Piper's Perfect Pizza

My pizza making abilities are legendary (in my own family, at least), and I've decided to share my deep dark secrets with the world. A good pizza, in my house, starts fairly early in the day, a few hours before dinner is scheduled, but this pizza can be ready in about an hour. I like to have all my ingredients on hand and within easy reach, so that I don't have to rush about at the last minute looking for this or that. I also like to have a variety of ingredients so that each family member can pick out exactly what they want. The recipe can be altered in a number of ways, and I'll talk about those as we go. You want a versatile recipe that is hard to mess up. This is it. Ready? Good!

Now, I'm a very off-the-cuff sort of chef. I rarely measure, and even more rarely do I pay really close attention to timing. But I've got this pizza thing down to an art form. My kids get wild when they find out pizza is on the menu, and my husband gets a glimmer in his eye that tells me the pizza is more exciting to him than I am. What can I say? It's good stuff!

You'll want to read through the instructions first, then make your grocery list out with the recipe at hand (recipes at the end of the article). I always make my sauce first, and depending on the time of year will dictate what ingredients I use. I've made fresh sauce with ripe crushed garden tomatoes, garlic, vegetables and spices; and I've used a standard premade sauce. Both are fine to use and will work well for your purposes. Either way, if you are using a ground meat, like Italian sausage, you will want to simmer the cooked crumbled sausage in your sauce so that the flavors meld together nicely.