Homemade Pizza

Pizza. It used to be the cheap snack. What happened?

Now, I'm not sure if it is due in part to where I live, but a pizza costs about $20, often up to $30 if you want a few more toppings.

$30? For a pizza? For some dough, toppings and cheese? It reminds me of when salads use to be the inexpensive alternative at dinner, until they became "in" and part of the trend, and now they often cost as much as the main course.

So here in my household, we turned to making our own pizza which not only saves money, but we get exactly what we want. I took a picture of our most recent creation, which is covered with bell peppers, kalamata olives, onions, cilantro, basil, jack cheese, mozzarella cheese and goat cheese.
We usually make our own pizza sauce, starting out with a base of tomato paste, garlic, water and oregano, but recently we've settled on BBQ sauce. It began when we wanted to make a BBQ chicken pizza, but we enjoyed the BBQ sauce so much, that we use it on the pizza even when we don't have chicken on there.

And the dough is delicious. The recipe is from the website of my favorite yeast, Red Star Yeast.

Mix together:
1 cup flour
2 1/4 t yeast
1 1/2 t salt

Add:
2 T vegetable oil (we often use olive oil instead)
1 cup water, with a temperature between 120 degrees-130 degrees

Mix together, then add:
1 1/2 cups flour (we sometimes like to throw a cup of wheat flour in there instead of all white)

Knead for about 5 minutes until dough is smooth.

Let it rest for 15 minutes, then roll or pull the dough onto the baking sheet and cover with sauce, cheese, etc. Bake at 425 for 25 minutes.

You don't be disappointed!