It's easy to do, it's filling, it costs almost $0 to make, the basic ingredients are all pretty shelf-stable pantry items, and it's damned tasty. It is therefore ABSOLUTELY the right thing to make tonight, after spending our whole grocery budget on beer 1 1/2 weeks ago.
Sure, it's not a particularly HEALTHY food. It will wreak an ugly and in no way uncertain havoc on anybody who has issues with wheat, gluten, or blood sugar stability. And I have no useful knowledge to share for people who want to adapt this recipe into something medically advisable. Except "make zucchini latkes or something."
But it's cheap. God help me, it's cheap. And it's very, very tasty.
Because my professors in school taught me to cite my sources, I feel obligated to mention that my recipe is adapted from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything. Because most things I do can be traced back to that book in one way or another.
To do what I do, you will need:
A bowl big enough to mix the dough in.
Plastic wrap.
Probably a stirring-style spoon, like a wooden spoon or a plastic imitation of a wooden spoon. Makes things easier.
A "cup" sized measuring cup.
A teaspoon. (Measuring device.)
A tablespoon. (Measuring device.)
Some kinda thing to roll dough out with, like a rolling pin or a thoroughly cleaned and sterilized, chilled beer bottle.
A CLEAN surface to knead and roll out the dough on.
Access to clean water, at least 1 cup, plus more for hand washing.
3 cups white flour, minimum.
1 teaspoon of fast yeast.
2 teaspoons of salt.
2 tablespoons of olive oil, or whatever. (Olive oil is the only fat I've used in this dough so far.)
Additional fats, your choice, to make them greasy when cooking.
Additional stuff, your choice.
Start by locating your bowl. Place it on a counter, or another stable surface.
Put two cups of flour into the bowl, with the salt and yeast. Stir it, using the stirring spoon, or whatever else you are using in place of a spoon. Add one cup of water to the bowl of dry ingredients, and stir until everything's, like, sticky dough. Then, stir in the last cup of flour pretty slowly, and once kneading it by hand starts to seem easier than stirring, then clean your hands thoroughly and just dive in there.
It will become dough, real dough. If it's too sticky, add more flour. If it's too dry, add more flour. Whatever.
After it's sufficiently a wad of dough, cover the bowl--dough inside--and ignore it for 1-2 hours. I'll sometimes go a little over 2 hours, but it's important to keep an eye out. If it stays at room temperature for too long, it's going to get GROSS. And unfit for human consumption. (The cookbook says 1-2hrs room temp, or 6-8hrs in the fridge.)
Once the dough is bigger--"doubled in size?"--rip some chunks off of it, put those chunks, one at a time, on a sterile food prep surface that's powdery with flour, and roll 'em out flat. Once you've made as many flat dough things as you want, put 'em somewhere flat and ignore 'me for 20 minutes.
When the time's up, freeze them or cook them somehow:
LIKE: In the oven, on a baking sheet (lined with parchment paper if you hate making an effort when washing up), with oil and toppings on top and oil below. Cook at 500 F for somewhere like 4 to 12 minutes, checking often for burning.
LIKE: On a grill. However that works.
LIKE: In a freezer, wrapped up to prevent freezer burn. Thaw and cook before eating. (No idea if it should be thawed to room temperature before cooking or not. That one's on you to look up.)
And that's it!
Last night, I made two types, both in the oven.
One savory batch, with tomato slices, fresh rosemary bits, feta cheese, lumpy salt (some sea salt something), fresh-cracked pepper, and probably other stuff. I SHOULD have sautéed some garlic and sliced shallots and added them, but I was tired and did nothing that required the stove.
I also made a sweet batch with turbinado sugar, pumpkin pie spice mix, more of those largeish salt crystals, and cranberries disguised as blueberries.
The feta cheese toasted better than the cranberries did, but the tomatoes bested all other toppings and should have been used more liberally. But everything was tasty and worth the effort needed to make, and then eat.
Just do yourself a favor and eat it warm, fresh from the oven. It's GOOD the next day, but not great.
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