Homemade Pizza

Love pizza but don't want to pay to have it delivered? Don't want frozen pizza either? Then make your own! It's not all that hard and you can make it the way you like it. You can buy pre-made crust and sauce, but today I'm going to include some recipes to make your own.

The Details:

Pizza Sauce

1 (25 ounce) can tomato sauce

1 (6 ounce) can tomato paste

1/3 c. oil

2 tsp. oregano

1 Tbsp. garlic

2 tsp. basil

salt and pepper to taste

Stir together tomato sauce, tomato paste, and oil in sauce pan over medium heat. Add rest of ingredients and simmer for 10 minutes.

You can vary the amount of spices to your own taste, or add different ones. If you don't want to cook the sauce, it also works fine to just mix the ingredients together and use. Any sauce you don't use can be refrigerated or frozen to use at a later time.

Pizza Crust

2 1/4 tsp. yeast (1 packet)

1/2 tsp. sugar

1 1/2 c. warm water

2 Tbsp. vegetable oil

3 1/3 c. flour

1 tsp. salt

cornmeal

Dissolve yeast and sugar in warm water until foamy. Combine oil, flour, and salt. Add yeast mixture. Knead until smooth, about 8 minutes. Placed in greased bowl, turning once to grease top. Cover, and let rise until doubled. Punch down and let sit for one minute. Divide in half and form two crusts. Grease pan and sprinkle with cornmeal. Place crust on pan and let rise for 15 to 10 minutes. Top with sauce and favorite toppings. Bake at 425 degrees for 15 to 20 minutes, or until cheese starts to brown.

To form crusts, you can either form dough into a ball and roll out to desired size, or try to toss it! If you don't have a pizza pan, you can simply form the dough to fit a cookie sheet and use it that way. I also like to sprinkle garlic salt with parsley on the outer crust. I use about 1 cup sauce and about 2 cups mozzarella cheese for my toppings. The pictured pizza has Canadian bacon cut into quarters.

If you don't need to cook two pizzas, you can put the remaining dough in a freezer bag and freeze. To use, place in the refrigerator overnight to thaw, then form and cook pizza.

You can also use the crust to make personal sized pizzas. Divide the recipe in 8 to 10 sections, depending on how big you want the individual pizzas. Let every family member make their own pizza, or even set out sauce and toppings at a birthday party or sleepover and let all the kids make their own. If making personal sized pizzas, remember they probably won't take as long to cook

Happy Cooking!