In my family friday night dinner was always Pizza night and don't even think about asking for anything else, it was just expected if it was from the local pizzeria down the street or if it was homemade it didn't matter; but of course growing up in an Italian family it was usually homemade most things usually were and of course mom always made the best pizza in town anyway.
She always started first thing in the morning making her pizza dough so that way it would have plenty of time to rise twice once in a bowl and then in the baking sheet itself, after that she would start making her homemade tomato sauce with fresh tomatoes from the yard or if it was winter the local grocery store adding all different types of spices and of course fresh basil she always said tomato sauce is nothing without fresh basil. The sauce would cook for hours smelling up the entire house.Then the easy part grate some mozzarella and put the pizza together and in the oven.
Well I still make my own pizza dough like mom, but unfortunately most of the time don't have the hours to spend making homemade sauce like she used to instead I used canned sauce to speed up the process a little bit. I put my pizza together the old Italian grandma way were the cheese goes on first followed by the sauce, my husband also likes square pies or " sicilian pies" so that's how I usually shape my dough but you can also make a regular circle pie.
Ingredients
- 3 cups flour
- 1 cup luke warm water
- 1 Tbsp rapid rising yeast
- 1/4 cup vegetable oil
- 1 tsp salt
- 4 tsp sugar
- 1 28 oz can tomato sauce
- 1/2 tsp Italian seaoning
- 1/2 tsp dried basil
- 1 bay leave
- 1 Tbsp olive oil
- 1 pkg mozzarella, shredded
- 2 leaves fresh basil
- Grated parmesan cheese
- 1 tsp garlic, minced
Directions
- 1Dissolve the yeast in a small bowl with the warm water.
- 2In a large mixing bowl combine flour, salt, 2 tsp of sugar and oil; add in yeast mixture and with a dough hook attachment mix dough until just combined. On a lightly floured surface knead just for about 2 minutes, and place in a lightly oiled large bowl and let rise until double in size.
- 3For the Sauce: On low heat using a small saucepan add olive oil, garlic and bay leave until garlic starts to sizzle DO NOT let the garlic get brown this will make your sauce taste bitter.
- 4Add tomato sauce, italian seasoning, dried basil, 2 tsp of sugar simmer for about 20 minutes on medium heat stirring frequently
- 5In the meanwhile take your pizza dough and place it on a lightly floured surface and roll out to desired size. Spray your pizza pan with cooking spray place dough into pan cover and let rise for 1 hr.
- 6Preheat oven to 410 degrees. Shred mozzarella.
- 7To put your pizza together you can do it 2 ways what i call the fashioned Italian grandma way or the regular way that we're all used to seeing a pizza. The Grandma way is to place the shredded mozzarella on top of your dough and then cover it with your sauce and sprinkle it with parmesan cheese and some fresh basil. The regular way is were the sauce goes on first then your cheese.
- 8Bake for 20 minutes.
