Fresh Crusty Bread Right After Work Every Day of Your Kid's Ungrateful Childhood(Tell them write a tell-all paperback novel about THAT)
Sorry if I sound bitter, but I have been forced to watch my kids mill about the house, enjoying snow day after snow day.....demanding more orange juice and cookie dough. Or maybe I'm just jealous that I have to knock the snow and ice off the car every morning to go to work while they are sleeping until 10.
Their little brains are slowly turning to mush playing video games and watching NetFlix. PLEASE someone come over here with a snow plow and get them back in class and OUT of my cabinets.
Meanwhile, I remembered this refrigerator bread dough recipe from Mother Earth Magazine that is super easy to use for both loaf bread and pizza crusts. It requires a bread stone, which is available from Amazon for under 15 dollars. Get a cheap one.
They sometimes offer a big paddle called a pizza peel. I personally ever have had a need for one. Just one more thing to wash.
"No Knead To Stress"
Refrigerator Bread Dough
3 cups lukewarm water
1 1/2 packets yeast
1 1/2 tbsp salt
6 1/2 cups unbleached flour
AND THAT'S IT!
In the water, dissolve the yeast and the salt. Gradually add the flour, one cup at a time. Once blended, do NOT kneed.
Cover it loosely and leave it alone for anywhere between 2-5 hours (doesn't really matter how long within these guidelines). Then stick the whole thing in the fridge.
When you need bread, pull out a grapefruit-sized ball of the stuff and arrange it so that the top is smooth and the loose ends are tucked at the bottom. Add a little more flour if it is sticky. Let it stand again for around 40 minutes ( long enough to prepare the rest of the meal). Preheat oven with bread stone on the middle rack to 450 degrees.
Lightly slice across the top of the bread ball with a serrated knife a couple of times so the bread can expand while baking. Place the dough on the hot bread stone.
Either place a oven safe pan 1/2 full of water under the bread stone OR throw a handful of ice on the bottom oven range.
Bake 30 minutes, or until bread is browned and firm to the touch.
The dough will last two weeks in the refrigerator. Take the last of it and add it to the new batch if you like sourdough.
"No Knead To Stress" Pizza Dough
Is exactly the same, except use a cutting board to roll the dough out after 40 minutes or so to around 1/2 inch thick. Preheat oven and bread stone to 450 degrees.
Add spaghetti sauce, pepperoni, and mozarella to taste. ( or whatever you like)
Take a metal pizza pan, and flip the pizza from your cutting board to the metal pan, so that the crust is on the top and your cheese and stuff is at the bottom.
When the oven is ready, flip the pizza right side up from the metal tray to the bread stone.
Don't worry about the water at the bottom of the oven for pizza. Remove when cheese is bubbly.
Fresh Pizza? Suddenly, you just became Most Awesome Mom, Evah.