Homemade Pizza

Anyone can call for pizza delivery or even bake a frozen pizza, but is that really cooking? In college, that was cooking, but now life after college it is SOOOOO not. Pizza dough is nothing hard at all, very easy and quick considering you just need the dough to rise for about 30 minutes ... its simple, quick, and delicious.

Simple Pizza Dough

1 batch can makes 2 pizzas, depending on size and thickness

Ingredients

1 (.25 ounce) package active dry yeast

1 cup warm/semi hot water

2 cups bread flour

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons white sugar

Tools

Half-pan baking sheet

Roulpat - makers of Silpat, just helps with rolling the dough out

Kitchenaid Stand mixer with Dough hook

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 F, move rack to 2nd lowest rack

First, add the yeast and warm water in a small bowl, and let sit for about 10 minutes, it gets really suddy, and dirty looking - like muddy water! But it is safe to use for food ... ha ha ha

Combine your salt, sugar, bread flour, olive oil, and yeast solution to the stand mixer and .. let it rip! just enough to combine, dont over mix ... you can let the dough get caught up in the hook = done

cover the dough with saran wrap and let sit for 30 minutes to rise double it size. I moved it near my heater .. hahaha

Flour your roulpat enough to make it less sticky, also flour your hands before you reach into the flour.

Split the dough into two parts, for two different pizza, unless you like super thick huge pizzas ...

The texture of the risen dough is really awesome, its so airy and soft!

You knead the dough in circular motions, and all sorts of things you want ... may not be the correct technique but hey, my dough turned out fine!

You can roll it out to make sure you get the shape you want ... I make rectangles because i want to utilize my baking sheet space.

You then add the pizza sauce (homemade or pizza sauce can) and the cheese.

Brush the edges with some olive oil.

Pop it in the over for 10 minutes to prebake the dough ... to make sure it has a crispy cooked texture.

After 10 minutes, you take it out and add your sliced onions, peppers, etc and pepperoni, meats, et al and bake it for about 20 minutes

Note: if you plan on adding basil or cilantro or any leafy fresh veges, do it after you finish baking! or your leafy greens will wilt ... and look sad.

pizza #1: green peppers, red onions, olives, bacon slices, pepperoni, mozarella

forgive me ... we were too hungry to even think about taking a picture!!

Pizza #2: BBQ chicken (chicken breast cooked in a skillet, then later sliced up and tossed up with a little bit of BBQ sauce), cilantro, green peppers, red onions, mozarella