Pizza!

     I grew up in a home where homemade pizza was a staple in the family diet.  Everyone raved about my parents' pizza and it gained quite the reputation over the years among our friends.  Well, I had been craving pizza for about 10 days so we ordered pizza Sat. night and Sun. night I still hadn't had enough so I decided the time had come to break in our pizza stone that we got as a wedding present.  
    I began with the crust.  Our pizza stone came with 2 packages of crust mix so this time I didn't make it from scratch.  So, I don't have a recipe to post, but you can google a recipe or use a dough recipe from your bread maker book, if you have one.  I threw the dough mix together into my bread machine and pushed the button to mix it up.  Once it was mixed I took it out, and ended up adding extra flour because it was still too sticky.  I rolled it out on the table and then sprinkled the pizza stone with cornmeal to keep the crust from sticking.  Jackson helped me form the dough into an even circle, which was more complicated than you would think.  Be sure as you get the dough onto your stone or pan, to leave at least 1 inch of space to the edge to allow for the dough to expand while baking.  
      I think the key to good homemade pizza is the sauce.  I found a recipe online that I adjusted to my own liking: 

Pizza Sauce

1/2 (15 oz) can tomato sauce

1/2 (6 oz) can tomato paste
1 1/2 Tbl oregano
1/2 tsp. basil
1 1/2 tsp. garlic powder
2 tsp. paprika

1.  Mix everything together in a bowl.  Taste test.  (I actually never measure spices.  I just throw them in until it looks good and taste it for confirmation) Add more seasoning if desired.  Spread onto pizza dough. 

2.  Add toppings of your choice!  The pic below was taken when I was half-way done topping the pizza... 

                                          

 

We made half of the pizza with ham and pineapple, topped with mozzarella cheese and the other half we loaded up with pepperoni, mushrooms, onion, green pepper, pineapple, ham, and olive (leaving the olive off of my slice of pizza... that's the beauty of homemade pizza, you can individualize EVERY slice!), and topped with lots of mozzarella.

3.  Bake 15-20 min. in pre-heated oven at 400 degrees.  

We pulled it out of the oven and were really surprised at how much the crust had expanded! It looked amazing though and tasted just as good as it looked!