It’s Friday. That means it’s Pizza Day. I don’t know why, but we’ve probably been doing Friday Pizza Day for the better part of 30 some odd years. The only exception was living in Sturgeon Bay, WI when about every other Friday we’d go out for Friday night perch fry.
Maybe that’s because so often there would be activities on Friday nights—things like kids going out to the movies or a small town basketball or football game for which I’d be a chauffeur for junior high school girls or the whole family would go when the oldest kid was playing for his high school. But all those Friday nights would begin with pizza. Now we make incredible, homemade pizza.
And, as often as not it would be a frozen pizza which aren’t necessarily bad but which aren’t real good either. But it was cheap. In fact nowadays it can get pretty expensive to feed a family of 4 at pizza joint. Figure on dropping $30 minimum if you go for a “sit down” by the time you had pitchers of soda and “customizing” pies to different kids’ taste.
Budgets are tight right now and after just a bit of practice I’ve found that I can make a pretty tasty pizza right in my own kitchen with a total price tag that’s less than a frozen grocery store pizza. And last Friday I got just a bit smarter too. I made enough pizza crust dough to make 2 pizzas so I don’t have to make it tonight.
So here’s Cheap Bastid’s version of Friday Night Homemade Pizza:
Recipe: Friday Night Homemade Pizza
Summary: Homemade pizza is easy, fun, cheap and incredibly tasty.
Ingredients
- 1 cup warm water
- 2 tsp or 1 packet rapid rise yeast
- 1 tsp salt
- 2 tbsp oil (olive or vegetable)
- 2 ½ cups flour (plus more as needed)
- 1 8 oz can tomato sauce
- ¼ cup corn meal (optional)
- 1 ½-2cups cups shredded mozzarella cheese
- Toppings like pepperoni, Italian sausage, onions, bell peppers, mushrooms, etc.
Instructions
- Get out a large mixing bowl, cookie sheet and small bowl.
- Put the salt, yeast and water in the small bowl, stir and let it sit for about 10 minutes to activate the yeast.
- Prepare a work surface for the dough (I have a big bamboo cutting board I use) and sprinkle a couple of tablespoons of flour on it.
- Put 2 cups flour into the large bowl. When the wet ingredients in the small bowl
are a bit foamy, pour the contents into the large bowl then add the oil and start to mix everything together with a spoon or your hands. - If the mixture is too wet—add some more flour a couple of tablespoons at a time. When everything starts to pull away from bowl a bit and starts to resemble a dough rather than a batter then dump the dough on your board.
- Flour your hands and start to knead—press down, fold over, rotate 90 degrees; press down, fold over, rotate again and again for 5-10 minutes until the dough is smooth and elastic.
- If the dough starts to stick to the board, flip it over and add a sprinkle of flour to the surface.
- Pick up your dough and work it in your hands to form it into a ball. Smooth the dough down and underneath. Then put the dough ball on the board and clean and dry your mixing bowl.
- Grease or oil the inside of the bowl and put the dough ball into the bowl—roll theball around so it gets a bit of the oil on it too.
- Cover the bowl and let the dough rise until it doubles.
- Remove it from the bowl and “punch it down” by pressing the dough to release the bubbles.
- Now it’s time to form your pizza crust. Make sure that you’ve turned your oven on to preheat it to 425.
- Put the dough down on your board and start to flatten it and gently stretch it all the way around. You’ll be able to get it about half as big as you want.
- Sprinkle most of the corn meal onto the cookie sheet and move the dough onto it. Start working the dough gently on the sheet pushing and stretching it on the pan until it fills it or almost fills it.
- Form a lip at the edges of slightly thicker dough.
- With the crust done, open the can of tomato sauce (I usually add a bit of garlic powder, cumin and basil to the can and stir it up).
- Pizza is typically layered with sauce, cheese, toppings and a bit more cheese—do it that way there’s a reason.
- Spread the contents of the can all over the pizza crust.
- Then sprinkle a cup or so of the cheese all over the crust.
- Add your other toppings and sprinkle the rest of the cheese on top of it.
- Then pop your now ready pizza into the oven for 8-12 minutes. (Check it at 8 minutes then every 2 minutes after that).
- It’s done when the top crust is golden and the cheese is all “melty”.
- Remove the finished pizza, let it cool for a couple of minutes, slice it and enjoy.
Preparation time:
Cooking time:
Number of servings (yield): 4
Culinary tradition: Italian
My rating 5 stars: ★★★★★ 1 review(s)
That’s a lot of directions but I felt I should explain it pretty thoroughly. This is actually pretty good pizza. Maybe not as good as some pizza joints that have custom ovens that can generate temperatures from 800 to over 1000 degrees and produce incredible rustic, true Italian pizzas. But this is good stuff from a home oven. And the price is right too.
You can make your dough early in the day or the night before and just pop it into the fridge in the bowl. Then take it out an hour or so before you plan to bake it so it can come to room temperature and finish rising. It will rise in the fridge just not very fast. And if you make enough dough for next week’s pizza, just put a bit of oil on it, pop it into a freezer bag and shove it in the freezer. Take it out and put it in the fridge the night before (in a bowl). It’ll thaw and start to rise a bit.
Plus, you can customize it. If you’ve got kids and want to make a couple of different pizzas, you can. Just get out 2 half sheet pans. And you’re only limited on toppings by your tastebuds and your creativity. Make Homemade Pizza Night part of your family. It’s fun and definitely worth it.
The Cheap Bastid Test: Well, it costs me a total of about $1 to make the crust. And depending on the toppings, I can end up spending a total of $4 or $5 for the pizza. You only need about ½ pound of any one meat—and if you’re using 2 or 3 kinds you don’t even need that much. Onions and bell peppers are inexpensive. The priciest item is the cheese. That’ll cost you about $2. But, this pizza at the pizza parlor is going to cost anywhere from $15-$20 or more. You’ll sit around and wait, it’ll be noisy and you can make terrific pizza at home. Give it a try.
That’s the Cheap Bastid Way: Eat Good! Eat Cheap! Be Grateful!
This is getting Pinterested.
Mike, Thank you and come back to Cheap Bastid Cooks! I’m glad you visited.