Neapolitan Pizza

Dough 

5 cups flour

1 tsp yeast

1 Tbsp sugar or honey

2 tsp salt

1 ½ cups warm, not hot, water (maybe more)

You can mix this by hand, but I use a mixer with a dough hook, which truly makes this effortless. In a mixing bowl add warm water, yeast, sugar or honey, and let sit for around 2 minutes. Add flour and salt and mix to just combine. Let that sit about 5 minutes. Turn mixer to lowest speed and it will do the work. Mix about 3 to 5 minutes until the dough comes together and leaves the side of the bowl. Add ¼ cup more water if necessary. That’s it! I spray the inside of a couple of baggies with cooking spray and divide the dough putting half in each baggie. These go in the fridge. An hour before I want to make pizza, I take the baggies out of the fridge and set them on the counter. Remember these bags of dough will keep for about a week.

Sauce

28 oz can whole peeled tomatoes

1 clove garlic, chopped

1/8 tsp red pepper flakes

1/2 tsp basil

1/2 tsp oregano

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp sugar

1 Tbsp red wine vinegar

Makes enough for two pizzas

For topping: fresh mozzarella cheese that usually can be found in a plastic container in the deli section of your grocery store

Pour tomatoes, juice and all, into a big bowl. Mash up the tomatoes with your hands, letting seeds settle into the liquid.  Pour out all but about ¼ cup of the juice and any seeds that come with it. Don’t worry that some seeds remain – they won’t hurt you. Add the rest of the ingredients through vinegar. At this point, either use a blender or emersion blender to mix everything together in a coarse puree, not a smooth paste.

To bake, turn your oven up as high as it goes, mine hits 550 degrees, and let it really heat up, about 20 to 30 minutes. I have a pizza stone. They are pretty inexpensive, but definitely not necessary. For years I used a cookie sheet. I put the pizza stone in the oven while it preheats. I make the pizza on a cookie sheet sprinkled with a tablespoon of cornmeal (optional). The dough is easy to handle, spread it out and add sauce. Top with cheese to taste. Again, this is my own weird technique, I put the pizza in the oven on the cookie sheet for 5 minutes till I can slide the partially baked crust on to the pizza stone, then bake till crispy, another 5 to 8 minutes. Slice and enjoy. Frozen pizza will never taste like this!