Weekend Update and Best Pizza Crust Recipe

This weekend we spent some time with friends, but we mostly went shopping around, cooking and David did a project (more on this later). It isn't the fun kind of shopping either, although I do find grocery shopping fun. When our power went out because of the tornado activity on Tuesday, we had to throw away most of our food. We went to 3 different stores (Sams, Kroger and Walmart) and spent close to $300. There is also another reason for spending that much. I volunteered to help cook meals for some of the families staying in hotels because they can't go back to their homes for a long while. I start on Wednesday for a Mom and her 5 children. I'll share some of my recipes I tried, some I decided halfway through aren't kid friendly, but I'll save them in my freezer just in case or we'll eat them. Now, I want to share with you the best pizza crust recipe we've found so far. 

Ingredients-

1 pk dry yeast

1/3 c warm water

1 t sugar

1 c cold water

2 T olive oil

1 T sugar

1/4 t garlic salt

1/2 t salt

1/2 t dry oregano leaves

3- 3 1/2 c flour

Directions- 

Sprinkle yeast over warm water and stir in the sugar. Let stand about 5 mins or until its very bubbly. Combine the remaining ingredients and about half the flour. Use your dough hook (kitchenaid Mixer) and beat to a smooth batter. Beat in the yeast mixture and continue to add the rest of the flour. Work it into a ball with your dough hook and when it starts to form the ball you can take it out and hand knead a few times if you'd like. Make sure to use a lot of flour as my dough ball was quite sticky. Place it in a bowl with a little pam or oil  with a lid set on top (not tightly closed) or a big ziplock bag sprayed with Pam inside. You can let it sit in a warm sunny spot, or sometimes I turn on the oven and place it on top of the stove/counter area (no direct hot air should touch it though). Once it has doubled in size (approx 30-60mins) punch it down and form your pizza. We have done round pizzas but we decided to place it on a baking sheet in a big square shape. Make sure you grease your pans and put cornmeal down to prevent sticking. Put your toppings on and here is the trick. Let it rise AGAIN in a warm spot for 20 mins. Bake at 450 for 15-20 mins.

We put sausage and black olives on ours.

It came out great and tasted so good. You must give it a try. It makes buying a pizza seem silly.You can also make your dough ahead of time and freeze it, just don't let it rise that second time. Thaw it for 30 mins and continue from there.