Homemade Pizza

There is nothing better than lazy weekends, family time and making individual homemade pizza! This is definitely a family favorite. What kid, or adult, doesn’t like personalized food. I think my kids would like it if I did this for every meal. Not saying they are picky, because… what kid is a picky or opinionated eater!?! Not mine (said no parent EVER!!)

I just came off a weekend of being in a food coma. No joke! We, the entire family, (minus the 2 year old chuckcake) cooked from noon until 9:30 pm, when we finally ate dinner! Long day, buuut SO worth it. What does this have to do with homemade pizza, you ask? Well, we started off making homemade chicken ravioli which turned into tripling the dough recipe in order to have pizza dough for appetizers. And as most grand plans go, we didn’t make pizza for appetizers. (Ran out of time, if you can believe that) So we rolled, tossed and then froze the pizza dough. Best. Decision. EVER!!! (Pizza Dough recipe coming soon!!)

And before I get to far into this post, make sure you have some Semonlina Flour. (Unless its pre-cooked dough, probably don’t need it for that) This is what goes down on the baking stone or sheet so the dough doesn’t stick. Comes off super easy!

So now, grab your frozen, fresh, store bought dough, pre-cooked… whatever, and lets make some pizza!! Pre-heat oven to 500, make sure your stone pre-heats with the oven! If you aren’t using or don’t have a stone, you can always use the back of a cookie sheet if your cookie sheet has sides (jelly roll pan)

These are the topping choices and they turned out sooooo good! Pizza and toppings are endless! So get creative and eat your heart out! This is the route we went.

*Not pictured is the Trader Joe’s Marinara sauce I used, because as much as I prefer fresh and like to think I make everything from scratch…. lets be honest, I don’t. I might be a stay at home mom (AKA Domestic Engineer, sounds fancier, even though its not!) I have 3 kids, a house to clean, a bull dog to follow around and keep an eye on (so we can say I have 4 kids) and well, life!!  Aside from that, ughhhhh, I DONT WANT TO ALWAYS BE IN THE KITCHEN!! No joke, I spend a majority of my day cooking, warming, fixing food and then doing all the dishes and cleaning that go along with it. Its like laundry, a never ending cycle!  So anyways, ya, Trader Joes Marinara! Get some! Also, shredded mozzarella cheese. One daughter doesn’t like melted cheese! Except a little shredded mozzarella cheese on pizza. Nope, no picky kids here! And now that I’m thinking about “said kid”, she didn’t like burgers, PB & J, no sandwiches what so ever for that matter, mac n’ cheese… I don’t even know what I fed her!?! Raising little humans is awesome!

Alright, so back on track… We’ve Semonlina’d (new word) our baking stone/sheet. Put your dough on top of that, and get your marinara sauce spread around your dough, as thick or as thin as you’d like. Then top with shredded cheese and thin sliced block mozzarella cheese (optional of course) And there is your basic cheese pizza. Endless opportunities now lay ahead of you.

One of my favorite pizza concoctions came from our baking extravaganza! We sliced our homemade meatballs, peperoncini and pepperoni and piled it on top.

Baked at 500 (you pre-heated that oven, right?!?) for about 10 min. Check to make sure it’s golden brown. Oven temp and cook times vary.

Mmmmmmmm YUM!!

And per my hubby, he did a spin of our focaccia bread we also made during above mentioned baking extravaganza. That ended up being our appetizer in lieu of the pizza. From that we have our homemade roasted red pepper and tomato pesto that we used instead of marinara sauce. Added red onion, fresh minced garlic, homemade meatballs, pepperoni and put in oven for 10 min.

Then topped with fresh arugula and thin slices of fresh parmigiano reggiano. Put back in oven for 1-2 min to warm cheese and arugula. *Don’t want to keep it in too long and wilt the arugula. You would prepare and cook the same way if you were using fresh basil, like for a margarita pizza.

This pizza, right here… was pretty bomb too!! Got to think outside the box when it comes to pizza!! Or just cooking in general, right? Right!!