Pizza Dough & Sauce

This is my 'go to' recipe for thin crust pizza.... I had not made it for almost a year, but a friend invited me up Sat night -- her and her sister were making gluten free pizza, I asked if I could bring my own dough. As it turned out there were about six of us ... and it was amazing ;) Suzanne & I put peaches, tomatoes, fresh basil, prosciutto & parm on our pizza...)

Dough
1 C, 2 T Water
1 pkg (scant 1 T) Yeast
1/2 t salt (maybe a little more)
2 T Sugar
2 T Oil
3 C Flour

Start with warm water & yeast dissolving in bowl for about 5 minutes. Then mix till all ingredients are well incorporated.

If I am planning in advance, I'll actually make this the night before, and let it rise slowly in the bowl covered with plastic wrap in the refrigerator. Otherwise, allow a couple hours to rise on the counter. the dough should be soft, and thin...

Preheat oven with pizza stone inside to 400. Once preheated, take stone out of oven,  pull off whatever size you want for your pizza and roll out thin on lightly floured countertop. Place on (flour or cornmeal) on stone. Decorate pizza as desired & bake 7-12 min. (The dough starts to cook as soon as it is placed on the the stone.)

 Sauce:
1 can tomato paste
2 cans tomato sauce
Small drop of balsamic vinegar
1 T oregano
1 clove of garlic, crushed
1 dash of basil
bit of sugar
some onion salt

I know this is kind of generic, but it's all about finding the flavor balance... taste it, it is not popping with flavor, add a little salt, if it tastes to salty, add a dash of sugar..

Easy Hummus

I am sorry, I did not take a picture of this one, but it was super easy, and good...

2 cans of Chickpeas/Garbonzo beans, drained
3 gloves of garlic pressed
Lemon juice

Add to blender cup. For me, I could press the 'sauces' button and voila! I started w/two cloves of garlic, and worked my way up...

Hummus is great for dipping vegetables like sweet peppers, carrots, cucumbers, and even tortilla like chips ;-)

Mom's All-Purpose Italian Sauce

 Mom found the basic recipe on a TV cooking program and then adapted it and it came out well.  It's a great spaghetti sauce, but it makes an awesome lasagna sauce, also.  Vary the amounts of each ingredients as desired.

1 28 oz can crushed tomatoes

1  6 oz can tomato paste

1 medium onion, chopped

6 cloves garlic, minced

¾ lb hamburger

½ Tsp salt

1 tsp dried oregano

1 tsp dried basil (we actually used fresh)

⅓ C. red grape juice

Pasta

Mushrooms to taste

Brown hamburger, onion, garlic together

Add other ingredients (may need additional water to allow enough liquid to cook down)

Simmer 20 min.

Prepare pasta according to package instructions

Sweet and Sour Sauce

 Mom was pretty sick yesterday, so I offered to make dinner. I was in the mood for something different, and remembered we had the left over pork roast, so I tried to think of what would be good to do with the left overs... and this is what I came up with... but of course I changed the recipe.... here is the original, with changes at the end in italics. My goal was to find a recipe that did not use corn syrup or catsup in it, one that was relatively clean...

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 1 tablespoon peeled and grated fresh ginger
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 cup pineapple or orange juice
• 2 tablespoons rice vinegar

• 1 heaping tablespoon brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon light soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon cornstarch blended with 2 tablespoons cold water

Directions

Heat a wok or saucepan over high heat and add the oil. When the oil is hot, add the ginger and garlic. Stir-fry just until fragrant, and then add the juice, vinegar, brown sugar and soy sauce. Bring to a boil and cook until the sugar has dissolved. Stir in the cornstarch and water mixture and cook until thickened, about 1 minute. Stir into any nearly completed stir-fry dish and bring to a boil until the sauce thickens, about 1 minute.
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* I more then doubled the recipe by adding and making the following changes:

• 2 T oil
• 2 T of fresh ginger
• 4 cloves of garlic (some about half were small, and half were bigger)
• 1 cup of pineapple juice
• 1 cup of pear juice (from canned pears in the refrigerator)
• 1 1/2 cups of water
• 3+ T of soy sauce
• Instead of another cup of pineapple juice, I added 1 cup of juice from the pairs.
• 4 T vinegar -- mom did no have rice vinegar
• 2 T brown sugar

*I started as directed with the ginger and the garlic in the oil, then added my juices, brown sugar, 2 T of soy sauce, and vinegar.

*It tasted super sweet and vinegary , so I added more soy sauce and water (trying stretch the sauce anyways) and when I added the onion, it finally started to taste better. 

*After creating the sauce initially, I sliced some onions up, tossing them in and added the meat for a bit, letting them simmer together. 

 *Next I added a yellow & an orange pepper, but tried to not let them over cook. 

*I did thicken the sauce twice also, once after adding the normal proportions, but when I stretched it with water as I was adding the onions, it seemed to get too liquidy again, so made the cornstarch/water mixture again, and added it for a minute or two to the boiling sauce before taking it off the heat and serving it.

*Served over baked white rice.