I got a new flash for my camera for my birthday. Tonight I experimented with it while making homemade pizzas at night in the kitchen. I was pleased with the results; even more importantly, so was Graham.

For the pizza crust, I used Mark Bittman’s Pizza Dough recipe, making modifications so it was a whole wheat crust (per Bittman) and because I can’t seem to follow directions (which turned out nicely anyway).

Bittman recommends using your food processor for making the dough. Turns out, the food processor makes making dough about a billion times easier than it would be otherwise. Such a wise man that Mark Bittman.

The dough had to spend 1-2 hours rising for the first time. What was I to do?  I made homemade pizza sauce.

At the last minute, I added in some chipotle peppers thinking that the smoky flavor would bring out the nuttiness of the whole crust. Turned out I was right.

Pizza sauce simmering, I prepared the other toppings.  We used fresh mozzarella, but the pictures didn’t turn out so great.

I’m such a good pescatarian wife – look what I bought for my carnivore husband.

Humanely raised sopressata, untreated by antibiotics. (A trade off he doesn’t care much about, even if I do.) (By the way, don’t click that link unless you want to see salami being made.)

We live in Texas, where jalapenos are almost state law. We had to include them on the pizza.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Meanwhile, after the dough spent all that time rising, I divided it up and threw half in the freezer for future pizza nights.  Graham missed a large part of kindergarten, so he says he doesn’t know how to share. I made him his own little pizza so he didn’t have to learn.

Graham’s is on the left, mine is on the right.  What you can’t see here is that his is twice as big as mine.

We put ‘em in the oven, where they baked for ~11 minutes.  By this point, it was after 8 pm – we were starving, so we didn’t wait for the pizzas to cool.

When we were in Wisconsin in November, Graham’s Grandma Sis gave us a new pizza cutter. I think it looks a bit like PacMan, but damn it works well.

Even better? You can pull the white disc out of the blue case for super easy cleaning. Brilliant! Such good usability!

The verdict?

G: “It’s not a bad wheat crust. It’s not cardboard like most of them are.”

A: “Holy my god it takes a long time to make these.  But the results… They’re probably worth it. Thank goodness I froze more than half the dough so we don’t have to wait this long again.”

Whole Wheat Pizza Crust

Adapted from Mark Bittman’s “Whole Wheat Pizza Dough” in How to Cook Everything Vegetarian.

Ingredients:

• 1.5 cups bread flour
• 1.5 cups whole wheat flour, plus more for work surfaces
• 2 tsp. active yeast
• 2 tsp coarse sea salt
• 1.5 cups filtered water, at room temp.
• 3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil, plus more for oiling the rising bowl

Method:

1. In a food processor fitted with the dough attachment, combine dry ingredients.  Add water and olive oil through the tube feeder.  Process until combined and slightly sticky. If the dough is too sticky, add a teaspoon of whole wheat flour until desired consistency.  If the dough is too dry, add a teaspoon of water until it reaches desired consistency.
2. Move dough to a floured work surface, knead by hand and form a ball.
3. Coat the inside of a metal bowl with olive oil. Place dough ball in bowl and cover with a towel or plastic wrap.  Let dough rise in dark location (I used a turned off, empty oven) for 1-2 hours. (I did 1.25 hrs. Ideally the dough should double in size.)
4. When the dough is ready, divide on a floured work surface.  Form balls, then gently flatten into desired shape by pressing from the center out.  The desired thickness is between .25″-.34″.
5. Again cover dough and let rise for ~20 minutes.  (There’s no need to move to another location.)
6. When the dough is ready, move to a pizza stone and add ingredients.  Bake in oven preheated to 500 degrees for 10-12 minutes.

Chipotle Pizza Sauce

Adapted from Mark Bittman’s “Fast Tomato Sauce” in How to Cook Everything Vegetarian.  The pizza sauce can be juicy; I recommend using a slotted spoon to drain juices before adding pizza sauce to crust.

Ingredients:

• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 1 med yellow onion, finely chopped
• 2 cans diced tomatoes
• 2 chipotle peppers, sliced in half with loose seeds removed
• large pinch sea salt
• freshly ground pepper to taste

?Method:

1. In a medium sauce plan, heat olive oil.  Add onion and saute until soft.
2. Add diced tomatoes and chipotle pepper.
3. Bring mixture to a simmer for 25 minutes, then remove chipotle pieces.  Salt and pepper to taste.