Totally easy, fun and delicious is the way a family dinner should be. Here's how Daddy Zeke does it.

Source: askthefoodgeek.com

I was wondering if it would be helpful to share a how-to on pizza you make yourself and some pictures of my latest results. Sure it makes sense to order from a pizza delivery joint from time to time when you are in a hurry or don't wanna make a mess. I find it rather expensive, a little concerning I have no control over the nutrients and preservatives, and easy mode when I would rather show the kids how to does something yourself.

Pizza Stone

Source:

Every house should have a pizza stone. This is the one we have (actually got 2 of them while our family was growing.) Obviously great for pizza but you can also cook hors d'oeuvres, home made potato chips, melt cheese on crackers for a snack, english muffins, quesadillas, even cookies if you want. Not too expensive in these parts and definitely was worth it for our house.

Pizza Dough

Sometimes, we make the pizza doug from scratch as there are dozens of recipes on the internet like this one https://www.marthastewart.com/332275/basic-pizza-dough Most times though, it is easier and good enough for us to buy it along with the other ingredients either fresh or frozen.

Ingredients

This is where you can get creative and REALLY customize your pizza no matter what your tastes are. This is important in our house as we have a vegetarian, and a.....hatesmostnutritiousfoodatarian. Why kids like plain cheese pizza is beyond me and at least you can throw some herbs and spices into the sauce for some great flavour. Here are the ingredients we chose for this dinner:

• Mozzarella cheese
• pizza sauce
• Herbs mixed into the sauce and sprinkled on top: Oregano, parsley, rosemary, celery seeds, and basil.
• Garlic - You have to have fresh garlic to make it zing!
• Sausage - cut from the casing, spiced up and browned beforehand in a frying pan.
• Ham - just the ham we use for sandwiches cut into pieces
• Peppers - Any colour works and I generaly dice one colour up and cut the other into strips for a little texture variation
• Broccoli - My veggie loves it on pizza for some strange reason and who am I to say no?
• Zucchini - I hate the filthy stuff but the veggies like it as their version of pepperoni
• Sliced Tomatoes - so yummy roasted but you have to keep em thin or else the pizza gets to watery.
• Mushrooms - LOTS of mushrooms so you actually taste them.
• Onions - I cut these up nice and small too so they aren't overpowering and add a nice sweet taste to the whole pizza
• Fake Bacon Bits - this was just an experiment to see if it worked. Adults like it, kids did not.
• Bonus! Cheese Strings! - For the kids parts, I rolled cheese string snacks into the crust so they could have stuffed crust.

Easy Steps

• Spread a little oil on the pizza stones if they are new and not conditioned yet
• Spread a little flour on a flat surface and roll out the dough into a nice circle
• Put the circle on the stone and spread pizza sauce out with a spoon (nice round bottom to spread!)
• Cut up all the ingredients and toss them on the pizzas
• Shred up the cheese (mozzarella is great but I often mix in cheddar, gouda, or other kinds) and throw it on top
• Bake for 10 minutes on 400. Give em a spin at 10 minutes and back for another 7-10
• It is done when parts of the cheese turns brown in parts and the house starts to smell awesome.
• Pull em out, slice em up, let them cool off and feast!

Here is the first one. I generally share it with the picky one where she has the meat, and I have all the ingredients (except that filthy zucchini.) Half & half.

Here's the second one which is all veggie and pretty damn tasty too.

Just a regular oven. I choose 400 or a bit lower because I found higher temperatures were making the crust too tough and under cooking the veggies. Our oven is a little small for 2 big pizza stones so I stagger them and rotate them half way through.

Another tip is to put the kids pizza on a plate to cool. The pizza stone keeps some heat in it for a while which is really nice for keeping your second slice warm.

Another handy tip is to enjoy beer with your meal! This was a nice malty and tasty Beau's Extra Special Bitter.

Wanna come over for dinner at the Pickle Palace?