Homemade Pizza

This week we made homemade pizza.  I am sorry to say that my adorable helper, the naked chef, did not don his chippendale style apron and help me.  Instead, he decided to torture his older brother and bug his sister while I made the pizza.  Oh well.  What's a girl to do?

I started with the crust.  I really like making the crust myself, rather than using a mix or buying one.  But, if you are buying a pre-made one, the Boboli ones are fantastic!  Don't think I'm busy in the kitchen watching dough rise and tossing it in the air like Papa John.  I use my bread maker.  It has a dough option, so I just add the ingredients (in the correct order...very important!) and hit the button. 

I love my bread maker.  You can actually make other things than just bread....pizza dough, pretzel dough, biscuit dough, and several different desserts.  Brand new, you can pay $100 for a bread maker.  But, my favorite thing about mine is that it was $5.  Yes!  You read that right!  When something breaks or you want a new appliance, try the thrift store first people. 

Pizza Dough Crust: (this recipe is for a breadmaker!)
1 2/3 cups water
2 TBS oil
2 TBS sugar
1 tsp salt
2 TBS dry milk
4 1/2 cups bread flour (I do half whole wheat flour and half regular bread flour)
2 tsp dry yeast

This makes enough dough for 2 pizzas.

An hour later, you get this:

While the breadmaker was doing it's magic, I made the sauce.  Very easy!  We are growing tomatoes and before long I am going to get sick of eating them with just salt.  So, I like to make pasta sauce, pizza sauce, and any other sauce I can.  I chopped some tomatoes and garlic and simmered them for a little while, ran them through the food processor with some dried basil and oregano and then added salt and sugar to taste.  I added a little olive oil in the beginning.



Before I give my bread machine all the credit, I have to give my food processor some props as well.  This sucker is as old as the hills.  My in-laws gave it to us (Thank you Nancy!) and it's been around.  It came from someone's grandma's aunt's cousin's sister or something.  But, like they always say "They don't make 'em like they used to."  Check it out:

If you can't read that little sticker, I'll help you:

Oh yes, this thing weighs a ton.  Everytime I get it out of the cabinet, I forget how heavy it's going to be.  But, it is fantastic!

Anyway, back to the pizza.  I roll out the dough, spread a little corn meal on the pizza stone (this keeps it from sticking), rub a little olive oil on the crust, and spread on the sauce.  This time I made two pizzas...one was mozzerella with ham.  The other was chicken (left overs) and half mozzerella cheese and half tomatoe-basil cheese.  For the chicken pizza I used a mixture of 1 part ranch dressing and 1 part the regular sauce for the pizza sauce.  I baked them both at 400 until done.  Here is the ham and cheese one:

The kids loved it and we had no leftovers.  This is a great way to sneak some whole wheat into your kids diet.  Mine never noticed the difference in the crust, in fact, it makes the crust a little sweeter.  If you dare, you can even add some ground flax seed or wheat germ as well.  Enjoy!