Pizza!

Pizza, pizza, pizza! Who doesn't like pizza? Strangely, my dad doesn't... but that is besides the point. I've been wanting to try and make pizza dough from scratch for a long time and I finally got around to trying it out. It was actually pretty easy.  Flour, yeast, olive oil and warm water. And that is it. You just have to be willing to wait that hour for the dough to rise.  Add fresh mozzerella, basil and roma tomatoes and you have the best pizza ever! Or at least a pretty darn good one. 

Because I was also making a pizza for my boyfriend Jason, who likes a more traditional pepperoni pizza, I made sauce from scratch as well and added a bit to my mostly traditional magherita pizza. This ended up being like a million times better than Papa John's pizza and way less greasy, yet still very tasty and filling. Recipe(s) as follows:

Pizza Dough Recipe is taken from Food Network :

1/2 cup warm water (105 to 110 degrees F)

2 teaspoons active dry yeast

2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for kneading

1 teaspoon salt

3 tablespoons olive oil, plus more for bowl

Add yeast to warm water and wait for the yeast to dissolve, about 5 minutes. Mix in flour, salt and then olive oil just until it forms into dough. On a lightly floured surface, knead dough until smooth. Grab a bowl and drizzle in a bit more olive oil. Place the dough in bowl and let sit for hour in warm place. Dough will double in size.

Pre-heat oven to 500 degrees and (here's the secret to tasty home pizza made in an oven) place a  pizza stone/baking stone in the oven to warm up. It won't burn the bottom! No matter how hard you try. You can buy one for about 20 bucks at Bed Bath and Beyond and probably more reputable places. It's really worth the investment.

Once done, roll out the dough to your desire crust type (thin, extra thin, thick, etc) and add toppings.  For the pizza above, I drizzled a bit of olive oil, a bit of pizza sauce (recipe below) and cut up fresh roma tomatoes and fresh mozzerella.  Bake for about 10 minutes or until the cheese is bubbly and slightly brown. Add freshly topped basil and enjoy!

Pizza Sauce

Small can of crushed tomatoes

a pinch of your favorite italian-like herbs ( I used oregano and basil)

Garlic salt

pepper

On a stove top, add can of crushed tomatoes to sauce pan. Stir in herbs, salt and pepper to taste. You are done... pretty easy right? Put aside until ready to use.