Blog: Homemade Pizza

So it's that time of year again, as I've opined in my other blogs. I have SO. MANY. TOMATOES. And I'm trying to figure out how to utilize them all. I've canned them, eaten more than I can count raw, made salsa (both pico and oven roasted!) and I still have left-over tomatoes. So I decided to turn this latest batch into pizza sauce and make homemade pizza! I love pizza! I mean who doesn't. And the only thing that I think is better than pizza is homemade pizza!

So we started with our tomatoes. Now, we've covered how to peel tomatoes in our canning blog! But for those who need a tl:dr, you get a pot of water almost boiling, blanch the tomatoes for one minute, remove from water and plunge into an ice bath. So that is what we did! It can be labor intensive, but the flavor is unbelievable!

I wasn't as vigilant as I needed to be about documenting every step in making the sauce. We had what weighed out to be about 4 pounds of variety tomatoes from our garden. The first step is to dice a small onion and add about a tablespoon of dried oregano and simmer that for about seven minutes on med-low heat. Add garlic to taste (I say this because I use a ton of garlic anytime I cook anything!), but I used about four tablespoons of minced garlic. Add the peeled tomatoes and simmer for about two hours. Add salt and pepper to taste. You might also need about a teaspoon of sugar to balance out the acidity of the sauce, but that depends on how acidic your tomatoes are. Mine were rather sweet this time so I didn't end up needing it. However, I have had to use the paste in the past.

The next step is making the pizza dough. Pizza dough is pretty straight forward. You need four cups of flower and three tablespoons of olive oil. In a side bowl (or a coffee cup in my kitchen), add a teaspoon of sugar to two teaspoons of yeast and a warm cup of water and mix. After about 10 minutes, add the yeast mixture to the flour and mix in a mixer, adding a little flour, until the mixture doesn't stick to the sides.

Next step, just let the dough rise for about an hour. I keep a damp cloth on the top to keep the dough from drying out.

Next step: kneed the dough. I kneed until all the air bubbles are out. It usually takes me about eight to ten minutes. You should put flour down on the counter first, and you may need to add a little bit of flour if the dough is excessively sticky. Add very small amounts at a time. Maybe a teaspoon!

Keep rolling it out until its mostly a circular shape. I stop when the dough vaguely resembles a circle!

And done rolling. Not perfect, but it works!

Sauce it up!

Cheese please.

More cheese.

And here, we used deli pepperoni. It made the pizza look comically small! haha! Next step is to bake the pizza. I set my oven to 425 degrees and bake at twenty minutes. Check to see if the crust is golden. If it is, you are ready! If not, pop it in for five more minutes and recheck!

And there you have it. Homemade, delicious, easy and cheap! What else could you ask for?