How Family Pizza Night Can Help Save the World

Have you read Barbara Kingsolver's wonderful book about how she and her family made a commitment to eat only locally grown food for an entire year? Whether you are vegetarian, vegan or omnivore you will enjoy this book as well as glean some useful if not scary information about how food is grown in today's corporate world of factory farming  and mono cropping. Animal Vegetable Miracle is a beautifully written and entertaining true story of their challenging adventure into local food-land.

It informs us about just how far we have drifted from thinking, acting or buying locally and the serious hazards this presents to us humans as a species and to our beautiful planet earth. Between the chemicals that are sprayed on fruits and vegetables, the corn and antibiotics that are pumped into livestock and the energy consumption involved in shipping food to every corner of the universe, we, along with our environment are headed for some serious trouble.

When people tell me that shopping at the local farmer's market is too expensive, I am amazed at the short sightedness of this comment.   By shopping at the farmers market, we are putting money back into the local economy and supporting  our neighbors. We are protecting the environment by buying food that did not have to be trucked in from California or Kalamazoo, and we are treating ourselves to eating non chemically sprayed, delightfully fresh food that is in season and more in harmony with what and how we should be eating.

I love our town's farm market and look forward to it every week. Not only can I expect to be pleasantly surprised by which just picked veggies will be available but I also have the opportunity to say hello to my neighbors and friends, eat some superbly delish Aba's falafel, and hear some fine music played by some great local musicians.  This is  an event that builds community in a practical and really truly festive way.

For our health, the environment and the sustainability of our local communities, shopping locally makes the most sense.

Eating strictly local food throughout the year when you live in the northeast would  be very challenging since our growing season only lasts half the year. The Kingsolver family has a very large garden in West Virginia, with a longer growing season than we do in the northeast. But even so, they knew that their larder of canned goods and root vegetables would dwindle toward the end of winter. 

For this reason, they built Pizza night into their weekly food plan. Every Friday night they would make pizza from scratch using their own home grown canned tomato sauce and locally made cheese. The pizza would be supplemented by a salad grown during the winter in a local greenhouse. 

This gave me the idea to do the same (sans the real cheese).  I was easily able to recruit my daughter and husband to participate in Family Pizza Night since they (like most people) both lovvvve pizza. Making homemade pizza dough  takes a few hours (including rising time for the dough) and is a great way to get the entire family involved in the process of doing something fun and nurturing together.

My daughter mixes and kneads the dough, my husband rolls it out and shapes it into pies, and I make the sauce and veggies to go on top of it.  We use Daiya mozzarella cheese substitute instead of  fresh mozzarella and voila! delicious homemade pizza.

There are a few tools you may want to get to make your pizza making easier, although you don't absolutely need any of them:

-A pizza stone is a good investment at under $15.00.  The stone is heated in the oven providing an instantly hot surface for the pizza, yielding greater crispiness.

-A french rolling pin, with its tapered ends, is essential for rolling the dough out properly, from the center of the dough, out to its edges. 

-A pizza wheel or cutter makes cutting the pie into slices much easier.

-A pizza peel or paddle for assembling the pizza and then sliding it into the oven onto the hot pizza stone.

There are a bizillion recipes available  (on line)for fresh pizza dough.  I like to use a mixture of unbleached white and whole wheat flour.  My friend Pam of the Garden Cafe let me know that one of the secrets to making the Garden Cafe pizza crust such crispy perfection was the addition of mashed potatoes. Another benefit to the Garden Cafe's great crust was that it was done on a large outdoor grill.

Here is one recipe I am pretty happy with but I am always experimenting and trying to get the crust thinner and crispier.

This amkes enough dough for 2, 12"-14" pies.

Preheat oven 450°F.

Put pizza stone in the oven to pre heat as well.

4 cups flour (I used 3cups unbleached white and 1 cup whole wheat)

1 1/4 cups lukewarm water

1 packet active dry yeast, or 2 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast

2 tablespoons olive oil (any good brand), but extra virgin is best

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon sugar, or 1 teaspoon agave 

1/4 cup water

1/2-3/4 cup mashed potatoes

1-2 cups homemade or canned tomato sauce

3-4 cups veggie toppings

2 cups grated Daiya Mozzarella cheese substitute

Use your favorite veggies as toppings. We like steamed broccoli, roasted garlic, roasted red peppers, sauteed mushrooms, carmelized onions, steamed brocolli rabe, spinach,fresh basil or other herbs, vegan sausage,  or whatever is in season in your favorite combinations. 

Using a large ceramic mixing bowl, or any suitable food safe bowl, add the flour, make a "well" in middle, and put in 1 teaspoon salt, stir to combine well. Set aside.

Prepare the starter: In a liquid measuring cup pour in 1 1/4 cups lukewarm water, 1 teaspoon sugar or honey, and one package of active dry yeast. Stir and set aside for 5 minutes. Allow to foam up (or proof).

Next, mix the starter (yeast water) and the water in the bowl containing the flour with 2 tablespoons olive oil. Mix in mashed potatoes. Stir together using a wooden spoon or clean hands.

Note: You will need additional flour to knead on the surface that you're working on. Knead for about 8 minutes or until you get a smooth elastic rubbery dough ball.

Set aside in bowl, drizzle with a little olive oil to keep the dough from drying out. Let dough sit covered lightly with plastic wrap or use a plate or damp clean towel to cover it.

Allow the dough to rise for 30 minutes to an hour. Cut the ball of dough in half. (This is enough for 2 pizzas so you can roll out other half and make a second pizza. We now have 2 pizza stones so we make 2 at a time. Making one at a time is not a problem though because pizza only takes 12-15 minutes to bake.) Flour a clean flat surface and roll out half the dough into a circle. Sprinkle a pizza paddle with cornmeal (to prevent the dough from sticking)  and assemble the pizza. 

If you don't have a paddle or stone on hand you can use flour or simply grease a  pan with olive oil and assemble the pizza right in the pan.

Top with your favorite tomato sauce, spreading it out using the back of a spoon, then add prepared veggies, tofu or vegan sausage, and sprinkle with Daiya mozzarella cheese substitute over the veggies. 

Sprinkle more cornmeal on the pizza stone and very carefully slide the pizza off of the paddle and onto the hot stone.

Bake for about 12-14 mins, but watch it carefully! You don't want this heavenly treat to burn.

When the bottom looks slightly browned and the pizza looks bubbly, remove it from the oven.

The pizza is a beautiful thing, a treat to the "olfactories", a color sensation for the eyes, and amazingly yummy for the taste buds. 

I can always tell when my family is really enjoying their food. At first, an ambiance of quiet concentration prevails.A few beats later someone will say something like, "Wow, this is really good." And we will all agree. The fact that we all had a hand in it, make this homey meal taste even better. 

I hope you enjoy the pizza and the contented smiles on the beautiful faces of your loved ones as you warm up together on a cold winter's night with all of this savory goodness.

Luv, R