Pizza!

My 93 year old grandmother complained about my lack of measurements on the Swiss Chard Au Gratin that I wrote about on the blog a few days ago. She did not actually read the recipe on the computer screen; we read it aloud to her. "How much cheese? How much chard? Write down the measurements! I can't cook that without the right amounts of everything. What the Hell is wrong with you?" she yelled. This abuse came from a woman who taught me to make pie with the vaguest directions I've ever followed:

"How much flour do you use, Gram?"

"You look at it and you can tell how much."

"How much cinnamon do you sprinkle on the apples?"

"Not too Goddam much, you know. And don't forget a little lemon juice. Not to much of that, either or it tastes like shit."

So this may be a good time to put my pizza dough recipe in a proper format for everyone. I use the dough setting of my bread machine. Add the following ingredients to the machine in this order:

1 1/2 c water

1 T kosher salt

2 T sugar

3 T olive oil

1 c whole wheat flour

1 c all-purpose flour

2 c bread flour

2 1/4 tsp salt.

When the dough setting is done, remove the dough from the machine and cut it into thirds. If you are not interested in making 3 pizzas, you can freeze the extra lumps of dough in plastic bags. Let it defrost in the fridge overnight and then let it rise on the counter the next day. With the dough you plan to use right away, roll it out or stretch it with your hands (remove your diamond rings so you don't puncture it!) until it fits on a 16" pizza pan. Top with sauce (not too goddam much!) and mozzarella cheese. Add any pepperoni or other good stuff you enjoy on a pizza. Bake it on the lowest rack in your oven at 550 degrees (yes, 550 degrees...it gives a nice crisp crust) for 9 minutes.

So far, I have not mentioned the CSA relationship to my pizza. I had a huge bag of spinach, and I needed to use some of it. I cooked 3 strips of bacon in a skillet, drained the excess fat and removed the bacon to a paper towel to soak up extra grease. Then in the same pan, I added a chopped purplette onion from the share. When it was nice and translucent, I popped in a very generous bunch of spinach. When all of it was wilted, I topped the pizza with the chopped bacon, the spinach and onions. Daniel, my 9 year old, especially raved about it. I served a salad on the side (all CSA veggies), but I didn't measure that at all.