Family Pizza Night......on a budget

For the last month our family has really enjoyed having a weekend family pizza night.  This is not something our family has always all enjoyed.....meaning the kids.  When it was just the girls...or when Nolan was still too little to care, we would get groans from the girls when Ryan and I would mention wanting to have pizza for dinner.  Ryan and I would think that was so funny because when we were little, and actually got to have pizza, we would think it was the greatest thing ever!





Fast forward a few years and Nolan LOVES pizza, Alexa has just started to like it more and more now that she is a little older, and Kaylee we figured out the problem is not that she doesn't like pizza, she just doesn't like red sauce.  So if we take away the red sauce on hers and replace it with BBQ sauce she loves it....problem solved!

So for pizza night of course you can go the traditional route and order, maybe go pick it up from Costco, or make your own.  It the past when looking into ordering, and by the time we satisfy what everyone wants.....chicken BBQ sauce pizza for Kaylee, only cheese or pepperoni for the middles, and Ryan and I wanting something with more stuff, you are looking at almost $50 for at least 3 pizzas, some having more then just 1 topping which costs more, then tax and delivery.  Not really in the budget for a family of 6 every week.  Costco has really big good sized pizzas for cheap, and we can get away with just one or two for our family, but you have to go out and get it and someone in our family will always be unhappy with the too many toppings, not enough toppings, or no BBQ sauce one for Kaylee.   So we decided to try the third option of making our own and it is so much cheaper, and we all think tastes so much better!  The kids also love that they get to roll out their own pizza dough and put only what they want on it.  They ask to do this every week now!

I have found a homemade dough recipe that we really love and it is super easy.  It is so much better for you than store bought dough or crust because it is made with a few simple real ingredients and without all the preservatives, processed stuff, and food coloring.  Yes, one store-bought dough I found actually had yellow food coloring added to it to make the dough look more yellow.....really???  I will often just put the dough together real quick at about 3-4 pm the day of pizza night because I am just not thinking that far ahead! You will need:

• 1 teaspoon Active Dry Yeast
• 4 cups All-purpose Flour
• 1 teaspoon Kosher Salt
• 1/3 cup Olive Oil

Sprinkle yeast over 1 1/2 cups warm (not lukewarm) water.
In a mixer, combine flour and salt. With the mixer running on low speed (with paddle attachment), drizzle in olive oil until combined with flour. Next, pour in yeast/water mixture and mix until it is combined and the dough all comes together in a sticky mass.

Coat a separate mixing bowl with a little olive oil, and form the dough into a ball. Toss to coat dough in olive oil, then cover the bowl tightly with plastic wrap and allow to rise for at least an hour.   Can also be done 3-4 days ahead and kept in the refrigerator.  

When ready for pizza night to start, move oven rack to the bottom, and preheat the oven to 500 degrees.  

With this dough you could make a couple good sized pizzas or we like to just break off chunks of the dough so everyone can make their own.  We like to roll the dough really thin because it still puffs up a little when it is cooked.  Of course you can get as fancy or as simple, (cheap), with this as you want to get.  The dough of course is super cheap and you usually have everything on hand once you buy the yeast, then of course we always have pizza and BBQ sauce available, and I will pick up a large bag of pizza cheese.  We've had nights with just pepperoni, red onions, cilantro, and some diced chicken with BBQ sauce as the topping choices, and we have had nights with tons of choices.  Super fun!

On this particular night we wanted to try out a bunch of fun toppings.....

I also cooked up some mild Italian sausage

These Pampered Chef rollers work great for rolling our dough out really thin in a small space

When your pizza is ready to go into the oven just pop it in for about 10-12 min.  I usually have my middles go first on the same pan and while theirs is in the oven, we only have one oven, Kaylee and I will start making ours to be ready to go in as soon as the oven is free.  This gives Alexa and Nolan's a chance to cool while Kaylee and mine are cooking.  Poor Daddy has to go last if he is home.  Then if any dough is left over I will make up another one for left overs or to have another one with more topping choices.

Happy pizza making!

The one of the left is one of the BBQ sauce and BBQ chicken pizzas, with other toppings too.  Those are actually really good and Kaylee is now not the only one that wants a BBQ sauce pizza. :)

Canadian bacon and pineapple