Pizza!

Our friends came to visit us this weekend. They live in New York, so we don't get to see them very often. We had a great visit! I decided to make pizza since I had a ton of mozzarella cheese to use up and let's face it...who doesn't like pizza??! I couldn't seem to find my trusty Kitchen-Aid cookbook, so I pulled out the old Betty Crocker and found a pizza crust recipe. It came out perfectly!

Pizza Crust

Ingredients:

2 1/2 to 3 Cups All-Purpose Flour

1 T Sugar

1 tsp. Salt

1 Package (2 1/4 tsp.) Regular or Quick-Acting Yeast

3 T Olive Oil

1 Cup Very Warm Water (120-130 degrees)

Directions:

In the bowl of a Kitchen-Aid mixer fitted with a dough hook, mix 1 Cup of the flour, the sugar, salt and yeast. Add the oil and warm water. Mix on medium speed 3 minutes, scraping bowl frequently. Stir in enough remaining flour until dough is soft and leaves sided of bowl. Place dough on lightly floured surface. Knead 5-8 minutes (I simply kept mixing for 5 minutes with the dough hook) or until dough is smooth and springy. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and a towel and let rest 30 minutes.

For thin crusts: Heat oven to 425 degrees. Grease 2 cookie sheets or 12 inch pizza pans (I used Pam cooking spray on a baking stone). Divide dough in half. Pat each half into 12 inch circle and place on pan or stone. Partially bake 7-8 minutes or until crust starts to brown. Add toppings and bake until cheese is melted.

Tomato Sauce:

I usually make my own pizza sauce, but discovered I was out of tomato sauce. So, I figured I could experiment a bit! I put about 1 T olive oil in a saucepan and added the following: 1 can of diced tomatoes, salt, pepper, 1 T minced garlic, 1 tsp. garlic salt, 1 tsp. oregano, 2 frozen Trader Joe's Basil Cubes, 1 T dried sweet basil and 1 T sugar. Heat until warm and mash with potato masher to break up the tomatoes a bit. You could use an immersion blender for this...I need one! This sauce came out really great and I think I'll do this again next time!

Toppings:

I used LOTS of mozzarella cheese, diced onions, sliced black olives and sliced mushrooms. Next time I will use canned mushrooms because the fresh ones have so much water in them it made the pizza a bit soggy, but it was still good. I added some garlic salt and oregano to the top and popped it in the oven for approximately 10 minutes. YUM!