Homemade Frozen Pizza

Whenever my parents go on vacation, I am the go-to person to house and dog sit. It's a win-win situation because they get someone to take care of the house for free, and they live about 10 miles from the school I work at, versus the 32 miles I normally have to commute. The only kink in the situation is the husband (as in my husband); he doesn't cook and will eat fast food for dinner every night if given the option.

Usually I just leave him to his own devices, but this time I decided to prepare some meals for him in advance. But then I got a bit lazy, so I decided to just make him a bunch of frozen pizzas. As I was making them, I figured this would be a great meal to make for new parents, or just to keep on hand in my freezer, rather than buying frozen pizzas from the store.

I made a total of 4 pizzas, two BBQ chicken and two carne asada, two large and two medium. I made the large pizzas so he'd have leftovers for lunch as well. A grapefruit sized hunk of dough will yield a large pizza.

Homemade Frozen Pizzas
Source: A Cooking in Cucamonga Original
Printable Recipe

Ingredients

Olive Oil Dough (I used half wheat and half white flour)
Your favorite toppings

Directions

Pre-heat the oven, with a pizza stone on the middle rack, to 525 degrees.

Line up for pieces of parchment paper on the counter and sprinkle each with cornmeal.

Rub you hands with olive oil and divide the dough into four chunks (you can divide it into smaller hunks if you want more personal sized pizzas). Using your hands, stretch the dough to your desired size and thickness. Re-oil your hands if the dough starts to stick to your skin.

Bake each crust for 4 minutes. (I baked mine one at a time, as that's all I could fit on my stone.)The dough will be slightly browned and puffy, but still soft.

Top with whatever toppings you like. Place the pizzas in the freezer, on cooling racks, for about 20-30 minutes. This will firm up the sauce and cheese before wrapping.

Wrap each pizza in two large pieces of foil, folding over the edges to seal it up. You can also put the pizzas in large freezer bags if desired.

Stack and freeze.


Directions for cooking the frozen pizzas

Pre-heat the oven to 475 degrees, with a pizza stone on the middle rack. (It's ok if you don't have one, the crust just won't get as crisp.)

Unwrap the pizza and cook directly on the stone, or the oven rack if you don't have a stone. Cook for 4-5 minutes, or until the cheese is melted, golden and bubbly.

Enjoy!

BBQ Chicken Pizza

It's been awhile since I've made pizza, so when I recently made a new batch of dough, I wanted to try some new toppings. The husband and I like to pick up a box of CPK's frozen BBQ chicken pizzas every now and then, so I figured why not try out a home made version?

I used a half wheat, half white flour crust (only because I ran out of whole wheat flour and didn't want to run to the store), spread with a sweet BBQ sauce, and topped with a mix of cheese. This pizza was delicious! And it was a nice break from our usual tomato sauce pizzas. You can see some turkey pepperoni in the picture up there; I didn't feel they really added anything to the flavor (I couldn't even really taste them, actually), so I've omitted them from the ingredients list below. You could certainly experiment and add them to your pizza though.

I can't say that this BBQ pizza is better than CPK's, but it was a good at-home alternative. I even made a few extras to freeze for later!

BBQ Chicken Pizza
Source: A Cooking in Cucamonga originial
Printable Recipe

Ingredients

Olive Oil Pizza Dough (grab a piece about the size of a grapefruit)
1 chicken breast or 2 thighs, grilled and cut into small chunks
2 green onions, thinly sliced
1/4 cup cheddar cheese, shredded
1/2-3/4 cup mozarella cheese, shredded
1/4 cup of your favorite BBQ sauce
cornmeal for dusting

Directions

Pre-heat the oven, with a pizza stone on the middle rack, to 525 degrees.

Sprinkle a piece of parchment paper with cornmeal to prevent the dough from sticking. Using your hands, stretch out the pizza dough to your desired size and thickness; the husband and I prefer a thinnner crust.

Note: I've found this dough is easiest to work with if I coat my hands in olive oil first-it prevents the dough from sticking to my skin.

Spread BBQ sauce all over the pizza, leaving about a 1/2" border all around the edge--this will form the crust. Top with both cheeses, the sliced onions, and the chicken.

Bake on the pizza stone (you can leave the pizza on the parchment) for about 8 minutes, or until the cheese is melted, golden and bubbly.

Pizza Sauce

This is my new favorite pizza sauce. I threw it together with items I already had on hand and the husband and I both agreed: much better than jarred sauce. You actually don't even have to cook it, but I like to do so as it breaks down the tomato chunks and helps the flavors meld.

You can easily adapt this to your personal preference: up the amount of herbs, use fresh instead of dried (definitely increase the quantities if you do this), omit the pepper flakes, etc.

This is the sauce that is pictured with the pizza bites.

Pizza Sauce
Source: Cooking in Cucamonga Original
Printable Recipe

Ingredients
1 can tomato sauce
1 can stewed italian tomatos
1 tablespoons dried oregano
1 tablespoon dried basil
1 tablespoon dried tyme or rosemary
1/2 teaspoon dried chili flakes
1 tablespoon pepper
2 teaspoons garlic salt

Directions
Pour all ingredients into a pot and simmer on medium-low. Smash the stewed tomatos up a bit as they simmer, to your desired chunkiness. Once the sauce is heated through and the tomato paste and stewed tomatos are fully mixed together with the herbs, spread on your favorite pizza crust, add your desired toppings, and bake.

Pizza Bites

The husband and I were invited to a Super Bowl party at his new boss' house this year. The boss and his family are huge Saints fans, so they went with a New Orleans theme, serving up gumbo and red beans and rice, which were fabulous! But, when the husband informed me that we needed to bring an appetizer to the party with us, I knew it wouldn't be football without pizza, and turned to this recipe from Annie's Eats.

Everyone was really impressed, and the small bites made it easy to eat these without making a mess. One word of caution though, don't use a ton of dough for each bite, unless you like really bready pizza. Less is more here.

Football season may be over, but these would work just as well at a March Madness party, a baseball game, or even some hockey. :) I plan to make these the next time we host a party at our house, no matter what event we are celebrating.



Pizza Bites
Source: Adapted from Annie's Eats
Printable Recipe

Ingredients
Olive oil dough
turkey pepperoni
mozzarella cheese, cut into 1" chunks
Parmesan cheese
dried basil
olive oil

Directions
Pre-heat the oven to 400 degrees.

Spray a 9 x 13" pan with non-stick spray.

Grab a small chunk of dough and flatten into out a bit into a round disk. Place a piece of pepperoni on top of the dough, top that with a piece of cheese, and top with another pepperoni.

Wrap the dough up and around the pepperoni, sealing the edges and forming into a ball. Place in the pan and repeat with the rest of the dough.

Brush the dough balls with olive oil, sprinkle with dried basil and shredded Parmesean cheese. Bake for 25-30 minutes, until the dough is golden and the cheese is lightly browned.

Serve with homemade tomato sauce for dipping.

Buffalo Bleu Chicken Pizza

The mom came over recently for a lesson in making homemade pizza crust, and I figured that would be the perfect time to test a new pizza recipe I've been mulling over in my head. I love bleu cheese and hot wings, and of course, hot wings dipped in bleu cheese dressing, so I figured I could make a killer pizza with these toppings.

I bought a nice moldy hunk of bleu cheese at Fresh and Easy to crumble over the pizza, and combined that with some shredded mozeralla and mild cheddar cheese. The three cheeses were the perfect combination, with none of them overpowering the other. The only problem we had was the dough took FOREVER to rise, even sitting on top of a hot oven (my usual trick to make it rise quick), which made it harder to stretch out and shape. I chalked it up the fact that we had all the windows open and it was freezing and damp outside after 5 days of torrential rain.

The mom brought my dad over with her-- he wanted to watch football with the husband--so we made a regular pepperoni pizza too, with a homemade tomato sauce. We had a lot of fun cooking while the men watched the Vikings/Saints game, event though, sadly, my boyfriend Farve lost. The mom even washed all the dirty dishes for me!

This pizza is definitely a keeper and I can't wait to make it again.



Buffalo Bleu Chicken Pizza
Source: me
Printable Recipe

Ingredients
1/4 cup chunky bleu cheese dressing
2-3 tablespoons hot wing sauce (add more or less based on how much heat you like)
1 grilled chicken breast
an additional 1-2 tablespoons hot wing sauce
2 cups mozarella cheese, shredded
1 cup mild cheddar cheese, shredded
1/4 cup bleu cheese, crumbled
3 green onions, thinly sliced (white and green)

Directions
Place your pizza stone in the oven and pre-heat to 525 degrees.

Mix the bleu cheese dressing and hot wing sauce together and spread on your pizza crust.

Slice the grilled chicken breast into bite-sized pieces and coat with the additional hot sauce.

Top the pizza with the shredded cheese and dot with chunks of bleu cheese crumbles and chicken. Sprinkle with the sliced green onions. Drizzle with additional bleu cheese dressing, if desired.

Bake for 10-12 minutes.

Basil Lover's Pizza

Remember when I told you I talked the husband out of salmon and made a different meal? Well, this was that meal. :) Of course it was pizza, what else did you think? You should know by now that pizza and I are involved in an intense love affair.

After picking up some basil sausage at Trader Joes, I decided to make a pesto-based pizza, topped with said sausage. This pizza pretty much came to me as I picked up ingredients at Trader Joes recently and the combo worked out fantastically.

The husband can be kind of picky, so I was worried about him liking this pizza, but he loved it. He scarfed down two big pieces for dinner, ate a bit more for a midnight snack, and then polished off the rest for lunch the next day! I'd say that's a pretty big endorsement right there.

I love this pizza and can't wait to make it again. It might be good with some red onion bits on it as well, but that's up to you to decide. I plan to keep the recipe just as it is.



Basil Lover's Pizza
Source: me
Printable Recipe

Ingredients
hunk of olive oil dough (I used all AP flour this time, no whole wheat)
7 ounce container of pesto
2 chicken and turkey basil sausages (I picked these up at Trader Joes), sliced
about 10 grape tomatoes, split in half lengthwise
mozarella cheese, shredded
a few leaves of basil, thinly sliced

Directions
Heat your oven to 525 degrees, with the pizza stone inside.

Stretch your dough into the desired size and thickness. The husband likes thin crust pizza, so I stretch mine out a lot, maybe to 1/4" thickness.

Spread the pesto all over the dough, leaving a 1/4"-1/2" ring for the crust. Sprinkle the cheese over the pesto and top with the sausage and tomatoes.

Bake for about 10 minutes, or until the cheese is browned and bubbly. Let cool for 5 minutes, top with the basil, and serve.

Carne Asada Pizza

As I have mentioned in previous posts, I love pizza. I am serious. I love it. Pizza is definitely one of my favorite foods. Please don't make me pick just one favorite food though; I have a love affair with eating.

Anyway, one of my favorite restaurant pizzas is CPK's (that's California Pizza Kitchen for the uninitiated) carne asada pizza. It is tangy, and asada-y, and fresh tomato-y, on a pizza crust. YUM. I recently bought several pounds of marinated carne asada from the local Mexican market, and after bbqing it for dinner one night, we still had several pieces left. I was planning on wrapping them up in tortillas with beans and rice and calling it a night, but then I remembered how much I love CPK's carne asada pizza.

So I made my own. The husband's verdict: Better than CPK and his favorite homemade pizza so far. Looks like we have a winner, everyone.

Better than CPK Carne Asada Pizza
Printable Recipe

Ingredients
• pizza dough
• 1 small can salsa verde
• 1 tomato, diced
• 2 cups mozzarella cheese, shredded
• 1-2 cups cooked/pre-marinated carne asada, cut into bite-sized pieces
• cornmeal


Directions
Pre-heat your oven, with the pizza stone inside, to 550*.

Sprinkle cornmeal on a sheet of parchment paper. Stretch out your hunk of pizza dough until it is the desired shape and size. We like thin crust pizza, so I stretch mine until it is about to rip. Make sure you stretch out the edges too, or you will have very thick crust.

Spread the salsa verde on the dough, leaving about 1/4-1/2" around the edges uncovered (this will be the crust).

Cover the salsa with shredded cheese and top with the carne asada and tomato.

Cook for 8-10 minutes, or until the cheese is golden and bubbly.

Pizza

Ever since I bought my pizza stone and began experimenting with different yeast dough recipes, I haven't had the desire to buy a takeout pizza. Why would I, when in the same amount of time I can make a just as tasty pizza for pennies on the dollar and a much lower calorie intake?

Sorry local pizza joints, but I am ordering in from Janet's pizza kitchen tonight.

Pizza--Turkey Pepperoni, Tomatos, and Bell Pepper

My current favorite crust is the Olive Oil Dough, but I have also used this whole wheat dough in the past.

Pre-heat the oven to 550 degrees (500 if fine if that's as hot as your oven will go), with the pizza stone inside. Rack position doesn't really matter for pizza. Be sure to heat your pizza stone for at least 30 minutes so it is nice and hot....this is how you achieve that nice crispy, pizzeria crust at home.

Meanwhile, sprinkle a generous amount of cornmeal on a large piece of parchment paper. This will help keep your crust from sticking.

Grab a hunk of dough from your homemade refrigerated dough (make it earlier in the week and it will be ready for you whenever the pizza craving strikes) and begin spread and stretching it out on the parchment paper. If you like a thin crust, stretch it until it is about a 1/4" thick. If you like a thicker crust, don't stretch the dough so much.

Note: Lightly flouring your fingers or spreading a small bit of cornmeal on the top edge of he dough helps keep the pizza dough from sticking to your hands. This will make it easier to work with.

Once you've spread the dough out to your desired thickness, size and shape, spoon your favorite pizza sauce all over the top. Spread it to about 1/4" to 1/2" away from the edge. The more dough you leave uncovered, the more pizza crust you will have. I personally love the crust, but maybe you don't. That's the good thing about homemade pizza...you can decide everything!

Once your dough is covered in sauce, load it up with some shredded mozzarella cheese, diced tomatos, diced bell pepper and turkey pepperoni.

Pop that bad boy into your preheated oven, on top of the pizza stone (I leave my pizza on the parchment, and place that onto the stone while it bakes). Cook for about 8-11 minutes, or until your crust is golden and the cheesy is melted and bubbly.

Remove your pizza from the stone with a large spatula, but leave the pizza stone in the oven to cool. Let cool slightly and then enjoy!

Olive Oil Dough

I love using this recipe to make pizza crust. I haven't tried making a loaf of bread from it yet, but I have made several pizzas to rave reviews from my husband.

This is a very wet and sticky dough. Keep that in mind when stretching it out for pizza; I tend to flour my hands a bit, or use extra cornmeal on the parchment paper.

This makes a lot of dough...I tend to get about 4ish pizzas out of one batch of dough. The original recipe states that it makes 4 one-pound loaves of bread. I recommend making this dough a day in advance of using it as it is easier to work with it when it it cold. The additional time in the fridge also helps the dough to develop mire intensity in flavor.


Olive Oil Dough
From Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day

Ingredients
2 3/4 cups lukewarm water
1 1/2 tablespoons active yeast (1 1/2 packets)
1 1/2 tablespoons salt
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil (use a high quality olive oil...it lends a better test to the final product)
6 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

Directions
Combine the first 5 ingredients in the bowl of your stand mixer using the paddle attachment. (You can mix by hand in a large bowl if you don't have a stand mixer. But....just go buy a Kitchen Aid stand mixer and make life in the kitchen easier).

Change the attachment from the paddle to the dough hook. Gradually mix in the flour, with the machine set to medium, until all the flour is incorporated. Make sure there is not any flour left hiding under the dough.

Cover (either in the mixer bowl or in another clean bowl) and leave to rest at room temperature until the dough rises (about 2 hours).

Use the dough right away for pizza, bread, calzones, etc or refrigerate in a covered bowl. Best used within two weeks.

Whole Wheat Bread Dough

I have been referring to this whole wheat bread dough in several posts lately, so I figured I should just create a separate post for the recipe.

I use this dough to make loaves of bread, pizza crust, and calzones. It is an easy recipe to work with and can be made using regular bread flour or all-purpose flour, instead of wheat flour. I have found the dough to be extremely sticky however, when not using whole wheat flour. To remedy that, I suggest omitting 1/4 cup of water or using 1 cup of whole wheat flour in place of one cup of white or bread flour.

Whole Wheat Dough
*Adapted from this recipe

1/2 cup warm water
1 envelop instant quick rise yeast (about 2 1/4 tsp if you are using jarred yeast)
1 1/4 cups water, room temp
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
4 cups whole wheat flour
1 1/2 tsp salt

Pour the warm water into a bowl (I use my 6 cup liquid measuring cup) and sprinkle the yeast on top. Set aside for 5 minutes, allowing the yeast to dissolve and react with the water.

Using your stand mixer, fitted with the paddle attachment, mix the flour and salt together until just combined.

Add the room temperature water and olive oil to the yeast water. Gently mix together and then pour into the flour. Fit the mixer with the kneading attachment and knead until it forms a ball and all the flour is incorporated (about 5 minutes). The dough should be smooth and elastic.

Spray a large bowl with nonstick spray (I use Smart Balance Omega spray). Place the kneaded dough in the greases bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Set aside and let rise, until the dough has doubled in size (about an hour or so). If you are NOT using quick rise yeast, it will need about 2 hours to rise.

From here, you can refrigerate for use at a later date, or use immediately for pizza, bread, etc.

Veggie Calazon

I created this recently in an effort to use up several vegetables in my kitchen, as well as incorporate the fresh produce growing in my patio garden. I've used low fat cheese sparingly to try and up the healthy factor, but any cheese will do.

The calzon bread is made using this dough.

Filling Ingredients

1 can tomato paste + 1/2 can water

handful fresh basil, torn

handful fresh oregano, chopped

1 yellow crook-neck squash, diced

1 tomato, sliced

1 red bell pepper, diced

1/4 cup (approx.) Low-fat cheddar cheese

1/4 cup (approx.) plain feta cheese, crumbled

1 teaspoon garlic salt

2 teaspoons pepper

1-2 teaspoons red pepper flakes

Directions:
Pre-heat your oven to 500 degrees with the pizza stone on the lowest rack.

Heat the tomato paste on the stovetop. Add about a half a can of water to help thin it out just a bit. Add in all of the vegetables and simmer, stirring occassionally, for about 10 minutes. Add the garlic salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes to taste.

Meanwhile, spread out your whole wheat dough on a piece of parchment paper sprinkled with cornmeal. Using your fingers, push and spread the dough until it is about 1/8 to 1/4 inch thick and in the shape of a large circle.

Using a spatula, spread the vegetable sauce to about a 1/2" from the edge of the dough. Sprinkle with the feta cheese and top with a small amount of shredded low-fat cheddar cheese.

(This picture shows the calzone before it was sprinkled with cheddar.)



Pick up the edge of the dough closest to you and folder over so it meets the top edge of dough. Press the edges together, sealing in the filling. Gently press the middle of the calzone to help re-distribute the filling.

Place the calzone (still on the parchment paper) on the hot pizza stone and cook for approximately 10 minutes. The dough should be slightly crisp and browned.

Let cool about 5 minutes before eating.

Bleu Pizza

My husband and I recently took a vacation up to the Bay Area; His younger sister graduated from UC Berkeley Memorial Weekend and my husband and I wanted to visit San Francisco together. We had a great 5 days in San Francisco and are already planning our next trip.

This wasn't my first trip to the city (I went to SFSU-Go Gators!), but it was only my 2nd time in Berkeley. After her graduation ceremony, my sister-in-law wanted to get pizza for dinner. Only we didn't just call Pizza Hut and make it a night. No, she led us to a pizza co-op (how Nor Cal is that?!) that makes only one type of pizza a day and all 12 people that work there are equal partners in the business. Sounds hippish, right? Well it totally was, but the pizza was SO good! The day we were there the pizza consisted of 4 cheeses (mozazrella, fontina, parmasean, and bleu), 3 onions (yellow, red, and green), garlic olive oil, and basil, all piled onto a thin crust. We quickly gobbled up 2 pizzas, topped off with a few bottles of Belgium white beers. SO GOOD!

I never thought about puttine bleu cheese on a pizza before, but it is such a good idea!! The little pockets of bleu jump onto your tongue and stand out beautifully against the fresh mozzerela. I highly reccommend adding some bleu cheese to your next pizza.

The memory of that pizza stuck with me and I have been thinking about recreating it ever since. I made a batch of whole wheat pizza dough (well, that makes it sound really easy. My first 2 attempts were total FAILS...not really sure what went wrong. The third batch came out great and was the base for this pizza) on Sunday afternoon, let it rise, and then threw it in the fridge so it would be ready for dinner today.

While this is not an *exact* replica of Cheeseboard's Pizza of the Day (May 22), it was a pretty good riff on the original. My husband and I both gobbled it up. MMMMM, pizza! Here is the restaurant's website, and a link to their Twitter, which lists their daily pizzas.

Bleu Pizza

Bleu cheese, crumbled
Fresh mozzarella, shredded (I bought a hunk of buffalo mozzarella and shredded. SO much better than the pre-shredded stuff)
Low-fat cheddar
garlic olive oil (I crushed 3 cloves of garlic into about 3 tablespoons of oil and let it sit for 2 days....you don't need to infuse it for so long. You can just use regular olive oil too.)
1 green onion, sliced,
2 cloves of garlic, diced
a few fresh basil leaves

Pizza Crust
I used this recipe, but I subbed in Whole Wheat Flour.
The first two times I made it for this pizza, I used all purpose flour and the dough came out WAY too sticky. The whole wheat flour did not have that problem. I would reccommened omitting a 1/4 of water at first, and then add it in if your dough is too dry once mixed (before kneading).
That is the same dough recipe I used for my Healthy Pizza, which I also made with whole wheat flour.

Directions:
Pre-heat your oven to 500 degrees with the pizza stone inside, on the lowest rack.

Roll out a large piece of parchment paper and sprinkle with the cornmeal. Pull off two large hunks of pizza dough (about a handful each), and roll them out one at a time on the parchment paper. I used my hands to pull, stretch, and push the dough into shape, working it until it was about 1/8" thick. The cooked into a thin (but not cracker-like) crust; shape into a thicker crust if desired.

Brush each round of dough with the garlic olive oil, all the way to the edges. Sprinkle with the cheddar and mozzarella cheese. Dot with crumbled bleu cheese. Sprinkle diced garlic and chopped green onions over the cheese.


Here are the uncooked pizzas, all dressed up and ready to head into the oven. Mmmm.


Place the pizzas on your pizza stone and cook for 5-7 minutes. (I placed the pizzas on the stone while they were still on the parchment paper...I am never able to get the dough off the parchment without totally ruining the crusts! :) )

MMMMMM, Pizza

I love pizza. I think it just might be the world's most perfect food. I mean, who doesn't like a good slice of gooey hot cheese with an assortment of toppings? Pizza, in my opinion, should be its own food group.

When I was growing up, my parents didn't cook dinner on Friday nights. It was usually tuna fish sandwich night, but every once in a while we went out for pizza. THOSE were my favorite Friday nights.....coming home after 2 hours of swim practice, tired but excited for the weekend, and finding out that instead of eating tuna we were having pizza!

Now that I am an adult, I still have the same passion for pizza. In fact, that was one of the best parts about going to college in San Francisco....you can buy pizza by the slice there! The guys who worked at my local SF pizza joint even knew me by name. :)

Recently I decided I wanted to try to make pizza at home. I thought it would be fun, impress my husband, and I could make it a bit healthier (always a bonus right?). I swapped regular fatty pepperoni for turkey pepperoni (only 80 calories verses 140), low fat mozeralla and a whole wheat crust. Here's my recipe for a healthier take on my Friday night favorite.

Healthy Pizza

Whole Wheat Pizza Crust (adapted from this recipe)
1/2 cup warm water
1 envelop instant quick rise yeast (about 2 1/4 tsp if you are using jarred yeast)
1 1/4 cups water, room temp
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
4 cups whole wheat flour
1 1/2 tsp salt

Pour the warm water into a bowl (I use my 6 cup liquid measuring cup) and sprinkle the yeast on top. Set aside for 5 minutes, allowing the yeast to dissolve and react with the water.

Using your stand mixer, fitted with the paddle attachment, mix the flour and salt together until just combined.

Add the room temperature water and olive oil to the yeast water. Gently mix together and then pour into the flour. Fit the mixer with the kneading attachment and knead until it forms a ball and all the flour is incorporated (about 5 minutes). The dough should be smooth and elastic.

Spray a large bowl with nonstick spray (I use Smart Balanace Omega spray). Place the kneaded dough in the greases bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Set aside and let rise, until the dough has doubled in size (about an hour or so). If you are NOT using quick rise yeast, it will need about 2 hours to rise.

Place your pizza stone in the oven and preheat to 500 degrees. You will need to preheat the stone for about 30 minutes.

Push the dough down with your hands so it deflates. Tear the dough into 2 equal pieces, shape them into balls, and cover with a damp towel to rest for about 30 minutes (do this while the oven is preheating).

Using your hands, stretch out the dough to the desired shape and size of your pizza. I stretched mine a lot to make a thin crust pizza. Top with pizza sauce and your desired toppings.

Here's my pizza before going in the oven. It's topped with my pizza sauce (see recipe below), fresh basil from my garden, low-fat mozzerall, and turkey pepperoni.

Sprinkle the heated pizza stone with cornmeal and place the pizza on top. Cook for about 8 minutes....until the cheese is melted and slightly browned.

Here's the finished product. I had some trouble getting it in the oven, so the ingredients slide all over the place, leaving a not-so-pretty pizza, but the end results *tasted* great!! My husband even said he liked it almost more than our favorite local pizza joint. :)

Homemade Pizza Sauce

(I decided to whip up some semi-homemade sauce to take advantage of my herb garden)
1 can tomato paste (plus half a can of watter)
2 handfuls fresh oregano leaves
7-8 fresh basil leaves
pepper

Heat the tomato paste and water in a saucepan. Stir to combine the water and tomato paste, thinning out the paster to a sauce-like consistency (add more or less water based on your desired thickness.)
Chop the fresh herbs and add to the tomato paste. Add a dash or two of pepper. Stir to combine and heat through.
Set aside until ready to spread on the pizza.