Pizza Pizza!

Supposedly I owed a good friend of mine dinner... I'm not sure what from.  I think maybe cover a couple cab rides?  So here's the result, homemade create your own pizza.

Step 1:  make pizza dough.  I was a little worried about this one.  Every other time I've needed to make pizza dough I've needed at least 24 advance notice.  Fortunately I found a William and Sonoma Recipe needing only about 4 hours tops with mixing, rising, rolling, and rising again.  I used regular all-purpose flour considering I was expecting a guest but whole wheat flour is always an option.  Otherwise all you need is some yeast, oil, water, and a pinch of salt

Step 2:  gather your toppings and choose what you want for your pizza.  I had some of the goods at home like the EVOO, Sundried tomatoes, tomatoes, onion, mushrooms, and fresh (homegrown and organic!) basil plant.  I ran in Treasure Island for some fresh olives, fresh spinach, goat cheese, and mozzarella cheese.  I also cooked a chicken breast for topping.  Shrimp is always another great idea, just make sure they aren't too wet.  Of course there are all sorts of other toppings too, anything you can think of go for it.  Tomato pastes can be pretty easy to make too.  You can either just cook down some tomatoes and add a little bit of olive oil and maybe some chile flakes if you want spice ... thats a quick and dirty version.  There are certainly other versions.  Or just buy tomato paste to keep it simply and time effective.   Stuffed crust is always an option too.  Just make sure you have a little bit more dough to roll out than a recipe calls for.  mozzarella cheese sticks work great to roll the dough around to "stuff" but any filler will work

Step 3:  bake until edges of crust and cheese begin browning.  I'd recommend using either a pizza stone warmed in the oven ahead of time or an actual pizza cooking pan with small holes all throughout.  It helps the middle of the crust to cook evenly.  Sometimes when just on a cookie sheet the middle doesn't cook through.  However, consider my current student status I'm have a budget to work with which means limitted pans.  Some day I dream of having an iron overhead with vines to hang my copper pots and pans and all sorts of gadgets and special trays / mixers / knives / gadgets to play with in the kitchen

Step four:  serve!  I cut my pizzas with scissors.  Maybe this is a Chicago thing or just a strange habit I picked up because my "international"  ie Florida.. friend thought this was an absurd idea.
Best enjoyed with good company, outside (weather permitting), with a sunset and good bottle of wine with conversation.

no instagram art on this one :/ got lazy

Of course if you are a little worried about your own pizza making for company... don't wait for them to arrive to assemble pizzas, make a few up of your own.  Allow time so that just incase they don't turn out you can run down to the block to "Homemade Pizza Company"... ha, while I've never actually been in one of these establishments I'm tempted to several times a week.