The Weekend Project That Is Making Me Happy: Making Pizza From Scratch

First, for those of you who have reached out during the epic winter storm Texas has been going through, my family and I are safe. We had power cycling on and off every hour for 3.5 days and some of our pipes froze, but we were able to stay warm and safe, so we were luckier than many others. We now have power back and things are thawing you.

Now, on to something much more pleasant—pizza!

I know that pandemic bread baking has been a thing over the last year, so I’m not introducing something novel, but I thought I’d share an offshoot of bread-baking that has been bringing some joy over at our house—making pizza from scratch.

It all started with hubs falling into the rabbit hole of watching David Portnoy’s pizza reviews. There was one about a guy making pizza in his apartment, taking donations, and then lowering pizzas out of his window with a pulley system to those who had donated. Portnoy gave the pizza high marks and was impressed with the crust this guy was getting with a home oven and a baking steel. So hubs came to me to show me the video and then asked if I could research baking steels.

Cue me now falling into the rabbit hole too, lol. Not of pizza reviews but of pizza making.

One cookbook, a hunt for double zero flour, and a baking steel later…I starting making pizza from scratch. And y’all, it’s been amazing. Like truly. I’m picky about pizza and want a good wood-fired crust and never thought I could create that effect at home. I was wrong. Behold…

Although I would consider myself an experienced home cook (I have quite the cookbook obsession), I am not an experienced baker. So I was totally intimidated by the thought of trying to make dough and getting it to rise and shaping it and all the things. And when I first flipped through the cookbook I’m going to recommend below, I was like, yeah, I’m in over my head. The recipes didn’t even START until page 100 because of all the explanations and photos.

But when I actually just said, screw it, I’m going to try it, and if it sucks, oh well I ended up making really great pizza right out the gate. Crispy bottom, slightly charred edges and delicious sauce. The instructions LOOKED intimidating but, in practice, were totally doable. All that step by step instruction in the book helped so much.

So, I thought I’d post about the experience in case you might want to give it a try but don’t know where to start. I will admit that there is a bit of equipment shopping needed to get the right tools, so I’ll list what we bought below.

The Cookbook

The Elements of Pizza: Unlocking the Secrets to World-Class Pies at Home [A Cookbook]

By Forkish, Ken

Yes, I’m sure there are a million free recipes online. But I wanted a cookbook to walk me through every step with photos. I’d seen The Elements of Pizza by Ken Forkish recommended in numerous places, and I was not disappointed. The pizza sauce recipe inside is worth the price alone and it’s literally the simplest most basic sauce ever, but I could eat it with a spoon like soup.

This book has great photos, great recipes, and walks you through every step. If you get it, I’ve been using the “I Slept In But I Want Pizza Tonight” dough recipe. I like this one because I can start prepping dough around 11am and have three dough balls all risen and ready to stretch and top by dinner time.

The Equipment

The Pizza Steel

Artisan Steel - High Performance Pizza Steel Made in the USA - 16" x 14.25" (.25" Thick) Buy on Amazon

This seems to be the game changer. I have a baking stone. This is not that. This is literally a heavy piece of steel that you put in your oven and heat for an hour at high temps before you put your pizza in. It gets screaming hot and then when you slide in your pizza, it cooks in 5-10 minutes depending on what kind you’re making. It gets the crust crispy and gets you that wood-fired oven effect. This is the one I purchased. Just be careful. The sucker is heavy. Only handle it with two hands and when it’s cool.

The Pizza Peel

Checkered Chef Pizza Peel Extra Large Pizza Paddle Stainless Steel With Folding Handle Buy on Amazon

You’ll need this to slide the pizza in and out of the super hot oven. The cookbook recommends a wooden peel. I couldn’t find that kind so I went with a metal one. It worked well as long as I floured the surface enough.

A Dough Tub

I don’t know if this was 100% necessary but I already had one and I find it very useful. You can mix the dough by hand right in the tub and then cover it while it does its first rise. The bonus of this method is you don’t need a fancy stand mixer. I have one and never had to fire it up.

Something to blend sauce

This can be whatever you have on hand—a blender, a hand blender, a food processor. But if you’re making from scratch sauce from whole canned tomatoes, you’ll need something to blend it. I used my hand blender.

Specialty Ingredients

Aren’t my dough balls pretty? ;)

This isn’t a must have, but I’m passing it along because it’s what I’m using. I haven’t tried the recipe with regular flour, though the cookbook does say you can use substitutions. The “best” is supposed to be double zero flour. We were able to find it at Central Market here in Texas. My guess is you could also find it at Whole Foods or online if your local store doesn’t carry it.

Those are the main things you need. The sauce and topping ingredients are all basics you can get at the grocery store. And I know this list may sound intimidating, but once you have it, you can make pizza whenever you want!

So far we’ve made some basics like pepperoni and margherita, but we also tried a prosciutto and arugula one and the Brooklyn Hot Honey from the cookbook (it’s one of the photos above) and they were all so yummy. I can’t wait to try more.

And in a pandemic, with all the stress of the world going on, I find it really relaxing and satisfying to take on a cooking project that is slow and methodical and has visible results. Plus, it’s so rewarding when I slide that pizza out of the oven and it looks (and tastes) better than I could get in most restaurants. Highly recommend pizza therapy! ;)

So, what have been some of your pandemic projects?

Eating Healthy At Home: How I Meal Plan and a Free Weekly Menu Printable

If you follow me at all online, you know I love to cook (and eat!), but I'm not one of those cooks who just comes up with inventive meals on the fly. I've spent hours writing fiction most days, so my creativity is drained by the time I get to dinnertime. I don't want to think about what to cook or how I'm going to make it tasty, which is why for years I've sworn by weekly meal planning. Without my weekly meal planning, I'd end up going out for fast food or ordering pizza every night. Meal planning keeps me (and the fam) on track with healthy eating.

Here's my general routine. On the weekend, I set aside some time to grab a few of my cookbooks off the shelf (or to go to my saved recipes online) and I sit down and choose what I'm cooking for each night of the coming week. This is even easier if you have few main go-to recipes that you use each week. I'm weird in that I like to cook different stuff pretty much non-stop. I have very few go-to meals and those are usually brought out when hubs is out of town and I'm just cooking for me and the kidlet. My theory on why I like novel cooking is that I like to eat in restaurants. But restaurants are expensive and somehow they manage to pack twice as many calories into things--even things that seem healthy. So what keeps me from eating out too much is creating new stuff for me to try to each week, so it feels like I'm going to a new restaurant. (See, told you, I'm weird.)

And luckily, I have a family with an open-minded palate, so they're pretty go with the flow on whatever I decide to cook. (I set up the expectation early with kidlet--you eat what I cook. I may alter his slightly, like not make his serving as spicy or keeping onions out of his or something, but he's expected to eat what we're having for dinner and to try things he may not be sure of. And he does.)

But anyway, I think through my week--which nights are going to be more hectic than others, what nights I'll have more time, etc. Then I lay out the menu on this sheet I designed (see the free printable below if you'd like to download it) and make my grocery list as I go. Then I post the menu on the refrigerator so everyone knows what's coming. Sometimes I'll switch days around during the week--much to the distress of my order-loving kidlet--but otherwise, I stick to the plan. And usually we save eating out for once or twice on the weekend.

The Quick and Dirty Tips on Meal Planning:

1. Gather your supplies: cookbooks/magazines/internet/whatever, a notebook or meal planning worksheet, and a little bit of time.

2. Think through what supplies you have or what you need to use up. (This is where cookbook indexes and internet search comes in handy. Have a cabbage and some chicken to use up, look up the more specific ingredient and work backward from there.)

2. Figure out which days you need to have quick meals and which you can spend more time on so you can plug in meals accordingly.

3. Fill in your go-to meals if you have them. Bonus tip: Pick theme nights like Taco Night, Sandwich Night, Slow Cooker Night, Stir-Fry Night, etc. and then your meal planning will go even quicker.

4. Write down the name of the recipe and where you found it (don't forget page numbers) then plug it into your menu sheet on the appropriate day.

5. Make your grocery list as you go. Bonus tip: There are lots of printables online for grocery lists. If you find one divided by section of the store, you can already have your list done and  sorted by the time you're done meal-planning. 

6. Put the menu on the fridge for you and your family to see, and then stick to it. 

7. After the week is done, mark down the new recipes that went well to save them for the future. 

It sounds like a lot, but really, it's not. Plus, there are so many benefits.

Benefits of Meal Planning:

1. Eat healthier.

2. Less waste because I know what I need to buy for the week.

3. No thinking involved when I'm brain-drained at dinner time.

4. Saves money.

5. No, "What are we having for dinner?" questions from the family.

5. Yummy, delicious meals every night.

So it's a no brainer for me. I've done it this way for almost a decade, and it becomes like clockwork. Plus, it gives me a good reason to feed my cookbook addiction. :)  Which reminds me, stay tuned for Wednesday when I tell you about my favorite cookbooks, recipe resources, and apps I love for meal planning and cooking. 

In the mealtime, here's your free Weekly Menu printable download if you'd like to give meal planning a shot. Let me know if you do! :)

Click to download

So do you do any kind of meal planning? What's your process? Any tips to add?