It was a joy today to officially meet and welcome Raymond To, the latest Asian Access missionary to come to Japan.  We had our small group time today and heard his story, and shared advice and laughter about some of the things we have all learned the hard way about adjusting to Japan.  Then a good prayer time for him.

After the meeting Ray came back to our home and experienced our after school routine… and then helped Olivia and me make pizza for movie night!  Our bread-maker is broken right now, so we have been trying different recipes.  I’ve put two of our favorites at the end.  A bread maker does save time, but the kneading recipe is the most fun to make!

Raymond will be going up to Tohoku next weekend with Peter.  He and Peter will just stay for two days, but it will be a good intro for him as six weeks this summer he will be in Sendai helping to coordinate our summer workers who will be doing relief work.  The last half of the summer he will be back in Sanda – already our kids are asking when he’ll be back.  (Olivia:  “But Mommy, why can’t he come and play TOMORROW?”).  We are thankful for how God continues to call amazing people to join our mission family in Japan…

Eric Bernard’s Pizza Dough

In a large mixing bowl empty out 1 packet of yeast, add 2-4 tablespoons of sugar

Pour in 1 cup of warm water and 1/8-1/4 cup of vegetable or olive oil.  Mix the water, oil, yeast, and sugar around with a fork and let it set about 2-3 minutes.

Slowly mix in 2-3 cups of flour (you can mix in a little whole wheat (1/2 cup) or wheat germ to make it a healthier crust) I usually stir in the flour with a fork until it starts to pull away from the bowl and get stiff.  Sprinkle a flour board with flower and kneed the dough adding dashes of flour along the way till it’s nice thick and firm. Dust another bowl with flour and the pizza dough as well placing it in the bowl and covering it with a towel. Leave it in a warm dry place and let it rise 2-4 hours.

Plop the dough out and kneed back into a firm ball 1-2 minutes and then roll out into a pizza shape.

I’ll usually bake the dough in the pizza pan about 5 minutes before putting the toppings on.

Alternative:

I also know a quick beer crust pizza recipe.

2-3 cups flour mixed with 1/8-1/4 cup vegetable oil and 1 can/bottle of beer. No raising time and you just roll it out and put it in the pan.

 Here is another great recipe that doesn’t need time to rise.  It came via Tim Clark and Tammy and MaryJo:

MaryJo’s Easy Pizza crust

2 1/2 C flour

1 T yeast

1 C warm water

1t sugar

2 T oil

1 t salt

Put sugar in water;  Add yeast and let set a few min till bubbly;  combine flour oil salt yeast/water.  Place on oiled baking pan & spread w/oily hands

(Tammy says to add topping and bake but I bake crust for 10 min THEN add topping and bake a few more min — depends on the oven, I guess)

Total baking is about 15-20 min at 210 C.

I like to make the crust a little bit whole wheat, and add a little garlic powder and/or italian seasonings (or just oregano) and/or parmesan cheese.