Once in a while an exceptionally good bad movie shows on our only movie channel. When one of these come around we order pizza and sit on the bed eating it while tearing the movie apart. We’ve watched ‘She’s the Man’ and ‘Material Girls’ amongst others like this. There’s nothing like ordering generic pizza and watching generic nonsense on a Sunday night.

Lately there have been absolutely now good bad movies. They’re all just really bad, so we have not been having any pizza. But we were craving pizza. I’ve been craving pizza, not fast food pizza, but fresh, homemade pizza, ever since I read this entry weeks ago on Food To Nourish the Spirit and Soothe the Soul.

Staring at the dark green pepper corns in Alexander’s lunch at Greyhound Saturday afternoon, I started thinking about dinner, (yes, I am the kind of person who can eat a perfectly satisfying and scrumptious meal and already be thinking about the next one plus what will be eaten for snacks in between the two).

In the fridge we had asparagus, a very agreeable piece of Morbier that Tim picked up while visiting (thanks Tim), one chicken breast, some kaffir lime leaves, leaves and lemon grass. In my mind’s eye these ingredients plus a couple of others began to come together in a two sublime pizzas. All I needed to pick up were some fresh pepper corns, mushrooms and Mozzarella cheese.

And here are the results of my lunchtime fantasy.

Two gorgeous thin-crusted pizzas (I don’t like thick crusts). One with Morbier, fresh asparagus, and mushrooms, the other with a stir-fried combination of a little lemon grass, one kaffir lime leave, one tiny red chil, one clove garlic, fresh peppercorn and chicken. The latter subtly blended some of my favorite Thai flavors- it was perfect!

I thought I messed up the dough because I could not quite follow the original instructions (I have no kitchen scale), but it came out perfectly. It’s really easy to make, so I will share my way, which is pretty much the same as the recipe I used, of making thin-crusted pizza dough.

Arrange:

1 cup all purpose flour

1 teaspoon dry yeast

1/2 tablespoon white sugar

1 teaspoon salt

150 ml cold water

1 tablespoon softened butter

Make:

Mix the dry ingredients well in a mixing bowl. Add the cold water and mix on medium speed with an electric mixer for about two minutes (use the dough hooks on your mixer). Increase the speed and add the butter, mix for about 15 minutes. I have a hand-held mixture, so this process was quite excruciating.

Pour this thick gooey mixture into an airtight container and leave for an hour.

After an hour, preheat the oven to 250C. Fflour a working surface and your hands and start working the dough, add more flour and work it until it is not sticky anymore and quite elastic. Make two balls and roll them out thinly. Put the pizza on an oven pan that’s been lined with a cookie sheet. Brush with olive oil, add Mozzarella and rest of the topic and bake for under ten minutes until the crust has been lightly browned. Remove from the oven and take pleasure in gobling up your home-made pizza.

Suggestions for thin crusted pizzas:

– After mixing the dough and leaving it in the container I thought it was going to rise, but it didn’t, so I thought it flopped, but this was not the case, I think. It just became rather bubbly and working in the flour created a very nice dough.

– If you want a thicker crust you should not roll it out too thinly.