Homemade Pizza

On Monday night we were low on groceries, but Jon didn’t get paid until Friday. So I looked around and tried to find a recipe for things we already had on hand. I found a quick recipe for pizza dough and thought, Sounds good to me.


I was really happy with how it turned out for three main reasons:

{1} It was filling.
I love pizza, but I feel like I have to eat many slices to feel full. With this one, I was full after two medium-sized square pieces.

{2} It was cheap.
I used ingredients I already had on hand. No trip to the store!

{3} It was sooo good.
It reminded me of Shelly’s pizza from when I was in elementary. Shelly was the cook for us then and her food was always delicious, but the pizza was to die for. So were her rolls. And everything else she made… But her pizza was amazing!

Pizza dough:
2 packets of yeast
2 tsp sugar
2 cups of warm water
5 cups all-purpose flour (plus extra to sprinkle on surface)
4 Tbs olive oil (plus extra if you’re using a metal pan)

Toppings:
{You can put on whatever you want, but this is what we had}
Tomato sauce
1 lb ground beef
1 sm can mushrooms
2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
1-2 Tbs parmesan cheese
Preheat your oven to 450 degrees. Put the yeast, sugar, and warm water in a bowl. Let the yeast and sugar sit for about 10 minutes to dissolve. (It should look creamy.)
Brown the hamburger, adding the mushrooms towards the end. Cover and set aside.

Add the flour and olive oil to the yeast. Mix well, then let the dough rest for 5-10 minutes.
Drop the dough on a floured surface and stretch to desired size. (I was using a large cookie sheet 18x13 I believe. A Pampered Chef baking stone is on my wish list.) Make sure you have plenty of flour on the surface so when you go to put the dough on the pan or stone it will slide off easily. Poke with a fork all over to prevent air bubbles.
Add desired toppings. I put tomato sauce and cheese all over, but I only put the beef and mushrooms on half and sprinkled the parmesan on the other half.
Bake for 20-25 minutes. {15-20 if you halve the recipe}
Cool for 5 minutes before serving.
Enjoy!