Pizza Crust

One of my firsts posts was for a pizza sauce recipe and I realized I didn't have the dough recipe with it.

We regularly make pizzas...well Noah does. I can't seem to get it right and he has mastered the pizza making. He does the whole thing, kneads it and tosses it in the air and rolls a perfect round crust, I just can't seem to do it! Everyone who has tried his pizza has said its the best pizza they've had and he needs to start a restaurant. So maybe someday we'll have a restaurant, and we already have the Italian name, Ruggieri Pizza!

PIZZA DOUGH, makes 2 pizzas
Ingredients
STEP 1
3/4 cup hot water
3 pkg. yeast

STEP 2
6 cup flour
2 Tbsp sugar
1 Tbsp salt
3 Tbsp oil

STEP 3
1 1/2 cup milk

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees and grease pizza pan.
2. Mix together ingredients from STEP 1 and set aside.
3. In a separate bowl with a dough hook (or by hand), mix together ingredients from STEP 2.
4. Add STEP 1 ingredients to STEP 2 ingredients and mix together.
5. Slowly stir in milk, and add more if needed.
6. Mix everything with a dough hook for 5 minutes.
7. Put in a warm place and let it rise for 15 minutes. With our oven preheated, we put the bowl on the stove with a wet towel on top.
8. Knead dough again for 5 minutes, by hand, and then roll it out to desired shape.
9. Put on the pan with cheese and toppings.
10. Bake in oven on pizza pan for 9 minutes.
11. Take pizza off the pan and cook for 11 more minutes. Note: this recipe is for OUR specific oven and pan. You really need to play with it and figure out the best time/temperature for YOUR oven to get the best results.

For even tastier pizza: We also make stuffed crust pizza by putting string cheese in the crust. And we add a Garlic-salt butter sauce to the crust after the pizza is finished.

Easy Lemonade

Here's a simple, tasty lemonade recipe. I've heard its cheaper making it this way rather than with powders/concentrates, and it tastes better.

Lemonade
1 cup lemon juice
1 cup sugar
6 1/2 cups water

Saucy Chicken

The sauce is a delicious tangy sauce and takes lots of ingredients.

The other day I pulled out my Anne of Green Gables cookbook as I was reminded of my teenage years when I went through an Anne of Green Gables obsession stage. Anyway, out of it came a great recipe. I altered it a bit because I didn't have all the ingredients but it turned out so tasty that I made it again the following day. The following is the recipe that I used.



Saucy Chicken

4 chicken quarters
1 1/2 Tbsp butter
1 tsp onion powder
2 tsp minced garlic
1/3 cup ketchup
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
2 Tbsp lemon juice
1 1/2 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
4 Tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp salt

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. Wash chicken pieces and pull of skin. Pat them dry with paper towel.
3. Spray pan with olive oil and place chicken in pan. Bake for 40 minutes.
4. Meanwhile, melt the butter in a small saucepan Add the onion powder and garlic and cook over low heat.
5. Stir in all remaining ingredients while stirring.
6. Turn off heat after everything looks mixed completely and sauce tastes good (it will taste a bit tangy).
7. When chicken has baked for 45 minutes, remove from oven. Drain off any juice. Spoon off half of the sauce over the chicken and put it back in the oven for 10 minutes. You can cook the chicken for another 10 minutes if its not cooked through.
8. After chicken is done, remove the chicken from the oven, put on plate and drizzle on the last of the sauce. Really good with rice or a vegetable side.

Snickerdoodle Heaven

So I wasn't much of a snickerdoodles person, until I tried this recipe. It can be found at here.

Pay close attention to her directions, the way she tells you that butter should be treated like royalty...I think its true. Now I whip up my butter by itself before adding it to any baking recipe.

I also use this recipe as a base for my chocolate chip cookies. I just love it because it comes out so moist.

The BEST steak marinade, EVER...due to popular requests, here it is!

So all ya'lls husbands are gonna love me after they try my steak marinade. I made it for my in-laws, and my father-in-law said "I've been to resturants for the past year trying to find a good, tender, tasty steak and haven't found one till now!" Needless to say, he totally loves me cause of this steak....its good stuff.

Steak Marinade: (for 2 large steaks)
INGREDIENTS
1/4 cup olive oil
1/3 cup balsamic vinegar
1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce
1/4 cup soy sauce
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
2 teaspoons minced garlic
salt and pepper to taste

DIRECTIONS

1. Mix olive oil, balsamic vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, soy sauce, Dijon mustard, and garlic in a small bowl. Season with salt and pepper.

2. Put steaks in a large plastic Ziploc and in the fridge.

3. Soak for at least 2 hours. For best taste, I soak it overnight for 24 hours. This steak is juicy, moist, and mouth-watering. I like it the best with T-bones and I have my husband throw it on our charcoal grill.

Don't offend me by saying, "Do I need A-1 on this?" Because you'll never taste a juicier steak!

CHERRY'S Cherry pie

This was what I made Noah for Valentines day. His favorite pie is cherry (even though it came from a can anyway, its the winter there's no way I'm finding fresh cherries) but the crust is homemade. It was actually pretty good. I realized that this pie was hard to cut with the design I made (and have the pieces still look nice). I was tempted to just take a fork to it and eat! Next time I'll do the crust a little different.





The last two pictures were right before I put it in the oven.

Pizza: Man's #1 choice of food

So here are some pictures, before and after they were cooked. Noah did the pepperoni. I like my pizza soft, he likes it crispy. I like thin crust, he likes thick, stuffed crust pizza. Noah eats a whole pizza and is still hungry...How do we solve this? By making 2 pizzas! Mine didn't look as good as Noah's so I didn't even post them. Just kidding, mine is at the bottom.



*NOTE: We make pizza every Sunday, its a Ruggieri tradition passed on through the generations! It's actually really fun and doesn't take a lot of time. I'll include a good sauce recipe I like. I love spices! Also every time we make this pizza it looks better than the last time. It just takes trial and error. We also use mozzarella sticks to make the stuffed crust.

PIZZA SAUCE
Ingredients

* 1 (6 ounce) can tomato paste
* 6 fluid ounces warm water
* 3 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese
* 1 teaspoon minced garlic
* 2 tablespoons honey
* 3/4 teaspoon onion powder
* 1/4 teaspoon dried oregano
* 1/4 teaspoon dried marjoram
* 1/4 teaspoon dried basil
* 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
* 1/8 teaspoon dried red pepper flakes or powder (you can add more if you like it spicier or even cayenne pepper, but I don't like that)
* salt to taste



Directions
1. In a small bowl, combine all ingredients; mix together, breaking up any clumps of cheese.
2. Spread over pizza dough and prepare pizza as desired.

Click here for the pizza dough recipe.