Oh my God, have you ever been in this situation? You start making dinner, and while your main course is cooking you open the pantry and realize you have no potatoes, no pasta, no rice, no bread, nothing for a starchy side. Not even crackers! Of course, crackers aren’t hard to make either, but you have to roll them, and I’d rather not. Here’s a good quick recipe for white pizza (pizza Bianca) – the most basic form of pizza with no tomatoes and cheese. It’s a great accompaniment to soup, pasta, salad, omelets, etc. It takes 5 minutes to put together, and will bake while you make the rest of your meal.

1 teaspoon yeast
3 cups flour
2 teaspoons salt (sea salt or kosher salt is great) plus a bit for sprinkling on the dough.
1 to 1 1/4 cups water
2 Tbs plus one tsp olive oil and some for oiling the sheet
1 Tbs or more roughly chopped fresh rosemary (or fresh or dried herbs of your choice)

Preheat the oven to 425.
Mix the yeast, salt, 2 Tbs olive oil and one cup of flour with all the water. Stir well, then add in the rest of the flour, changing to kneading when it gets stiff (you can use a bit less flour and leave it quite sticky, then you don’t have to knead). Let it rest for a moment while you oil a baking sheet. When you’re ready, pat the dough onto the baking sheet. Sprinkle with salt, tsp. olive oil, and herbs. Bake for 10 minutes, or until crisp and brown on the bottom.

Voila! Done, just in time.

If you want to get fancy, you can put on some Parmesan, thinly sliced ham, sun dried tomatoes, marinated artichokes, etc. and you can let it rise longer for added flavor. This is also a basic recipe for pizza crust with all the fixings.

Adapted from the recipe in Mark Bittman’s How To Cook Everything (my Bible).