TEOTWAWKI Prep: Making A thin crust whole wheat pizza

To do this in one day was a complete undertaking. I definitely underestimated the effort this would require; however, I am very happy with the end result.

A Pizza is essentially composed of 4 Things: the crust, the sauce, the cheese, and the toppings. I am going to go through the things I did in the order in which I did them.

Step 1. Start the Pizza Dough.

In a large bowl Mix 3 3/4 cups of whole wheat flour with 1 pack of Fleischmann's Pizza Crust Yeast, and 1.5 tsp of non iodized salt. Mix it up very evenly.

In a separate bowl mix up a cup and a half of tepid water, 1 tablespoon olive oil, and 1 tablespoon honey.

Mix the liquid in with the dry ingredients gradually. Your dough should be a bit sticky. You can add more water if you need to. Just do not over knead the dough, and remember to add water a small amount at a time.

Once you have a decent consistency, cover the bowl and let sit for 1 and half to 2 hours with plastic wrap. I was out of plastic wrap and used a shopping bag. You just need to keep the air out of it.

While the dough is rising, start the sauce!

Step 2. Start the Sauce

Chop up a medium onion very very finely.

Peel the skin from 10 roma tomatoes. I have found the easiest way to do this is to scour an x into the end of each tomato

Bring a pot of water to boil

Once at a rolling boil, add the tomatoes. Bring back to boil and boil for about a minute. Until you see the skin start to shrivel and peel.

Carefully strain the tomatoes and run cold water over them.

The skin should peel off easily.

Crush up the tomatoes (being careful to remove any stems) and set aside.

Heat a small amount of olive oil in a pan and add the onion. Cook until translucent.

While the onion is cooking, cut up 4 leaves of basil

Add 1/2 Tablespoon of minced garlic to the onions and cook for about a minute. Add crushed tomato and basil. Cook until it is no longer liquidy. Maybe 20-30 minutes. While the sauce boils down begin the cheese.

Step 3. Make the cheese

Measure out 2 Cups of water. Stir in 3 teaspoons of citric acid. Mix completely.

Set aside 1/2 cup of the citric acid water and mix 1/2 tsp of liquid vegetable rennet.

Put 2 gallons of milk in a very large pot, clip your cheese thermometer to the side, and heat the milk to 90 F Degrees. Stir in the citric acid (not the rennet) gently.

Once the milk reaches 90F degrees remove from heat and add rennet.

stir for about 30 seconds (try to stir in vertical circular motions so that the rennet gets mixed with the milk on the bottom of the pan as well. Cover the pot and let it set for 10 minutes.

At this point, your curds should have started to harden up. You can see in the photo below where my curds have stiffened up and I cut horizontal lines in the curds.

Cut vertical lines in the curd.

Then cut horizontal lines in the curd.

Then cut diagonal lines into the curd.

Place the pot back on to the stove and cook to 105 F degrees. SLOWLY stir as to not break up your curds.

remove the curds with a slotted spoon and place in a strainer with cheesecloth.

Place a bowl underneath to drain off any whey.

Heat the Whey back up to 190 F degrees. put the strainer in the top of the whey. Add the cheesecloth and cheese until the cheese is covered. Cook the cheese this way for 5 or more minutes. Use your thermometer to make sure the cheese curds internal temperature is 135 F degrees. If you do not let the curds reach temperature they will be more the consistency of cottage cheese and your mozzarella will not stretch right. However, if you're using it for pizza and you would prefer it to be that consistency to avoid shredding, then by all means do what you need to accomplish your goals.

Stretch you cheese at this time. Sprinkle with Salt and herbs.

I didn't let mine get all the way up to temp, but pretty close. Here is my final cheese product:

Step 4: roll out the dough

at this point your dough ball should have doubled in size. This recipe makes 2 pizzas, so you will need to divide the dough ball into 2 separate balls.

At this point you should roll out your crusts. I made squares, but you can do a circle. Whatever you like. Once completed, go ahead an preheat your oven to 450 F degrees.