Homemade Pizza

We love pizza, probably more than we should. When I was growing up, Friday night = pizza + TGIF. If you know what TGIF is, then you're probably at least 30 years old, and you just may be following Candace Cameron on Twitter.

Anyway, here's a fun way to do pizza at home. It's especially great for those nights when you want to break out one of your heavyweight wedding gifts:



Yes, you'll be using that beautiful stand mixer...with the paddle and the dough hook.

Kendal adapted this pizza dough recipe.

For the dough:

3 cups unbleached white whole wheat flour
1 tsp. kosher salt
1 tsp. Trader Joe's 21 Seasoning Salute
1 (.25 oz.) package active dry yeast
1 tablespoon white sugar
1 cup warm water (110 degrees F)
2 tablespoons canola oil
1 tsp. honey

In your stand mixer bowl, mix together all the dry ingredients (except the sugar). You can stir them by hand, or if you're feeling fancy, you can use the paddle on your stand mixer.

To the cup of warm water, add the packet of yeast and the sugar. Stir, and let sit for about 5 minutes.


(The yeast/sugar/water mixture brewing and bubbling.)

Next, add the canola oil and honey to the water mixture.

Add the water mixture to the dry ingredients in the stand mixer bowl. Use the dough hook when combining the ingredients, and let the mixer run for a few minutes until a nice dough forms.


(This is the best shot I could get, because I'm not very tall. I'm going to have to start standing on a stool for these photos.)

Coat the dough with a small amount of canola oil, and let it sit while you prepare the other ingredients.

What are the other ingredients? Whatever you want to use as toppings. For this pizza, we used:

marinara sauce (we used Newman's Own)
approx. 8 oz. shredded mozzarella
red onion (we used about 1/4 of the onion)
about 1/3 lb. ground turkey, browned and seasoned with a little crushed red pepper





Roll out the dough on a baking stone. Layer on your toppings as you see fit. Kendal likes to have toppings dispersed throughout, so he spreads on the sauce, then adds the veggies and meat. Then he adds the cheese, and finally puts more meat and veggies on top of that.

Bake at 375 for 25 minutes. (We didn't preheat the oven, because we used a stone, and didn't want to have any mishaps like I've had in the past. Just so you know, a frozen pie + a hot stone = a broken stone.)

This is what the pizza looked like before we placed it in the oven...



And this is how it looked when it came out...



We like our cheese extra brown, so this was perfect.

One quick note: This recipe results in a pretty thick, soft crust. If you're in the mood for a thinner, crispier crust, then try this dough recipe here. Kendal tested it, I tasted it, and it's awesome. ("Awesome" is sung in my fake opera voice.)