Mom's Homemade Pizza

Now this is a recipe I'm really excited to share. To me, homemade pizza was a huge part of growing up. My mom would make it every Saturday night. The recipe never changed, the ingredients were always the same, and it was a staple in life.

So let's start with the homemade dough portion.

Ingredients
2 Cups of warm water
1 packet of Dry Active Yeast
5 Cups of flour
1 Tablespoon of sugar
1 Teaspoon of salt
2 Tablespoons of olive oil

Directions
Combine the Dry Active Yeast with the warm water. Throw in the sugar as well to give the yeast something to munch on. Wait about 10 minutes for the yeast to activate. It will start to bubble and foam when it's ready. In a large bowl, combine 2 cups of the flour and salt together. When the yeast is ready, add it to the flour. Add the olive oil. Now you start kneading the dough. Your fingers are going to a get a bit messy here, but I prefer to hand combine over a stand mixer. Slowly add more flour until the desire texture is achieved. You're going over a nice pliable dough that doesn't stick to your fingers. If it starts to become dry and cracked, you've add too much flour. Simply add a dash of olive oil to moisten the dough again.

When  you have your nicely kneaded ball of dough, quickly clean out your mixing bowl. Lightly coat the bottom of the bowl with some more olive oil. Toss the dough in and lightly coat the dough with the oil you applied to the bowl. Cover the bowl and dough with a hot, damp dish cloth so it can rise. Ring out the cloth well.

In the beginning...

The yeast added to warm water...

... after about 10 minutes. See how it's bubbly and foamy? That's what you want it to look like.

Pour the yeast over the awaiting flour...

After roughly combining the flour and yeast mixture in the bowl, I transfer it to a clean surface dusted with more flour so I can easily knead the dough.

After a good muscle work out and adding more flour as needed, you end up with a nice ball of pizza dough.

Clean your bowl, and coat with about a tablespoon of olive oil.

Toss your dough around in the oil so it's evenly coated.

Over with a warm, well rung out towel and let the dough rise for a couple hours. 

After a couple hours, you end up with this.

I'm not sure if there's any reason for it, but I always punch the dough down and let it re-rise a bit before I work with it.

 Preheat your oven to 450 degrees.

 These are my ingredients for tonight's pizza. Cheese, sausage, and pepperoni. You could use whatever your heart desired. I also enjoy the combination of chicken and mushrooms. Heck, you could even do BBQ sauce instead of pizza sauce.

And speaking of pizza sauce, this is my choice. For me, Pastorelli's the only sauce to use.

 Spray down your cookie sheet, and toss the dough on top.

Spread, knead, push the dough so it's even across the cookie sheet.

Spread your pizza sauce over top.

Add your sausage.

Add your cheese.

Then add your pepperoni. I like to have the final ingredient above the cheese since it helps to prevent the cheese from burning. But you can put all the ingredients below the cheese if that's what you prefer.

Then pop it in the oven for 20-25 minutes or until crust and cheese is golden.

 And here is your finished product! Doesn't it look so yummy? Now don't just dive in immediately. You want your pizza to rest for a few minutes. This makes sure your cheese doesn't peel off the top when you cut into it. Patience here will pay off.