Pizza

I always thought making pizza from scratch could be daunting. But when you have Ina Garten to teach you , all you say is "how easy is that"! Follow the recipe as it is and you will have a nice,soft pizza dough. Get the recipe for the pizza dough here.  Addition of garlic in the dough was  not bad either! Pesto and mozzarella cheese made fabulous topping.

                 
Ingredients for the base
1 cup all purpose flour
1 tea spoon active dry yeast
pinch of salt
1 tea spoon minced garlic
1/2 tb spoon honey
1 tb spoon olive oil.

1 cup pesto
2 oz fresh mozzarella cheese, sliced

Method:
To make the base, mix dry yeast,honey and olive oil with 1/4 cup warm water and set aside. Mixture will foam up (if it doesn't, that means yeast is not active. Discard the mix and start again after changing the yeast). Add 3/4 cup all purpose flour and minced garlic in food processor and pulse a few times. Add yeast mixture to the flour and pulse a few times until the mixture comes together. Add remaining 1/4 cup flour and salt to the processor while the processor is running to make a smooth ball. Transfer the dough onto a plate and knead for 3-5 minutes. Dough should be elastic and soft. Coat the dough with oil and transfer into a bowl. Keep the bowl in a warm place for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes the dough will be double the size.Punch down the dough,form a ball and let it sit at room temperature for 10 minutes by covering with a damp towel. At this point, you can make the pizza. If you want to wait for a while , keep the dough in the refrigerator.
                  To make the pizza, roll the dough into a circle. Transfer rolled dough (base) onto a baking sheet sprinkled with semolina or cornmeal.  Brush the base with olive oil and bake for 5-7 minutes in a 450 F oven. Remove the base from oven after 5-7 minutes, top it with pesto and cheese and bake again for 10 minutes or until the base is cooked and cheese is melted. Serve hot!

Note:
To make the base, add lukewarm water spoon by spoon to form a ball if the yeast mixture is not enough.You may need maximum 1-2 tablespoon extra water.