Simply the best: Pizza with broccoli

This week I found broccoli at a very special price of $1, which is about 1/3 of its usual price. I could not stop myself from buying a whole week supply.
As a result this week I was serving variety of broccoli dishes besides using them as a side dish.

Today I am going to share with you my not so secret pizza recipe that is super easy to make. Another benefit is that and you end up with 6 pizza dough supplies, which for  us is approximately two months worth of supplies of quick and delicious dinners. When I tried to make this dough for the first time, about a year ago, I was amazed how good it was. In opinion of several people who tried it, it is of a top pizza restaurant quality. Every time I make it I am never disappointed with the results, it is consistently good and is definitely the best pizza dough I ever found, and I tried quite a few over the years.

The pizza dough recipe comes from the book "The Bread Maker's Apprentice" by Peter Reinhart. Overall it is a great book that explain principles of break making. You can find the book on Amazon; it is well worth having it in your cookbook collection.

#easyfoodcreations #healthyeating #pizza

Pizza dough (makes 6 pizzas):
4.5 c unbleached white flour (I used 2c white floor and 2.5c whole wheat and it worked well too)
1.75t salt
1t instant yeast
0.25c olive oil
1.75c water

1. Work the dough for about 15 minutes until it is very smooth.
2. Divide the dough into 6 even pieces, roll them into balls and put them into plastic bags coated with olive oil. You can freeze them for future use.
3. If you saved one portion put it in the fridge for a few hours. If you are using frozen one, defrost it in the fridge for 2 days before use.
4. Preheat oven to the maximum temperature.
5. Sprinkle some cornmeal or semolina on the pan or mat you are going to bake you pizza and roll your pizza with your hands until flat.

Tomato sauce
1c fresh tomatoes chopped (I often use 1 small can of  tomato paste, or canned tomatoes)
0.5 onion, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, crashed and chopped
1 T oregano
0.5t basil
some butter for frying onion and garlic

1. Saute onion and garlic with some butter, for a few minutes.
2. Add remaining ingredients. Cook for about 15-20 minutes at a medium low heat (gas mark 2.8-3), stirring occasionally.

Usually I set the oven to preheat to the maximum temperature and in a meantime prepare the sauce and chop all the vegetables I am using on my pizza.
Right before the oven reaches the desired temperature I take my pizza dough from the fridge and shape it into pizza pie with my hands. Then spread generous portion of the tomato sauce, and put toppings on top. For toppings this time I used: spinach leaves, tomatoes, yellow pepper, broccoli, and cheese.

1. Put assembled pizza in the oven for 15 minutes and immediately lower the heat to 177c.
I bake my pizza on the non stick mat that I place on the pizza stone (the mat works really well as it is easy to transfer pizza to a pizza plate after baking since it cools off really fast).
2. Enjoy!