Pizza dough, Pizza sauce, Breadsticks, Calzones (don't be overwhelmed)

James loves pizza! His mom made homemade pizza for Birthday dinners as a child, so he has a good reason. I also learned to make pizza when we were dating and made it for him often. Unfortunately pizza was one thing I would not eat or even look at while I was pregnant. Bad luck for James. All is well though, I can eat pizza again.
I have tried a couple of recipes but this is the one I love the most, because it is so easy, I always have the ingredients in the house and it is so versatile. Plus you can always throw what ever you have in your pantry on for the toppings. Sometimes we have pepperoni, sometimes we just have veggies and pineapple. You can turn it into bread sticks, or calzones, or make mini pizzas... and I am sure the list isn't much longer than that. But really it is so great. I will put the variations in the directions underneath so you can have them too.
This recipe comes from the Food Nanny's Cookbook. It is another one of my favorites. If you open my copy of the book it will turn straight to this dough recipe because I use it so much.

Pizza Dough

1 tablespoon active dry yeast
1 cup warm water
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon honey
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 to 4 cups all purpose flour

1. Mix the yeast and water in a small bowl, cover, and let stand until foamy, 5-10 minutes.
2. Mix the oil, honey, and yeast mixture in a large mixing bowl (I just throw all of this into the bowl with the yeast mixture, to save on dirty dishes). If using a food processor, add 1 cup of flour at a time, up to 3 cups, mixing well after each addition. You may want to stir the third cup of flour by hand, depending on your machine. Or mix in all 3 cups of flour by hand with a wooden spoon.
3. With a rolling pin, roll out the dough on a floured surface. Gently stretch the dough to fill the pan. Using a fork poke the dough several times in different areas.
4. Let the dough rise (it will not rise very much) while you make sauce.

Pizza Sauce

1 (8-ounce) can tomato sauce
1/2 teaspoon dried basil or oregano
1/4 teaspoon garlic salt
1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper
Pinch of brown sugar

1. Mix all the ingredients together in a small bowl
2. Makes about 1 cup of sauce (one 16-inch pizza)

Pizza

1. Spread desired ingredients on top of pizza. (I find that it bakes better if you put the ingredients such as your veggies and pepperoni first and the cheese last). Also sprinkle it with a little bit of oregano. It adds a nice flavor.
2. Bake pizza on middle or top rake for 10-14 minutes at 425 degrees or until crust is golden brown and cheese is melted.

Breadsticks

Pizza dough
4-5 Tbsp butter (melted)
2 tsp. garlic salt
1 pinch of dried parsley

1. Prepare the dough according to directions above.
2. Take small pieces of dough and roll them into breadsticks (like you did with playdoe as kid).
3. Place them on a greased pan (I like to place them pretty close together so they are softer when they cook).
4. Mix the butter, garlic salt, and parsley together in small bowl. Coat the breadsticks each with this mixture. (only use about 1/3 for the first coat)
5. Let rise until dough has doubled in size.
6. Bake for 5 minutes. Take them out and coat the breadsticks with garlic butter again and replace back in the oven. Bake until golden brown (about 6 to 8 more minutes). Take them out and coat them with remaining garlic butter. (You can use as much or as little as you want, or even use low-fat margarine).

Calzones


Pizza dough
2 Tbsp butter (melted)
1 tsp garlic salt and some parsley
shredded Parmesan cheese

1. Prepare pizza dough
2. Take small amounts of dough, stretch or roll out, and fill with desired toppings. 3. Fold over dough and pinch the edges of the dough together.
4. Top with Garlic butter and sprinkle with Parmesan cheese
5. Bake for 10 to 15 minutes until golden brown. 400 to 425 degrees.

*Last night we filled our calzones with ranch (for the sauce), cooked shredded chicken, small bits of bacon, diced fresh tomatoes, and cheese. Oh Man... it was delicious.