My Favorite Pizza and Sauce Recipes

A couple of years ago I was given the best thin-crust pizza dough recipe ever, by my friend Cambria, and I want to share it with you.  I know that 500 degrees (F) sounds like a lot, but it really does make a nice, just right, crisp crust--especially when you bake it on a wire mesh pan (It works well on a cookie sheet too).  You can get these from restaurant supply stores.  I have a  couple of big ones, and also 4 small individual ones as well.  I do omit the garlic salt, since I have plenty of salt and garlic in my sauce.  Make sure if you do use the mesh wire pizza pans not to press anything too hard on it after you place the rolled dough onto your  pan.  The first time I made it, I did that and it was awful trying to get the dough scrubbed out of the holes.  When I have time, I will also roll out a bunch of pizza dough to the right size on tinfoil, wrap it up, freeze it, and then pull it out right before I want to use it.  It makes it a super fast way to make homemade pizza in a hurry.

Cambria's Pizza Dough Recipe
1 cup Warm Water
1 Tbsp. Quick Rise Yeast
1 tsp. Sugar
1 tsp. Salt
2 1/2 cups flour

Mix together first 3 ingredients until yeast is dissolved.  Add remaining ingredients--mix.  Roll out dough.  Assemble pizza (see below) Bake at 500 deg. for 7 min. or until cheese is slightly brown.

Pizza Assembly
Roll out dough and place on pizza pan, preferably mesh wire for crispy crust on bottom.  Drizzle and spread around olive oil, about 2 Tbsp.  Can use hand, pastry brush or paper towel to evenly coat until shiny.  Lightly sprinkle garlic salt making a thin, even coat--a heavier sprinkle may make it too garlicky.  Add sauce.  Add bottom toppings--Onions, mushrooms, and any other toppings that may slide off the top easily or may need the extra heat to cook.  Add cheese.  Add top toppings--Green pepper, olives, pepperoni, sausage, ham, pineapple, etc.


Now, for my sauce recipe.  I have been making this for years, and I can make a pizza or marinara sauce for about fifty-cents.  I like to use tomato paste.  A 1 to 2 ratio works well.  I can of paste and 2 cans of water.   I will also add the olive oil directly to the sauce instead of spreading it on top--this is one of the things that gives pizza such a yummy flavor.  I had tried for years to find the perfect recipe that would taste like I wanted it to in my head--and I am convinced that it was the olive oil.  Also, adding the sugar takes away the metallic after taste you can get with tomato sauces you make.


Deborah's Marinara Sauce

1 can of Tomato paste -8 oz.

2 cans of Water

1 Tbsp. Olive Oil

3/4 tsp. Salt

1 Tbsp. Parsley

1 tsp. Oregano

1 1/2 tsp. Powdered Garlic
1 Tbsp. Diced Garlic

1/4 cup Parmesan Cheese 

1 1/2 tsp. Sugar

1/4 tsp. Fresh Ground Pepper

Mix together until smooth.  Spread on top of dough or use with pasta.

 I hope that your family enjoys this Fun Friday Meal!

~Homemaker