Homemade Pizzas ~ Ready to Eat or freeze!

Pizzas have got to be one of the easiest meals on the planet. Typically when you think of getting a pizza it involves either a frozen thing from the grocery store or a phone call and a delivery or pick up, high in calories and not all that good for you..... I want to change your way of thinking on this little gem of a quick dinner. It does NOT have to be bad for you or a diet. It does not have to be classified as junk food! When you make it at home you are in control of the ingredients, you can make it as healthy or bad as you want. Whatever you decide to top it off with, one thing for sure is you will NOT have all those preservatives in it as you would a store bought frozen pizza and the taste is not comparable.

This past weekend I made just 3 of them, I typically make a double recipe of this and store them in the freezer but with thanksgiving getting so close and my freezer getting pretty full I opted for just a small batch. I also opted for some Higher calorie toppings (Pepperoni & Italian Sausage) for these. But you can make any variation that you want! Make it vegetarian or Vegan, Make Buffalo chicken or taco style. The possibilities are endless. Use what you have on hand, experiment and have fun!

Pizza Dough

1 1/2 Tablespoons yeast
2 Tablespoons Brown sugar or Honey
2 cups VERY warm water
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
3 Tablespoons olive oil
5-6 cups flour
(makes 3 large pizzas)

Sauce:
You can use your favorite sauce or homemade. I cheat by using "Hunts" spaghetti sauce 4 cheese and doctor it up. When I make my "White" pizzas I use a Italian dressing as the sauce, basically Olive oil, vinegar and seasonings.

Toppings: Of your choice
I made  1 Pepperoni and 2 Combos with all the ingredients
Pepperoni
Italian Sausage
Green olives
Banana peppers
Green peppers
Asparagus
Feta Cheese & Mozzarella Cheese
Salt, Pepper and Italian Seasoning

Instructions: Preparing the dough

Take your VERY warm water, hot tap water works just fine. Do not microwave it as you do not want it any hotter than 110 or it will kill the yeast instead of activating it. Place the water and yeast in your mixer bowl along with the sugar or honey and let stand for 10 minutes until foamy.
Add in the rest of the dough ingredients, adding only 1 cup of flour at a time, mixing well between each addition. This will make your dough light and fluffy. Once all the flour has been added in let the mixer continue on medium low (I set mine to 2) with the "Dough Blade" and allow it to work the dough for about 8 -10 minutes. The dough will pull away from the sides of the bowl and be springy to the touch when it is ready.
Remove the dough and split evenly between 3 oiled pizza pans. Use your hands to spread the dough evenly across the pan. If you have "little helpers" they LOVE to play with the dough! I did not get a picture of this step... hands get to oily to hold the camera lol.

Let the dough rest and rise for about 20 minutes. I get my toppings out and ready while I am waiting.

Preheat oven to 400  Bake for 10-15 minutes, depending on your toppings, the more you have the longer it will take. Pepperoni and cheese only takes my oven about 10 minutes


Cover the dough with the sauce and then add any powder seasonings IE: salt, pepper, Italian seasoning, Garlic or onion powder if fresh is not available. Now place your toppings on the pizza and top off with your cheeses.

You can now either bake them or freeze them "as is" for later in the week when you do not have time to make dinner.

When freezing mine, I place in freezer on the pizza pans for a couple of hours and then once they are frozen solid I remove them (easily) and place in my extra large ziplock baggies for storage.


#Pizza  #EasyDinners  # Quickmeals  #HomemadePizzas