What's for dinner? Homemade pizza.

Dave and I have never ordered a delivered pizza. Back in Provo, before I cooked much, we enjoyed a good Friday evening $5 Little Caesar pizza, and since then we've had Papa Murphy's Take and Bake 2 or 3 three times. We never buy frozen pizza either. The reason is we love to make it homemade. We've made it so much that it has become one of our "quick" meals, even though I realize it takes a bit more time than removing a wrapper and tossing it into the oven.

First the dough - which is the key. Mix your dry ingredients in one bowl, in another boil water with melted butter, and in a third heat milk with sugar and let the yeast rise. Once all three of these steps are complete, mix them together. Roll it out on a buttered/cornmeal covered pan, and then add your toppings.

When it is a fast meal I do little more than add cheese, onions, and peppers. Sometimes if we have left over meat we'll chop it and toss it on top.

Bake for 15 minutes, and that's it.




A little note: use butter. It's better, but oil will work, too. Shortening gives it a flakier substance, and if you are very health conscience, you can use sour cream instead of a fat. IF you use sour cream, you MUST grease your pizza pan very well or the cooked dough will stick stick stick!
Second, add malt powder to your dry ingredients. Malt powder, as in what you add to an ice cream milkshake to make it an ice cream malt. I know that sounds crazy, but I found a pancake recipe that called for malt and it was amazing! So I tried adding it to pizza dough... brilliant! Just adds a touch of nuttiness to the already sweet dough.




p.s. in these photos my pizza is made with cheddar cheese because I realized too late I was out of mozzarella. Oooh, one more things, adding crumbled blue cheese and fresh basil is absolutely delicious! Don't want to spend the money on blue cheese just to waste it? Don't worry, buy it in a plastic tub and freeze it. Works great.