Pizza: A Love Affair

I don't know when it happened, but at some point in Mr. M's childhood, he saw a greasy slice of pizza from across a crowded room and fell head-over-heels!

He could eat it for EVERY.SINGLE.MEAL. and not get sick of it. In fact, his pre-marriage diet wasn't far from that. Even after we were married, he would occasional treat himself to a large pizza for lunch while studying. Because I love him and don't want him to have a heart attack, I have encouraged him to eat salad or other veggies along with his pizza, and he's done slightly better since he finished school.

Needless to say, I knew that pizza was going to be really hard to give up in 2013. Technically it's not "eating out" if you bring it home, but we still agreed it was against the rules because it's from a restaurant. We do occasionally get a take and bake pizza from the grocery store, but we haven't needed to lately because I FINALLY learned how to make really good homemade pizza. I've made it in the past, but it was never quite good enough to take the place of the restaurant kind.

Friends, use this recipe! It will change your life! Actually you might be able to use any recipe. The real secret is cooking it in a 500 degree oven and putting it on parchment paper sprinkled with cornmeal.

I actually use 3 cups bread flour and 1 cup whole wheat flour instead of the 4 cups of bread flour it calls for. I think I'm going to try whole wheat bread flour next time though.

That recipe makes enough for 2 pizzas. Ideally, we would freeze one ball of dough to save us some time at a later date, but we don't. We cook 2 pizzas every time, and then we have leftovers!

I seriously make pizza at least once a week now, and we always have veggies or salad on the side. We've started experimenting a little with toppings. Here are the 2 pizzas we made last week.

Ham, Bacon, and Pineapple

Turkey Pepperoni, Green Peppers, Mushrooms







I always use cheddar and mozarella cheeses that I shred myself (personal preference, as it's a little cheaper and it doesn't have that weird stuff added to keep it from clumping up), and I make pizza sauce using tomato sauce and this stuff.

Delicious!

And Mr. M is able to continue keeping in touch with his first love.