Make Your Own Pizza for Family Night

My family loves for me to make homemade pizza. They like it better than some of the local pizza restaurants. Homemade pizza doesn't take very long to prepare and is very easy to make. When you make your own pizza, you can add your own fresh ingredients. Also, you can control the thickness of the pizza. So if you like Thin n' Crispy or Pan Pizza, you can make it yourself. Making homemade pizza is a lot of fun. My kids like to help, too. Here is a easy homemade pizza recipe that I use.

Pizza Dough
½-¾ cup of warm water
1 package of yeast
1 teaspoon sugar
2 cups of flour
1 tablespoon of vegetable oil
½ teaspoon salt

Combine ¼ cup of the warm water, 1 package of yeast, and 1 teaspoon of sugar into a large bowl. Stir together while making sure the yeast dissolves. Don't get your water too hot or it will kill the yeast. The sugar will help to activate it. Let the bowl sit for 5 minutes. The yeast mixture will be bubbly. Next, add ½ teaspoon of salt and 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil to bowl. Stir together. Then, add 2 cups of flour to bowl and mix. Sprinkle just enough of the remaining warm water to dough so that it starts to release itself from the sides of the bowl. The dough will start forming itself into a ball. Cover bowl and let dough rest for 10 minutes.

Grease a pizza pan or cookie sheet with olive oil. Spread pizza dough on the pizza pan. Be sure to rub some of the olive oil from the pan on your fingers so the dough doesn't stick to them. Keep on patting pizza dough. Push outwards on dough and spin pan around until dough reaches edge of pan. Be sure the dough is thicker on the outside edge.

Pizza Sauce
I always use a jar of spaghetti sauce such as Ragu or Prego.

Pizza Toppings
Onion, chopped
Bell pepper, chopped.
I use about a fourth of bell pepper.
Ham lunch meat, similar to
Canadian Bacon, cut in 1 inch squares
8 ounce package of shredded
Mozzarella, Monterey Jack, Parmesan,
and Mild Cheddar Cheese

Time to assemble pizza. Add spoonfuls of spaghetti sauce to pizza crust and spread around. One jar of sauce will make around 4 pizzas. I always sprinkle a touch of garlic salt to the pizza crust edges. Add cut ham to pizza and spread out evenly. Next add as many onions as you want. Add bell peppers. Sprinkle cheese on top. Bake in 425 degree oven for about 15 minutes.