Pizza

Friday night is Pizza night in our house.

My kids love rolling the dough and crafting their own pizza. It gets a little messy with all the flour and cheese covering the countertops but they seem to enjoy it so I patiently wait until they are done and make sure to add a little more cheese for them before popping the pizza in the oven.

This crust recipe never let me down and for the toppings my kids like to stay with the classic cheese and pepperoni while I like some pesto and grilled vegetables on mine. You can get so creative with the toppings and it’s so easy to get everything ready that we always get one together if we are out of ideas or have unexpected guests for dinner.

Crust Ingredients (for one large rectangular 15″ x 20″ or two 10″ round crusts):

• 2 1/4 cups flour
• 1 TBSP Yeast
• 1 TSP salt
• 3/4 to 1 cups water
• 1 TBSP Olive Oil

Toppings:

• 1-2 cups pizza sauce (sometimes I use tomato sauce and I add 1 tsp pesto or just basil and some garlic if you don’t have pesto); depending on how thick the sauce is you can use between 1 and 2 cups
• 2 cups shredded cheese
• Pepperoni / ham/ mushrooms/ olives / peppers / feta cheese / roasted vegetables. You can use anything you have in the fridge.

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 425 degrees F
• Using an electric mixer combine all crust ingredients to make the dough (as always the flour you use will require different quantities of water, i would start with 3/4 cups and add more if needed, the dough should not be sticky)
• Cover the dough and let it sit for 30 minutes
• Roll the dough on a parchment paper and transfer it on a baking sheet
• Bake the dough for 5 minutes

• Remove from oven and add the sauce and all the toppings
• Bake for another 7-10 minutes or until the cheese is melting and turning golden
• If you are using a pizza stone preheat the stone for about 30 min before adding the rolled dough on the stone. In this case you can put the sauce and toppings all at the same time (no need to pre-bake the crust if you are using a preheat pizza stone). If you are using a pizza stone you can also try baking the pizza on the grill, it tastes delicious.

Enjoy!