by Rea Papas

Created on: January 16, 2009

I strongly believe that when someone wants to cook fast-food at home he or she should first of all keep its fast-food aspect and by that I mean keep it simple. Of course the choice of ingredients which are always healthier than a fast-food place and the fact that you can make it cheaper are a big plus. We should not forget also that at the end of the day you make it with your own hands which

gives you a sense of accomplishment and it even makes the food taste better. One of everyones favorite food is pizza and what better of making your own pizza dough. Yeah I know, you can buy the already made dough but it simply isn't the same. Let's see now a simple recipe for pizza dough. First, let's see the ingredients that we will need:

1 Tablespoon of sugar
1 cup of warm water or if you want exact temperature heat up to 110F
1 envelope yeast
3 1/4 cup of flour
1 teaspoon of salt
1/4 cup olive oil
2 Tablespoons of basil

We dissolve the yeast in the 1/4 cup of water in a large bowl and let set for 5 minutes. Next, we add the sugar, the salt, the basil and the olive oil and mix well. We continue by adding the flour. We add the flour cup after cup and mixing continuously. We knit the dough for at least 5 minutes.We take the bowl with the dough and cover it with a blanket so that it keeps it warm and let the dough rise a little bit. Usually what I do is to let the dough for around half an hour covered with the blanket while I do something else like cut up the ingredients for the pizza, grate the cheese or make a salad. After 30 minutes you uncover the dough and knit it once more. You are now ready with the dough. You can make thin or thick crust pizza. Anything you heart desires. One of my favorite pizzas which I make to impress my friends is the stuffed pizza. You divide the dough in two parts, one a little bit bigger than the other. We take the bigger part and work it to cover a 14' deep pan. Make it cover the whole pan, not only the bottom of the pan. Now you can put all your dry ingredients starting with the mozzarella. You can experiment. There is no right and wrong. Just one thing to note here. You need a lot of cheese. After you place the dry ingredients you take the remaining dough and you make it cover the layer of dry ingredients and then press to join it with the first part of the dough. Finally you put the sauce. Spread a generous amount of sauce. Don't be afraid to overdo it. The thing is that because the sauce is not covered by cheese like the regular pizza it will dry out. That's it. Put it in the oven at 400 degrees for 30 minutes and you should have the masterpiece. Try it for a gathering and youwill definitely impress everyone. Enjoy.

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