Take out pizza no more

We only do take-out pizza for very special treats. It's expensive and has, in these economic times, become "an unnecessary". Instead, we make home made pizza. Especially for birthday parties. My 11 year old's friends are very happy when they come up and we make it because we make individual pizzas and they can put their own favorite toppings on.

I used to make a yeast dough and that made "pizza" very time intensive. The last few times, though, I've made a biscuit crust and it's fast and easy and I like it better because it's nice and crispy. You can use Bisquick biscuits or canned refrigerator biscuits if you want, but this recipe is cheaper, should be able to be done out of basic pantry items and works very well for crust

Sour Milk Biscuits
2C Flour
1/4t Salt
1/2 t Baking Soda
1T shortening (or butter or margarine)
1C sour milk (or plain yogurt or sour cream or butter milk or canned milk or even fresh milk-- all add different flavors but nothing outrageous.)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Mix the dry ingredients, work the shortening in with your fingers until very small pieces are formed, add the milk (or substitute) and mix GENTLY! just until all the dry ingredients are just barely incorporated.

For pizza crust, roll or gently push the dough out to cover the bottom of the pizza pan or cookie sheet or whatever you're cooking on-- you want the dough to be about 1/8 to 1/4 inch thick all over.

You can cover this with pizza sauce from a jar (or make your own, recipe to follow) and add your favorite toppings and cheeses and bake for about 20 -25 minutes, depending on the toppings and how thick you make the crust and how much cheese you put on it.

Home Made Pizza Sauce

1 can of tomatoes -- diced, whole, or pureed.
garlic
dried basil
dried oregano

dump tomatoes in a sauce pan, add garlic, basil and oregano to taste, simmer until it smells good, then puree in the blender. It will be a little thinner than your jarred sauce, but it has a fresher flavor.


If you're going to put sausage or hamburger on the pizza, you should cook it first. Pepperoni is easy to find in the little packs. Shredding the cheese yourself is cheaper than buying it already shredded. Slice vegetables thin to lessen cooking time.

By the way, the biscuit dough works very well for drop biscuits, for rolled biscuits, and if you add 1/4 sugar, for shortcake for fruit shortcakes.