Yummy Homemade Pizza

We started this recipe with the full intention of eating dinner at a normal hour--say, six or seven. Not realizing how long it takes to make pizza dough, we ended up eating around 10:30 on this particular night. Was it worth it? You bet.

If you're going to go through the trouble of making your own pizza dough, the only way of doing it at home is to make a chewy, paper-thin crust. While a breadier crust may have some value, your home oven is just better suited for making thin-crust pizza. (In our humble opinion.)

This pizza is DIY. We will show you how to make the dough and the sauce but the rest is up to you. We like our pizza with lots o' toppings and far be it from us to lecture you on yours. Just don't underestimate the flexibility of that giardiniera sitting in the back of your fridge..

Homemade Pizza (dough and sauce)
By Smitten Kitchen

Pizza Dough:

Makes one small, thin crust pizza. We have doubled it before and made two, but we're not crazy about these pizzas as leftovers.

1 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon active dry yeast
1/2 cup lukewarm water, plus 1-2 tablespoons extra
1 tablespoon olive oil

Whisk the first three ingredients together in a large bowl. Add water and olive oil and stir mixture into a ball-like shape. Dump the ball and the rest of the pieces onto the counter (make sure you flour it first) and knead for 1-2 minutes into an actual ball.

Spray your large bowl with cooking spray and put the dough ball back in. Coat all sides with the cooking spray, cover with plastic wrap, and let it sit until it doubles in size (1-2 hours).

Once the dough has doubled, gently press the air out of the dough with your palms. Fold the dough back into a ball, and put it back in the bowl for 20 minutes.

Take the dough out of the ball and place it on a pizza stone. Roll out the dough and top with pizza sauce, toppings of your choice, and cheeeese.

Pizza Sauce:

We have made a couple of different pizza sauces for our pizzas, but this one is very easy and allows you to use the canned tomatoes that you have in your cupboard. You do have canned tomatoes, right?

1 tablespoon butter

2 large shallots, minced

1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

1 teaspoon salt

a splash (or a little more...) of red wine plus a glass for the cook

1 28-oz. can whole tomatoes

1 15-oz. can pureed tomatoes or tomato sauce (you could probably even puree your own fresh tomatoes if you have any hanging around)

Melt butter in a small saucepan. Add shallots, red pepper flakes, and salt and stir until shallots are soft. Add the red wine and let it slightly reduce, followed by the whole tomatoes and tomato puree. Break up the whole tomatoes with a spoon and let the sauce simmer until desired consistency. We like ours a little thicker, but if you're hungry it will always work a little thinner.

Makes about 5 cups.

Bake your pizza at the highest temperature your oven will go for about 10 minutes or until the crust is golden brown and cheese is bubbly. Remove, sit down, devour!