Sunday, June 27, 2010

Hooray for Pizza Day



Homemade pizza is incredibly easy to make, yet pizza-focused restaurants are still a multi-billion dollar industry. While not everyone has 800 degree ovens at home, the pizza that comes out of a standard household kitchen is still a cut above the mass-produced variety.

Making pizza dough is pretty simple, especially with an upright mixer. What's even more simple is that to make a double batch every time--That means every other time you make pizza, all you have to do is remember to take a ball of dough out of the freezer to defrost in time for dinner! In our household, we've found homemade dough to be a lot tastier (not to mention cheaper!) than the crusts you can buy in the grocery store.

When you make your own pizza, your choices for toppings are unlimited! In college, when I would buy frozen pizza, I usually added my own toppings to plain cheese pie to customize to my own tastes. Homemade pizza is like having a blank canvas in front of you! It's easy to accommodate multiple tastes--pineapple and light cheese on one side, mushrooms only one slice... whatever combination/s you can think of can be created at home!

I also find that homemade pizza can be healthier than the store- or restaurant-bought varieties. It's no more difficult to make a whole wheat crust, you don't have to explain to a server that you only want half cheese, can buy better quality ingredients for less, and you can put as many veggies or other healthy toppings on top without the extra fees for each one. I'm not saying homemade pizza is like spa food, but it can certainly be lower in the bad stuff than the processed kind you may otherwise be consuming.

And since some of you were wondering, my homemade pizza pictured above had a base of (veggie) sausage in marinara sauce topped with a layer of sauteed spinach then several dollops of goat cheese and caramelized onions for the finishing touch.


1 comment :

Unknown said...

I love pizza
I'm learning to cook a GOOD homemade pizza, because with my boyfirend we are planing to move to short term apartments so we can live toghether, and I want to cook AMAZINGS pizzas for him (I'm so in love.... I know after a few years it won't be like this!)