Tuesday tradition: pizza

Does doing something for 4 weeks in a row make it a tradition? Maybe! We kind of decided that pizza on Tuesday evenings was going to be a new tradition, after really only doing it once, and I have to say, it is our best idea. Every Tuesday, we make pizza from scratch. Sometimes the dough is made ahead of time, and sometimes I make it the day of, but either way, I love this tradition. We try to vary and do something new each week, so far, it's working!

Dough (adapted from Fine Cooking): 

1 3/4 cups warm water

1 tbsp olive oil

2 tsp kosher salt

1 1/2 tsp yeast

1 1/2 tsp sugar

4 1/4 cup flour (I've done all all-purpose, but we really prefer 1/2 allpurpose and 1/2 whole wheat, more flavor!)

Mix together the first 5 ingredients.  Slowly mix in the flour, until a dough forms. If you are making it ahead of time, you can just leave it in the bowl for a few hours, and it will expand and mature on its own. However, if you are making it right away, add enough flour to make a good dough, and kneed it for a few minutes. This dough is usually enough for at least two pizzas. It also keeps well in the fridge, in a bowl, and covered with plastic wrap, for up to a week. You can apparently also freeze it, but I haven't tried that yet. 

Pizza Sauce (adapted from allrecipes.com)

1 can tomato paste

6 ounces of lukewarm water

3 tbsp parmesan cheese

1 tsp minced garlic

2 tbsp honey

3/4 tsp onion powder

1/2 tsp dried basil

pinch of ground pepper, salt. 

1/2 tbps fresh sage

Mix all the ingredients together until it forms a sauce, and let it sit for 30 minutes so that the flavors blend together. You can adapt the herbs and spices as you wish. We only had dried basil, so I added some of our fresh sage, but any herb would work here. 

Top the pizza! We always have pepperoni (according to Shawn, it's not real pizza without pepperoni), red peppers, mushrooms. Then we vary the other ingredients depending on what is in the fridge. The cheese also changes from week to week, always mozzarella, but a little havarti has shown up, and others like monterey jack may show up in the future!