Alternate Title: I Made And Ingested Cheese (And Pepperoni) Pizza For Dinner
Today, as I went about my life ministrations of teaching narrative essays to my two homeschoolers and putting in a shift at the library, I was reminded no less than five times from various sources that it was National Cheese Pizza Day! Interestingly enough, my son, who came in the door after dark last night, sweaty and exhausted from a brutal couple of hours at football practice had requested that I make homemade pizza for dinner this night. I am a sucker for acquiescing to sweetly made requests from my baby gorilla, so I agreed to make pizza for tonight's dinner.
Now, homemade pizza is probably our family's favorite meal. I mean, I have the dough recipe memorized. This morning while I waited for the kids to finish up their essays, I took some leftover tomato juice from Monday's canning expedition and whipped up some homemade pizza sauce. The smell of crushed garlic from this year's crop simmering in the sauce along with the lovely notes of oregano made me look forward the evening's noshing to come.
After I arrived home from the library, I got out the dough makings and proceeded to whip up my pizza. It really takes no time at all to craft a quick dough, I didn't even let it rise or proof. Some days I do and others I don't. Tonight, I was rather tired, so I just mixed together my dough, gave a it a bit of a knead on my flour dusted counter top, and pressed it into the pans.
At this point I have to admit that I used pepperoni on the largest pizza because I had promised my boy that we would have it for dinner, and yesterday I wasn't aware of today's cheese pizza calendar importance. However, the two smaller pizzas that I crafted were most definitely cheese in honor of today's apparent cheesiness.
I don't know about you all, but one of the best and most celebrated things about homemade pizza is eating it the next day for breakfast. I made a triple batch of dough so our pizza feasting will probably bleed over into lunch time too. Priorities.
Now I am going to go lay on my flintlocks and digest all of the delicious, doughy goodness that I have partaken in. It has definitely been a good night thus far.
And for anybody that is interested, here is my base dough recipe. I usually double or triple it to feed my family of pizza hounds:)!
Quick Pizza Dough
2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
2 Tablespoons Olive oil
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast (1 packet)
1 cup warm water (105-100 degrees Fahrenheit) I just use warm water out of my faucetPlace yeast in a bowl and add water, stir to dissolve. At this point you can stir in the sugar and let the mixture proof ten minutes until bubbly before proceeding, or not, it will work either way.
Add the rest of the ingredients and stir until the dough comes together. I use a nice wooden spoon for this part.
Place dough on a lightly floured surface and knead, adding flour when needed, until dough is no longer sticky and becomes a bit stretchy. At minimum I would say about five minutes of kneading, I usually go for ten, which is a nice little arm workout.
Form dough to pans and top with whatever sauce, cheese, and toppings you so desire! Then toss your resulting pie >into a hot oven, I bake my pizzas at 425F.
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