Homemade Pizza

So I made some pizza sauce earlier this week, and I decided to use it to make some pizzas for Saturday night dinner. I know it may be easier to just order a pizza, but it is so much cheaper and just as tasty (maybe tastier?) to make your own. And it's not hard! It also is quite nostalgic for me since my mom used to make pizza. And usually for Saturday night dinners. I always thought her pizza was the best. I hope my kids will feel the same about mine.

I made my own dough using my bread maker. If you have one, look for the owner's manual, which should include recipes. I've found that my dough comes out the best if I make absolutely sure that my ingredients are room temperature. And then I refrigerate it until I'm ready to use it. That way, it's not as sticky and easier to handle. Just make sure that if you refrigerate it, you leave some room in your plastic wrap for the dough to expand. Because it will... I found that out when I opened up my refrigerator after putting my dough in the night before and found my dough escaping the plastic wrap and attacking my yogurt.

You can also find pizza dough in the refrigerated section of your grocery store. And some pizzerias will even sell you raw dough. Both are easier but not as inexpensive as making your own. Of course, you don't need a bread maker to make your own dough. I know Giada De Laurentiis has a recipe, and I can't imagine it's bad.

I made a cheese pizza for the kids and a broccoli pizza for Jonathan and me. I just used a shredded Italian cheese blend (an entire 8-ounce package covered both) and one medium head of broccoli, chopped into small florets. I stretched my dough out into rounds and put them onto ungreased baking sheets (one cookie sheet and one round pizza sheet). I pricked each round all over with a fork, leaving an edge for the crust. I added the toppings and baked them in a 400ºF oven for 20 minutes. I let them cool for 5 minutes before cutting them.

Here they are, in all their glory. They were very good, if I do say so myself.



So the difference in buying these pizzas out versus making them at home? They came out to be about the size of medium pizzas (about 14 inches, 8 slices each). What I made tonight would have cost us almost $20 at our local pizzeria. We estimated that both pizzas cost us $5 to make. Total. That's totally worth the extra effort to do this more often. And it's making me wonder if I should just make the pizzas I was planning on ordering for Benjamin's 4th birthday party coming up next month... Hmmmm...