Healthy Homemade Bread & Pizza - SUPER EASY!!!!

I always thought that making your own bread was a tedious, painstaking, time-consuming process so I never even considered it.  I am a very busy mama after all!  I don't have time for kneading bread all day!  Then, I came across this website, artisan bread in five minutes per day.

Here is the video I use when I'm ready to make my bread.  It is really short and a must-watch:

The whole point is to have the dough made up and in the refrigerator so when you're ready to make a loaf of bread or pizza, you just have to pull off some of the dough from your batch.

Here is the recipe and some of my pictures from when I made up a batch of dough the other night:


Clean Eating Bread

A couple alterations/notes from the video above:  Instead of the 2 c of all-purpose flour, I recommend using whole wheat pastry flour.  If you don't have that, use organic unbleached all-purpose flour.
They use chia seeds (I think) in the video.  You can use any seeds or spices on top!  My family loves when I put Italian Seasoning on top.  Their other fave is garlic salt, fresh cracked pepper, and organic parmesan cheese.  I have also cooked the bread, sliced in half and baked for a couple more minutes with some organic mozzarella or cheddar - to make "cheesy bread"!

 Ingredients:
5 & 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
2 cups organic unbleached all-purpose flour or whole wheat pastry flour
1 tbsp kosher salt
1 & 1/2 tbsp granulated yeast
1/4 cup vital wheat gluten

Directions:
Dump all ingredients in a large container with a pop-off lid, such as this one I have from Walmart:

Whisk all ingredients.
Pour in 4 cups lukewarm water (should be slightly warmer than body temperature, about 100 degrees)
Stir ingredients with a wooden spoon
Put lid on container and pop up a corner of the lid to let it breathe

Let it sit on a counter top for 2 hours.
After the 2 hours, pop lid on all the way and put container in the refrigerator over night.
Dough will have risen quite a bit from the yeast

So, that's how to make the dough.  From there, you store in the fridge until you're ready to make a loaf of bread or pizza.  It makes about 4 servings of whatever you want:  loaves or pizzas.

The video above goes through how to actually make a loaf of bread.  I like to make a loaf of bread this way rather than buy store bought french bread, when possible.  It is much healthier, with no added chemicals or preservatives.

Here is how to make the pizza with your bread dough:
Pre-heat oven to 450 degrees and slide baking stone onto oven rack.

***This is my baking stone.  Sorry, this is gross.  At first, I didn't use parchment paper under my pizzas so it can't be cleaned now...I got my baking stone at Target**

Dust the surface of your refrigerated bread dough with flour and cut off a half-pound (large orange-sized) piece.  Dust with more flour and quickly shape a ball by stretching the surface of the dough around to the bottom on all four sides, rotating a quarter turn as you go.

Put dough on parchment paper on a pizza peel.

**My pizza peel.  I got this at Target in a kit with a pizza cutter**
Using plenty of flour, flatten the dough with your hands and a rolling pin.

I shaped mine into a heart shape for Valentine's Day.  I have also shaped one into a pumpkin shape for Halloween, just for funsies.
Add toppings as desired.  I added my homemade spaghetti/pizza sauce (found on this blog), organic shredded mozzarella and Morning Star Veggie Meatballs (which I cooked in toaster oven for 10 minutes first since they were frozen).

I have also let the kids shape the toppings in the shape of a smiley face.  And for the World Series, we did a St Louis theme pizza.

**This was right before Halloween.  And, you can barely make it out, but there are pepperoni's in the shape STL (for World Series) in the middle with squash & zucchini I had to use up from the veggie drawer.**

Spray olive oil no stick spray around crust and sprinkle garlic powder/salt - this makes the crust SO YUMMY!

Transfer pizza/parchment paper to pizza stone in the oven. 
Bake 12- 15 minutes, turning pizza if it's browning unevenly.

Just have fun with this and get the kiddos involved, they will enjoy it so much more if they can help make it. 

FREEZER OPTION:
Before my husband and I went out of town last fall, I half-baked 3 pizzas and froze them so that my mom could just stick one in the oven on a busy night!  All you have to do is bake them at 450 degrees for like 5-7 minutes.  Take it out, wait for it to cool, wrap in cling wrap, and stick in the freezer for later!!  Then, when you're ready, stick it in at 450 degrees for about 10 minutes + or - until cheese is melted and toppings are cooked through. 

This bread is SUPER EASY, even the loaf is a great option to serve with dinner.  My kiddos LOVE this bread (with butter of course). 

I just never thought making my own bread would be an option, but I highly recommend this!  Even for the most busy mamas.

Thanks for reading!!