Pizza

Buying pizza is a rare treat for my family, I guess I should say it's a rare treat for me because it means I get hot food that I didn't have to work all night making, but for my husband it means dry dough sparsly covered with overcooked veggies and a large bill since the meat lover's pizza was only $5 but the vegetarian was $14 plus the $1.50 per extra veggie, per pizza. Another great shortcut to pizza is simply topping english muffins, but the most inexpensive (and tastiest) option is to make our pizzas from scratch.
Now, I've done a lot of experimenting with pizza dough, my bread machine over worked it, most doughs require lots of kneading and time to rise, and a ton of recipes yield dough too elastic to work with, but I've finally landed on a recipe that works well for me.
We purchased 2 pizza pans on clearance at our local grocery store, they're thin and cheap in quality, but sprayed with non stick cooking spray and sprinkled with cornmeal, the pans release nicley and cook the pizzas evenly.
Quick pizza dough


1 package (2 1/4 te) active or quick rise yeast
1 te sugar
1 Cup warm water
2 1/2 Bread flour
2 TB oil
1 te salt
* garlic powder, rosemary, or italian seasoning to season crust optional

• Dissolve yeast, sugar, and water for 10 minutes
• Add in the rest of the ingredients and mix until smooth (I use a stand mixer with a dough hook)
• Let rest for 5 minutes
• Preheat oven to 450º
• Lightly grease pizza pan *a dusting or cornmeal is optional
• Roll out pizza dough on a floured surface to the approximate size of your pan, then place the dough in your pan and use your hands to form the pizza to your pan
• Top your pizza then cook for 15-20 minutes

Picture courtesy of wannabeavegan.wordpress.com

The dough will look more like a sticky mess than a dough ball when it's done mixing, but with floured hands and a floured surface, it becomes a malleable dough and lends itself easily to be stretched out. This crust yields one pizza, but I like thinner crust so I make two batches at once and divide it by three.

Toppings-
I'm a traditionalist, I prefer "meat" and "cheese" over spinach and mushrooms, but That's what's so good about making this dough, everyone gets their own pizza to top any way they like. My husband likes it simple homemade chorizo sausage cut up like pepperoni, onion, and Daiya cheese (a once a week splurge). My kids like pineapple and olive, homemade chicken that I whirl up in our food processor, and a spicy cheese spread my husband makes.


Variations-
I've made this dough into calzones before, you can fill them with almost anything, but my family likes seitan or chicken cut into cubes and marinated in equal parts melted butter and hot sauce for a hot wing calzone. We then cook it up the same as you would a pizza and dip it in homemade ranch sauce.


You can make this dough into bread sticks as well, roll the dough out and cut into bread sticks, place on  a pan that has been covered in foil and lightly greased. Bruch the bread sticks with melted butter and cook the same as you would a pizza, but keep an eye on them so you don't over cook