are whipping said rain around. So, in lieu of leaving my thoughts here, I'm going to try to sprint back to my apartment before foot-deep standing water develops at street intersections. I think I'll still get drenched, but hopefully less drenched than if I were to wait to leave until later. Wish me luck.
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Don't so much punch the dough down as try to carefully remove it from the bowl and onto a floured surface - an action that will end up deflating the dough just as surely as punching it if you happen to be as competent as I. Let the dough rest for a few minutes, and then take a floured rolling pin and start rolling the dough out into a circle. When the dough won't flatten out any more, let it rest for a few minutes, and then try rolling again. Repeat this process - likely several times - until the dough is (vaguely) a circle about 9 inches in diameter. At this point, take a stab at spinning the dough - you know you've always wanted to try! Realize, though, that that just didn't work at all. Use the rolling pin to work out any injuries you just inflicted on your dough, and transfer to a baking sheet coated lightly with olive oil.

From there, use your hands to gently press the dough into a larger circle, working repeatedly from the center out to the edges of the circle, until the dough is a circle maybe 1/4 of an inch thick and 15 inches in diameter. And voila! An oven-ready pizza dough. The pizza toppings would be the topic of an entirely different blog, but I went with a simple homemade chunky tomato sauce and some fresh mozzarella. Have the oven preheated to 375 degrees and bake for about 15 to 20 minutes (really, just constantly check until both (a) the chess is melted and (b) the crust looks good).

[Photo sadly unavailable - I was too busy making dinner to remember to take a picture. But, just imagine a 15 inch circle of dough with tomato sauce and grated cheese on top of it]
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[This photo also unavailable - I was too busy eating dinner. Just imagine a thick-crust pizza with a 25% variation of how thick the crust is over the surface, though, and you'll pretty much have it.]

Tasting verdict: Based on the title of this post, you might not be surprised to discover that I really liked how this ended up. Now, admittedly, much of the pizza's goodness came from the sauce turning out much, much better than I expected it to, but the crust itself was pretty good all by itself, too. The only real issue was that the dough didn't rise evenly while baking, which I attribute to my not having a baking sheet large enough to roll the dough to its appropriate thinness. So, some small bits of the dough ended up undercooked, but still delicious, so no complaints there.

Cheese of the week: Stilton (which, as we all know, is one of the flavors of cheese that the moon is made out of!)