Pizza at Home

Well, I was remiss in taking a picture of last night's pizza. Partially because, unbeknownst to me, my camera battery was dead, but mostly because I was just plain famished by the time this was ready to eat and while I love all of you that check out my blog, putting food in my tummy was way more important! I decided to make pizza because I was craving it, mostly due to the fact that the boy made an AMAZING pizza on Sunday night, chock full of tasty cheeses, sausage, onions and I don't even know what else. But I was also inspired by this post over at It's Melissa's Kitchen. Not only do the veggies from her CSA box look tasty and make me want to join one myself, but the pizza had to be made based on the photo alone.

I looked at her recipe and followed alot of it, but made my own tweaks along the way. See what I did below:

Pizza

1 package Trader Joe's whole wheat pizza dough
1/2 cup Trader Joe's Fat Free Pizza Sauce
1/4-1/2 cup shredded mozzarella cheese (I didn't measure this so it's a really rough measurement)
Heirloom Tomatoes (if in season) sliced
Fresh Mozzarella - I used a ball and a half of the Ovaline size
Fresh basil
Olive oil
Salt & Pepper

1. Remove pizza dough from package and let rise on the counter for 20 minutes
2. Pre-heat oven to 425 degrees.
3. Once dough has risen, either roll or hand stretch to fit a lightly oiled baking sheet. I used a 15 inch cookie sheet (no round pans in my house yet) and I hand stretched, more fun that way.
4. Brush the crust with olive oil. Spread a very thin layer of Pizza sauce over the crust. The amount depends on taste and you can even omit this, I just like I little sauce on my crust even if I'm topping with tomatoes.
5. Sprinkle a small amount of shredded mozzarella over the crust. The bulk of the cheese on this is from the fresh mozzarella, but in my opinion you can never have enough cheese and I think this little bit helps for extra coverage.
6. Arrange the tomatoes and mozzarella over the pizza. Chiffonade the basil sprinkle all over
7. In true Italian fashion, top with a drizzling of extra virgin olive oil, salt & pepper.
8. Bake for 10-15 minutes until crust looks golden and pizza looks tasty.
9. Remove from over and let cool for 5-10 minutes before cutting.


I feel like the one time I tried to make pizza at home it was a disaster, albeit so long ago I can't exactly remember when. This was so very tasty and easy. I highly recommend it. My sis, who is cutting back on carbs and made her own dinner last night, commented on how good it smelled and I could tell a part of her wanted some.