grinding for pizza

Like I said earlier I got a grain mill for Christmas this year. (mine didn't cost that much either!) I have been really unsure of how to start using it. I've been looking online at different resources. I've ordered some books online. But still, it just sat there.

Yesterday was one of those days where I just couldn't get motivated to do anything. I needed to take the 2 little ones with me to pay our car registrations and I was putting that off. Then I got inspired about a dinner idea. I decided to make some chicken and dumplings and a loaf of bread to go with it. Then I would finally get to use my mill.

Then I realized that my afternoon was not conducive to baking bread. I had to pick Trey up from band at 4, give his friend a ride home, take Trey to guitar lessons, wait that 30 minutes and get home a little after 5. Not a good day to be baking bread.

Then I decided on pizza! I still got to grind some flour to make crust and I had plenty of time to let that dough just sit and rise while I was out and about. I ground extra for pancakes this morning and a loaf of bread to make later today too.

Kathy asked me the other day if I had a whole wheat pizza crust. I realized it had been a while since I'd used it, but I do have one I love. And yesterday I got to try it out with fresh milled flour!

The recipe comes from allrecipes and I have tweaked it a little. It starts by proofing the yeast (1 Tablespoon) in 1 1/2 cups warm water (110 F/45C) and 1 teaspoon honey. That needs to sit for about 10 minutes or until foamy. Then stir in 1 Tbsp olive oil, 1 tsp salt, and 3 cups whole wheat flour. (Since I milled my own, I used a mixture of hard red wheat and soft white on the medium setting. It really looks like all purpose flour when it's dry, but it looks like a white and wheat mix when I start using it.)

I stirred that together with my stand mixer using speed 2 for about 3 minutes. Then I added another cup of flour. The original recipe only calls for a half cup at that point but mine just still seemed too wet. I let the mixer knead that for about another 6 minutes until it was smooth and away from the sides of the bowl.

I let it rise for just over an hour. Then formed it into 2 rounds, covered it again and let it rise about another 45 minutes.

I used 2 large cookie sheets to pat the dough out on. I pricked the crust all over with a fork and prebaked about 5 minutes at 425. Then I topped the pizzas with home canned sauce (that's why I spent an entire weekend putting up tomatoes after all!) and cheese. And the boys got sausage, onions and peppers and pepperoni on theirs, too.

Putting that through the recipe builder, 8 servings of just the crust is 4 points. I'm all about the sauce for my pizza, so just a little cheese is fine with me. If you like meater toppings, it will be more.

For me, again the awesome part of this is that I made the crust and know exactly what it has in it. I also know from grinding the wheat myself that it still has the most nutrients from the wheat in it too. I'm really excited to learn more about the grinding aspect of it all. The pancakes this morning were awesome too. They were so light and fluffy, not like I would expect ww pancakes to be. Kelli doesn't like "brown" pancakes (her words for my homemade buckwheat pancakes) and she was a little skeptical but ended up loving these pancakes today!

Today is grocery shopping. And I realize that I will probably need to go to 2 stores today. I need a few things from the regular store, but I also really want to go to Sunflower again and get more sugar alternatives. It depends on how cold it really is out there I guess!