Homemade Pizza

You know when people ask you if you could only eat ONE food for the rest of your life, what would it be? For me pizza is always a strong competitor. I can eat pizza for breakfast, lunch and dinner, in fact last Sunday I did. Like most americans I grew up eating pizza pretty regularly as my father feels similar sort of love for pizza.
While I do venture out and make untraditional pizza when it comes do to it, I really just crave pepperoni and cheese with a lot of sauce on a crispy or crust.

I do a form of a semi-home made pizza. I buy a crust mix, instead of just adding water I add olive oil and Penzy's Pizza seasoning. Penzy's is a spice store that has 2 locations in the Twin Cities. They have pretty good prices and fantastic spices including several pre-mixed ones like the Pizza. Next I Mix the dough, let it sit, roll it out and pre-bake it for about 10 minutes. I prefer to pre-bake the crust that way its never flimsy or undercooked.

So I skimp on the crust a little, but I do make my sauce from scratch, starting with Trader Joe's Organic Tomato Sauce (ok, so I don't use fresh tomatoes either because I'm not a fan but feel free to add them to yours). As canned tomato sauces go their's is my favorite, its flavorful and it actually has texture to it.

To the sauce I add:
2 Cloves of Garlic
2 tsp Onion
2 tsp Penzy's Pizza seasoning
1 1/2 tsp Italian seasoning

1 tsp Sea Salt
1/2 tsp pepper

1/2 tsp Oregano
1/2 tsp Basil
1/4 red pepper flakes
2 tsp tomato paste
1 Tb olive oil
1 1/2 tsp brown sugar.

My mother always said "a recipe is just a guideline," this is one of the few pieces of advice that I took to the first time I heard it. Thus I am not much for strict recipes I tend to rely on taste preference, so those are estimates but I encourage you if you are attempting this to let it cook for 5-7 minutes before adding more seasoning. Also feel free to add more of any ingredient you are particularly fond of, but do not skip the sugar it cuts the acidity.

I like to let my sauce "come together" as long as possible, this makes for a flavor that is rich and deep and this also gives time for the water to cook out for a thicker sauce. For this reason I like to get my sauce going then start working on the crust.

Crust. Check. Sauce. Check. Now it s time to build the pizza. Like a said before I am a pizza traditionalist with mozzarella and pepperoni AND feta cheese. Feta is my new favorite must have pizza topping it really bring it all together! You can also see the canadian bacon on the other-half of this one.

I love making pizza from "scratch" and it is a really great activity to do with others.