Awesome Bread Sequel - Awesome Pizza

A couple of months ago I posted about our family's effort to make our own bread for 2012.  We continue to enjoy the bread (current tally: 30 loaves made, 2 bought) and tonight I made blood orange and strawberry bread with dark chocolate - I'm excited to see how it turns out tomorrow.  One baked item we had continued to buy at the start of the year was the crust for pizza.  We love pizza and it's fun to make at home - you can experiment with different toppings and it's easy to make.  Amelia found a great recipe for making pizza crust and so since February we haven't bought any pizza crusts and love the taste of the fresh homemade pizzas.

Below is the crust / pizza recipe and a video demonstration of making the pizza.  If you try it out this weekend let me know what you think.  Enjoy!

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Awesome Pizza Recipe

Ingredients (crust):

• 1 package active dry yeast (.25 ounce) 
• 2.5 cups flour
• 1 cup warm water
• 2 Tbsp olive oil
• 1 tsp white sugar
• 1 tsp salt

Ingredients (toppings):

The following is an example, use any toppings that you like and experiment

• .5 lbs mozzarella cheese
• .25 lbs ricotta cheese
• 3 medium tomatoes
• 8 oz crushed tomatoes
• 1.5 cups mushrooms
• 1 small onion
• .5 cups fresh basil
• .25 cups fresh oregano

Hardware:

• Large Mixing Bowl
• Sheet pan (with raised edges)
• 1 cup measure
• 1 Tbsp measure
• 1 tsp measure
• Knife and cutting board

Below is a video demonstration of making the pizza recipe above - the first 1.5 minutes shows how to make the crust.  Hopefully it's helpful and worth a good laugh at my expense too.

Although pizza might not be the healthiest food in the world we've been trying to cook more at home in general to better understand what goes into our food, and to prepare what we can at home instead of purchasing everything at a store.  Plus, this recipe tastes much better than the crusts we were buying and also costs a lot less (about $1.62 per crust compared to $3 or $4 to purchase).

We try to always use something from our garden on our pizzas and have used arugula, basil, oregano, green onion, and tomatoes (yellow and red) so far.  Using something from the garden each day is a great way to ensure we use what we're growing and reminds us to step outside and see how things are going in the yard.

I hope you enjoyed the post and more importantly, that you enjoyed your pizza!