Pizza Dough

The BEST Pizza Dough

I had 3 taste testers including myself and each of us picked the same dough. It is light, chewy and flavorful. One dough that I tried had cornmeal and made the dough dry and crispy. The other was a recipe that did not require the dough to rise. This was flat and extremely dry. Lessons learned: Dough must rise and cornmeal should not be added to your dough. Here's the one we all loved!

Read further for the recipe that I have created for the best pizza overall.

What you need:

1/2 (.25 ounce) packet of dry active yeast

1 1/2 tsp of sugar

1 1/4 cups of warm water

1 tbsp of olive oil

1 1/2 tsp of salt

3 cups of bread flour

Non-stick olive oil spray

Place yeast, sugar and warm water in a large bowl. Stir and let sit for 10 minutes.

Stir in olive oil, salt and 2 1/4 cups of the bread flour.

Stir in the rest of the flour 1/4 cup at a time.

When dough forms, turn out onto floured surface. Kneed dough for 4-5 minutes until smooth and elastic.

Reagan Advice: Make sure surface is covered with bread flour the entire time while kneeding the dough. Dough will absorb some flour during this process so make sure there is always flour there for it to absorb.

Lightly oil a large bowl (I recommend a metal or glass bowl). Place dough inside, turn to coat in oil and cover with plastic wrap. Place dough in a warm place (like a turned off oven) for one hour.

 (Like my foot!?)

This dough can make 2 pizzas. Punch down the dough and split into half. Cover baking pan with non-stick spray. Use hands to gently press down on dough to cover as much of the pan as you can. I like my pizzas to have an odd shape to them, I don't know why. You can make it whatever shape you like.

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Add your favorite sauce and toppings. Bake in preheated oven for 15-20 minutes or until cheese is golden brown. My dough never got super brown because I didn't want the cheese to burn but this still was easy and FANTASTIC! Try it out :)

Here's what I put on my pizza:

I spray the edges of the dough with spray butter and sprinkle granulated garlic on top of the butter.

Regular jar tomato sauce with granulated garlic, dried onion flakes and italian seasoning added, spread with a spoon. I don't like a lot of sauce so I usually make a pretty thin layer.

Mozzerella cheese and a little shredded parmesan. 

I like onions and green peppers too but did not add tonight because I was strictly trying the dough.

Chicken Nuggets

Chicken Nuggets

 Who doesn't love chicken nuggets? I've had good nuggets and I've had bad nuggets. These are homemade and the best ones I've ever tasted! This post is a little different because I'll also post my husband's favorite. I liked them too but you'll see what I picked the ones I did.

Trying to keep with a tradition, I tried three recipes. The first I tried is the recipe I picked. The second, my husband's pick. The third is below:

Don't they LOOK pretty!? I thought so too. But don't be fooled, these were awful! They included regular bread crumbs and that's what they tasted like, bread crumbs. I couldn't even finish my meal they were so bad. If you want good nuggets look further.

Hubby's Pick:

Sour-Cream and Onion Nuggets

Thank you Paula Dean for this recipe which I thought I had altered enough to make them non-greasy. Nope, just as greasy/buttery as ever! Probably why Hubby liked them so much. 

Take 1 cup of sour cream and onion chips and crush them in a bag:

Add some bread crumbs to your chips if you need some more breading.

Dip your cut up chicken into a 1 egg and 2 tbsp of milk mixture and add them into the bag of chips and add them to a pan with foil.

Sprinkle with a LITTLE melted butter and bake and 350 degrees for 18-20 minutes. 

They are really good but like I said, pretty greasy so I went with THE BEST CHICKEN NUGGETS:

Cereal Chicken Nuggets

These are so fantastically juicy and crunchy at the same time. I had no problem eating these right up!

What you need:

1 cup of captain crunch cereal

1 cup of kix cereal

4 tbsp of flour

Salt and Pepper

4 large tenders cut into nugget size

2 eggs

2 cups of vegetable oil (I used enough to reach about an inch deep in the pan)

Use a food processor to make your cereal look like this.

Add your cereal to a plastic bag. Dip your chicken in the whisked egg and add chicken to cereal bag.

Add your breaded (or cerealed) chicken to another plate and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

Heat oil over medium-high heat.

Reagan Advice: Make sure the oil is heated all the way before adding chicken. Chicken may stick to the bottom if it is not preheated properly. To test the oil see if it is "swirling." If it is swirling then add some flour. If the flour bubbles right away, it is ready. If the flour browns too quickly, your oil is too hot. Turn it down and retest until ready.

 Cook until golden brown. This took me about 5 minutes to cook all the way through.

Enjoy! These were crispy on the outside but surprisingly NOT greasy. They were also perfectly juicy. I'm getting hungry just seeing the picture of these again!

Have something that you're not sure if you want to try? Send it my way! I'll tell you how it turns out :)