Pizza Party!

For my birthday I got a bread machine from my mother.

I bake about a loaf of bread a week and I just love it! This past weekend I decided to try my hand at pizza, I had read in my bread machine hand book that it can also make dough. And Alex had been asking me if we could make pizza for dinner one of these days so I thought, "Why not give it a try?" I found a pretty simple recipe in my More Bread Machine Magic cook book my mom sent with the bread machine. Now, what I love about this cook book is that it has a wide range of recipes and it gives you little tips and hints on how to spice up a more simple recipe.

Ingredients: (for a medium size dough)
1 cup of water
2 tablespoons of olive oil
1 tablespoon of sugar
1 teaspoon of salt
3 cups of all purpose or unbleached flour (I used unbleached)
2 teaspoons of dry active yeast

Now all you have to do is add your ingredients into the bread pan inside the machine and select the dough and pizza setting. It takes about 45 minutes for the dough to rise in the machine. Once the dough is ready you lay it out on a lightly floured counter or cutting board and role it out to fit your pizza pan. You want it to fit the pan with about and inch to spare for when it expands when it cooks. And make sure to oil your pan so the dough doesn't stick.

Now I made my dough the size of the pan so I could role the sides in to make a thicker crust. After you have rolled out your dough let it sit (covered) to rise a little more for 20-30 minutes. After you let it rise you can start to add your toppings! I used Prego marinara for my pizza sauce (I have yet to learn how to make the sauce...that's on my list of things to do!) and mozzarella for my cheese (grated by hand - I used just about a pound of it) and good old fashion pepperoni!

You bake it at 450 degrees for 15-20 minutes and then you serve it warm!

It was so yummy! Alex has asked that I make it more often and I sure will. It was a lot more filling than the frozen pizzas we usually have and so much better! I hope y'all try out this simple and tasty new recipe!