The Best Pizza Dough Ever

I know that’s a pretty bold statement.  What’s even a more bolder statement is that I tweaked the pizza dough recipe of Nancy Silverton, who basically spent years perfecting her pizza dough.  And do you want to know why I cheated on her recipe?  I was being frugal and used the flour I already had on hand.  While her recipe calls for bread flour and rye flour, I already had semolina flour and 00 flour in my pantry, so subbed in equal parts of those flours.  I also realized I didn’t have wheat germ and left that out too.  I have to say though, after the hundreds (probably thousands!) of pizzas I’ve made at home and in restaurants, this is my new favorite pizza dough.

That pizza above was made after the dough rested in the fridge for two days.  This one was made with dough that was six days old:

The dough that rested for six days definitely had more flavor.   If you want a detailed version of Nancy’s dough recipe (and the actual complete recipe!) check out this post here.  But because I know a lot of people are intimidated with yeast dough, my directions are a lot more simple.   While I appreciate that person’s attention to detail in that link above, I know many would look at that long post and think that making this dough isn’t worth it – but believe me, it is!

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After you mix everything together to get ready for the first rise at room temperature (I actually put my dough in my oven with the oven light on because I keep a cold house.   You’ll note it’s a really sticky dough – that’s totally fine.  I just left it in the mixing bowl, but I do recommend covering it so that you don’t get a hard coating on the top of the dough if left uncovered.

After the 90 minutes I transferred the dough to a plastic container to put in the fridge in the basement.  That’s it.  You’ve just made pizza dough!  The first pizza above was made on day 2 of dough being in the fridge.  I’ve put this recipe into the Weight Watchers app, and I get 10 smart points per serving – I divided the dough into 8 sections, so each section is 10 points, then you have to build your extra points for toppings, etc.  I will say though that on the second pizza, because it had risen longer in the fridge, puffed up more and I only ate 3/4 of the pizza.   Look at me, stopping when I am actually full!

Here is the dough after it’s been sitting for 6 days:

Friday nights pizza was turkey pepperoni and kale, with 1/4 cup 2% Kraft mixed Italian cheese, 1/2 ounce of provolone and a balsamic drizzle.  In total that whole pizza was 16 points.  I loved how the kale because almost “chip like” and was light and crunchy at the same time.  This was one of the best pizzas I’ve made in a long time.

That’s crust perfection!  I also liked Nancy’s idea of brushing the raw dough with a bit of olive oil (I actually used grapeseed oil) and sprinkling salt before going in the oven.  This also bakes at 500 degrees – much higher than my normal 425, but luckily my Baking Steel can handle going to that high of a temp.   I froze the rest of the six portions of the dough, and on Friday morning I’ll pull out one portion to thaw in my fridge during the day so I’ll be all set for the next six Party Pizza Fridays!

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I had another open weekend.  I was planning on a day trip to meet up with my friend Lynne in Milwaukee, but her Mom had a fall, and that had to be postponed.   I did manage to have both a productive and lazy weekend at the same time.  I went to the gym both days (when I went to cancel my membership at the end of February, they threw in March for free!).  Saturday I hit the gym hard.  I just saw this guy CJ, who has cerebral palsy, push a hard workout, and thought I have no excuse not to do the same.  I started out with a 5 minute warm up walk on the treadmill, did 2000 meters (1.2 mile) row, 80 flights of stairs on the stair master, then got a mile into my run when I could feel my blood sugar drop.  Damn.  I started with 252 and it dropped all the way to 58 – which shows how much my blood sugar can drop when I push myself.  I’ll need to bring some fruit with me next time to keep my blood sugar up.  I did take a new gym selfie – my face definitely looks thinner in this picture.

Here’s my meal plan for the week:

The lower part was my grocery list.   Basically all the meat (including the shrimp!) was in my freezer, so I didn’t have that much to buy – mostly produce!   It’s amazing how cheap I can shop for myself!  I love that I spent .4 cents on a serrano pepper!  Braeburn apples were on sale for .39 cents a pound – not sure if I’ve ever tried those before, so I only bought two.   That “reduced produce” at the bottom?  Long time readers will know this as the “Dollar Bin” at my store, which is now $1.49.  I was able to buy 6 oranges and 2 pears for $1.49 – nice!

So my only goal this week is to lose 1.2 pounds so I can hit my 20 pounds loss AND get my 10% bling at Weight Watchers this week.  Hoping my sister and I can get our walks in this week – today is supposed to be close to 60 degrees, but we’ll see if the rain stays away for us.