Who doesn’t love pizza? Well I am sure the Atkins diet doesn’t, but that is just silly. Being from New York, I was born to eat pizza, being Italian, I was born to make it.
Every Friday night at my parents house, there is bound to be a pizza in the oven. If there isn’t a pizza in the oven, then we are in the car on our way to Vermont, and stopped for pizza along the way.
Everyone has their comfort food, be it fried chicken, cupcakes, taffy, mine is pizza.
Now that I am on my own, I need to keep the tradition alive and make pizza every Friday night.
Once you see how easy it is to make your own pizza, you will think twice about ordering in delivery. Now you can certainly make your own dough and I have several times, but I would rather focus my attention on the toppings and let the dough be made by the pros. Believe it or not, a pizzeria will sell you plain dough. The prices can range anywhere from $2.00 to $4.00 for a large dough, it depends how much they want to rip us off. I purchased 4 large dough’s and then cut 2 of them in half to create 4 small ones.
This Friday I cooked 2 large pizza’s in the oven and 4 small pizza’s on the grill. You can go either way here, but I would suggest trying to grill your own pizza sometime. It tastes like it was cooked in a brick over, without the investment of Italian bricks. I will show you the basics of both methods and then you can get as creative you would like with the toppings.
Ingredients:
PLAIN CHEESE PIZZA
1 large dough
2 cups shredded mozzarella
1-2 cups tomato sauce (home made or store bought)
1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese
Fresh Basil torn into small pieces
Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F
For this pizza, I decided to bake it in the oven, just like my mother would do every Friday. Using a rimmed baking sheet, whether it be round or square, drizzle the pan with oil. Then you need to stretch the dough to fit the pan. There is no need to throw the pizza in the air, you can certainly try. I grab the edges and hold it up so the dough naturally starts to stretch. You can also make fists and put the dough over it and slowly expand it.
Since I am using a rectangular baking sheet, I need to stretch it a little more one side then the other. It doesn’t need to be perfect, it just needs to fit inside the pan. The imperfections are what makes this pizza yours.
Now that the dough is in the pan, I spread the sauce onto the dough with a spoon. I leave about an inch or so of the edge un-sauced, so there is a crust.
Once the sauce is on the pizza, you can place is in the pre-heated oven and bake until the bottom is golden brown. It takes 10-15 mins to get the bottom golden. Depending on your oven, the time can vary. The easiest way to know, is to take a fork and lift the dough up to see the bottom. Once it’s golden brown. Take it out of the oven, sprinkle it with the grated parmesan cheese and then sprinkle with the torn basil. Then evenly sprinkle the shredded mozzarella over the pizza. Place back into the oven until it reaches the desired crispiness.