Pizza

It is almost Friday and I am thinking about tomorrow's schedule, activities and meals.  Life stays pretty busy around here, but one thing we look forward to on Friday nights is pizza!  We have pizza pretty much every Friday night.

Friday night pizza started way back when we lived in Japan.  Maybe you didn't know this, but soon after Ben and I married, Ben's first duty station for the U.S. Navy was Atsugi, Japan. It was a naval air facility outside of Tokyo.  We went there as newlyweds and stayed there for four years.  Clayton and Clark were born there.  It was our first home and I wish like crazy we could go back and visit it.  We loved Japan and stayed the extra fourth year because we loved it so much.

We loved the people, the scenery, the adventures and the food.  Japanese food is amazing!  And we miss it a lot.  We learned to love and appreciate all kinds of Japanese food.  BUT, we did notice one thing about being over there...stick to Japanese food when you are in Japan. I am sure there are many exceptions, but we didn't find too many.  And one of the worst eating experiences we had in Japan was Japanese pizza.  I won't go into too many details, but just picture corn and shrimp on your pizza.  I like to put fun and creative ingredients on my pizza...maybe shrimp, but corn??  No, it just didn't work for me.

So, out of necessity, I began making our own pizza.  We just missed pizza too much to go without.  Back then, I used to make pizza with my Zojurishi bread maker.  Bread makers were a new thing all those years ago. I found that mine was pretty useful for making pizza dough.  That was when there was only 3-4 members in our family.  Over the years, I have switched to a big, old KitchenAid stand-up mixer to meet the demands of my large family's appetite. 

I have a great pizza dough recipe that is pretty foolhardy.  I will share it at the end of this blog, along with my sauce recipe.  It makes enough to feed a visiting family of four or five, and my four starving boys, two hungry girls and a mom and who are moderate in appetite, but feeling like, "Hey, it's Friday...let's live a little and worry about pounds later."  If we don't have anyone over and I have some leftover dough, I can just put it in the freezer in a ziplock bag and save it for another time.  I just take it out the day I need it and let it thaw till dinner prep time.  It works just fine.  It takes a lot to ruin this dough.  I even refreeze it sometimes.

With the amount of pizza we consume, there is no way we could afford to order out for pizza.  My boys are just too hungry!  We do have Costco pizza sometimes when life is just too crazy.  But there is a quality issue there.  So, by making our own pizza, we get quality and quantity.

 Here are the recipes for the dough and sauce.  You can choose your own toppings.  Here's a list of some of my favorites:  roasted garlic, fresh basil leaves, cream cheese chunks, capers, red onions, zucchini, bacon, chicken, spinach, feta, red peppers, red onions and goat cheese. However, goat cheese has been outlawed even more than corn by my family members, sigh.

Pizza Dough

3 cups warm water

2 Tablespoon yeast

2 Tablespoon sugar

1 Tablespoon salt

2/3 cup olive oil

1 cup of semolina or cornmeal

about 7 cups of flour

Stir water and yeast together with sugar.  Let rest until foamy, about 5 minutes.  Add salt, olive oil, semolina, and flour.  When adding the flour, keep adding it until the dough is no longer sticky, but smooth and elastic.  You can knead it by hand also.  Let it rise if you want to for 1-2 hours.  I rarely get that much time for rising and usually use it as soon as 20 minutes after kneading.  It still turns out fine for me.  Roll out on floured surface.  Place on greased pizza pan or stone, prick with fork and add toppings.  Bake at 450-500 degrees for about 20-30 minutes.  You kinda have to eyeball it a bit.  This is what I tell Ben when he wants me to give him a specific time on when it is done, "Just cook it til it looks like something you would want to eat."

Pizza Sauce

Small recipe:

1 6oz. can of tomato sauce

1 6oz. can of tomato paste

1 Tablespoon of sugar

1 teaspoon salt

1 Tablespoon of garlic powder

1 Tablespoon of parsley

2 teaspoons of basil

2 teaspoons of rosemary

2 teaspoons of oregano

1/4 teaspoon of cayenne pepper

Mix all the ingredients together and spread on pizza.

Big recipe:

Get a #10 can of crushed tomatoes from Costco and mix in much bigger amounts of the above ingredients.  Freeze what you don't use in Tupperware til next time.

Comments

[Kathryn]

You make really good pizza, I'm so glad you added the sauce recipe - when I make my pizza my sauce is olive oil, because I don't know what to use. Next time I come over on a Friday night, we'll have to add some goat cheese onto it! Maybe we'll convert some of your older kids if they're brave enough to try it.

[Sally Hess]

Hey, thanks for your testimonial! I am glad you enjoy the pizza! I agree, next time you come for pizza, we will bring out the goat cheese!