Like Smallhands, we are in the midst (actually, "throes" might be a more appropriate word) of a cleaning and home repair frenzy of the kind where things get exponentially worse before they start to get better. All the Christmas doodads are in their color coded bins and the garlands and bows are down from the front porches. I have only the lights to take off the tree and get the tree down and into its huge-o-rama box. While I've been working on this, my dear, dear husband has been painting the bathrooms and preparing to lay down new flooring (he says it's "nesting by proxy"). In the middle of all of this we've got the Boy Wonder learning to find places for all of the wonderful gifts he received ("No, honey, I think your new Eagles football would be better off in the outside toys basket than in the laundry baskets."). In short, it's a mess.


Still, I have the warm glow of accomplishment. Yesterday I froze the equivilant of three pizzas' worth of crust and canned several half-pints of grapefruit marmalade (I'm already planning a nice Christening cake using the marmalade - yum!). I used a standard marmalade recipe you can find anywhere by googling for one: grapefruits, sugar, water, juice of one lemon. Not sexy, but another lesson in how the most common ingredients can produce the most wonderful stuff with just a little care. On the other hand, I am super proud of my pizza dough recipe and thought that I'd share it here. With this, you can have a pizza in the oven within 30 minutes, if necessary, and out ready to eat in another 15. That competes with most delivery places and no one risks life and limb in the process of driving it to you. If for no other reason try:


- a teaspoon or so of room temperature yeast in a largish bowl


- add half a teaspoon of sugar and


- a cup and a half of water and blend


- allow the mixture to stand for a few minutes - it should start to foam a bit as the yeast activates


- Begin adding flour about half a cup at a time, stirring with each addition. I've used unbleached white flour, wheat flour, rye flour, chickpea flour and combinations of all of these (you know, what's left at the bottom of the bin) with great success. Just put it all in and stir. How much you'll need will depend on the flour, how much water you used and how dense you like your dough.


- When you can no longer stir the flour mixture easily, add another cup or so of flour and turn the whole mess onto a clean counter and begin to knead. Back and forth, back and forth, until the flour is mixed in. It should be pretty non-sticky by now and you can either roll it out or pat it into the pan or, if you like a more dense crust, knead in yet more flour. At this point, you can also let the dough rest a bit - say 10 minutes or so - to develop more of that nice, chewy pizza-esque character, but it's not strictly necessary.


- Once it's rolled out and on your pan, cover with your toppings of choice and pop into a really hot oven (450-500 degrees or so) for 12-15 minutes. If you put cheese on top, it should be browned a bit and bubbly.


- There you have it. Pizza at home quickly, easily and, more or less, cheaply. And, as you may have gathered, the dough freezes really well, too. So if you have extra, pop it in the freezer for those days when everyone's clammering for something quick but no one really wants to go out. Seems like those days are all I've got, lately!