Homemade Pizza

Pizza is something we eat a lot around here. You can use a variety of toppings (many you have on hand already) and in a short period of time you can have delicious pizza straight from your oven.

You can use your own pizza dough or pizza shells. I have a quick (10 minute) recipe for pizza dough which I will include at a later date, but for this pizza I used shells.

Toppings: I enjoy putting the various toppings into bowls. It looks inviting and pizza is a great meal to involve young children and/or your guests. You can also avoid potential conflict at mealtime as everyone chooses the toppings they want.

The vegetarian (my favorite): Start with pesto sauce and add any vegetables you want (red and yellow peppers, mushrooms, onions, sun dried tomatoes, etc.)

The Hawaiian: tomato sauce, ham, pineapple, mushrooms, and red peppers

I topped each with mozzarella, feta cheese, oregano, and fresh basil from our garden. If you have never added oregano to your pizza, I encourage you to try it. I think it is delicious!

The finished vegetarian pizza: I baked this at 425 degrees F. in a toaster oven for aprox. 20 minutes.

I recommend making more pizza than you need (no surprise to those of you who know me). Leftover pizza is great - it tastes good and means you do not have to cook. Also, remember that you can always freeze pizza and eat it later. Simply put, making extra now saves you time later.

I thought I would add a photo of our "summer kitchen". The heat has arrived and we do not have air conditioning, so the last thing I want to do in the kitchen is to cook. One solution we have found is to cook out in our covered gazebo using our large toaster oven (it fits one large pizza). I have baked pizzas, cinnamon buns, chicken, muffins, cakes, etc. and have had success. There is also a cookbook I found in our local library dedicated to cooking with a toaster oven.