Friday nights are a huge deal in our house. Because: PIZZA. I think we might have started having homemade pizza every Friday night as far back as four or five years ago. And now everyone is so highly invested in the tradition that I’m never allowed to deviate from it. Unless on the very rare occasion we’re not home on a Friday night. Then pizza is required to happen on Saturday nights. Greg and Shepard LOVE pizza. I like pizza, but I love knowing what I’m going to make every Friday for dinner. It’s amazing how much pressure it takes off me even having that one night’s meal planned every single week.
The majority of the time I use a crust recipe from The Everything Pizza Cookbook. There’s a basic crust recipe and then a bunch of variations. Each crust is supposed to make four pizzas, though I always divide it into three. Most of the time I use the basic crust recipe and add a tablespoon of some sort of Italian seasoning to give it a little extra flavor. Sometimes I add a lot of black pepper, or a cup of shredded cheese, or some fresh garlic. The possibilities are endless and it always turns out great. The dough is basically fool proof and can be ready in as little as an hour if I happen to forget to make it earlier in the day. But I have a pretty set schedule of making a new batch every three weeks and freezing the dough for weeks in between.
I think the most important necessity for making a good homemade pizza is having a pizza stone, pizza peel, and making sure the oven is hot enough to cook it properly. I set my oven at 475 and try to have it (with the pizza stone) heating up for at least half an hour before the pizza goes in. A few weeks ago we had a disaster when I wasn’t feeling well and took a late nap and then Shepard woke me up demanding pizza NOW. Even though I knew better, I put the pizza in way too early and ended up losing half of it when the uncooked dough flopped off the stone. It was not a good night!
While the oven is heating up, we roll the dough as big as we can possibly make it while still keeping it on the peel. This is usually Greg’s job. Then Shepard does his favorite task of brushing olive oil all over the crust.
We always line the edges of the crust with garlic salt and shredded parmesan cheese. Shepard doesn’t usually do this and has way too heavy of a hand with the cheese! Which of course he thought was hilarious.
That’s a lot of crust cheese.
I used to experiment with a lot of different sauces and toppings. I have at least three pizza cookbooks with many, many options! One time I made a pizza that had broccoli on it and Greg freaked out. And he loves broccoli. So in the last year we’ve kept a pretty strict rotation between Buffalo Bacon, BBQ Bacon, and Pepperoni. Except recently Shepard decided he no longer likes pepperoni, or any traditionally sauced pizza, which has limited us even more. I fear his wrath over not having one of his favorite pizzas more than I want to risk trying something different.
But for a couple of other ideas, one of my all time favorites is really simple: olive oil, mozzarella, fresh garlic, and honey. It’s not quite substantial enough to be a complete meal, but it’s so delicious. I’ve also tried white pizzas with an olive oil base, riccota, and a bunch of other white cheeses – also delish. Thai pizzas are one of my favorites, but Greg doesn’t like peanut sauce, so it’s something I’ve only made for myself at lunch. Peanut sauce base, cheeses, chilies, sriracha, and maybe a little fresh cabbage salad and peanuts to top it off – yum. I think maybe it’s time to dig through the cookbooks and try to switch things up every once in awhile. I’m getting pretty sick of our standards.
But back to tonight’s pizza and the one we make most often. Buffalo Bacon. I realize most people make Buffalo CHICKEN pizza, but having already made chicken to add to the pizza was an extra step I got really sick of doing. So bacon it is. We always use Shur-Fine buffalo wing sauce. Which costs about $1.30 at Woodman’s. I practically buy it in bulk because Shepard uses it on everything. I’m not generally a buffalo sauce fan, but it is good with pizza!
Since I can’t vary the actual pizza itself that much, I do a lot of experimenting with different cheeses. A lot of the time I do just use a mix of store bought shredded mozzarella, monterey jack, and occasionally provolone. Greg and I aren’t really fans of cheddar, so we steer clear of traditional pizza cheese mixes. I love adding fresh mozzarella, but I’m the only one that really likes it. I like shredding my own cheese so I have more options and less of that chalky stuff that comes on pre-shredded cheese. One of my favorites to add to buffalo pizza is buffalo jack cheese. I’ve also used buffalo flavored cheese curds. Tonight we used a mix of home grated mozzarella and jalapeno munster.
And we can’t forget the bacon! I try to remember to cook up a batch of bacon in the oven every Thursday or Friday during the day. You really can’t beat real bacon. But I always have a bag of store bought bacon bits in the fridge to use in a pinch. There’s one brand that makes peppered bacon bits that are especially tasty.
The final step is a sprinkling of cilantro. Tonight we just used dried, which basically has no flavor. But for awhile there I was using a fancy container of already chopped and half dried – yet still super fresh and green – cilantro that I found also at Woodman’s. I should really buy another one because the flavor is there without needing to buy fresh cilantro every week.
I carefully slide the pizza in the oven and then madly spend the next 8-10 minutes getting everything else on the table and finally thinking about what to give Caden, who won’t eat pizza. The pizza is done in 8 minutes if the oven was hot enough, 10 if it wasn’t. As you can see, we’re very dedicated pizza eaters because we have an entire shelf of spicy toppings. I really just like crushed red pepper. Greg usually has grated parmesan cheese and “Pizza” (found at Target). Shepard likes to experiment with everything.
Caden used to love pizza and then a couple of years ago he decided he hates cheese. Unless it’s pepperjack… So no pizza for him. Or grilled cheese. Or cheesy garlic bread. He’s otherwise an extremely good eater, so we don’t really put up a fight about the cheese issue. As far as Greg’s concerned, that’s one less person we have to share the pizza with! Caden usually has peanut butter and jelly on Fridays.
And there’s our pizza! It had a lot of bubbles tonight, which does not usually happen. But still good. đŸ™‚ Hopefully this post satisfies the people who wanted to know more about our pizza tradition. In much less rambling detail, the crust recipe is below. Enjoy!
Basic Pizza Crust (Slightly adapted from The Everything Pizza Cookbook)
- 4 1/2 (or two packages) tbs. active dry yeast
- 2 cups of warm water
- 1 tsp. sugar
- 1 1/2 tsp. salt
- 6 cups bread flour
- 2 tbs. olive oil
- In a large mixing bowl, dissolve yeast in 1 1/2 cups of warm water. Let stand for 5 minutes. Combine all remaining ingredients. Use a standing mixer with a dough attachment, but if you don’t have one you’ll have to knead by hand.
- Continue to knead bread for 5 minutes until the dough is slightly shiny and not very sticky. If you’re using a mixer it should come together as a ball, pulling all the remaining dough from the edges. Add extra water if it doesn’t seem to be mixing well enough. If it becomes too sticky, add more flour.
- Place dough ball into a greased bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Let rise 1-2 hours.
- Pre-heat oven with pizza stone to 475 degrees. Divide dough into three portions. Roll out one section of dough onto a cornmeal dusted pizza peel or pan. Top with ingredients.
- Let oven heat 20-30 minutes. Slide pizza in and let it cook 8-10 minutes, keeping an eye on it at the end. Pizza is done when the cheese is browning and bubbling. Enjoy!
