Fridays are a little crazy for me. Fridays are my grocery day, my day to leave the house clean for the weekend... And the day I take The Accountant, aka my husband, to work so I can have the car. Some days I manage to squeeze a shower in before running him to work and doing the grocery shopping. Some days I'm just hoping in the shower at noon.
On a day as busy as Fridays are, I need a quick and easy meal. We really try to stick to eating out only once a week. That means no fast food on Friday. And we really aren't into the frozen food thing. Once in a blue moon, in lieu of eating out we'll pick up something frozen ahead of time so we can stay in all day and not really cook... But if I'm going to eat that badly, I'd rather just eat fast food.
Typically, we don't have a lot of leftovers, either. I try to cook an exact amount daily, or just enough that The Accountant can take it to work with him for lunch. So Fridays are a great day for home made pizza.
At this point you're probably thinking that I'm going to say I use tortillas, or pop-n-fresh crescent rolls or something. No thanks. I wouldn't spoil a perfectly good pizza like that. No siree Bob. It's amazing, but in reality home made pizza takes maybe 15 minutes of work. Here's how I do it.
In the afternoon I find myself 10-15 minutes to throw together bread dough. I like to use a regular white bread dough recipe. I find it makes an amazing crust. I know it sounds like a lot of work already, but honestly, if you've ever made bread dough you know that it takes maybe 5 minutes to get the ingredients together, and another 8 minutes to kneed the dough. From there, it just has to rise. My work is done. Almost. Once the dough is ready, I throw the sauce on the stove to simmer.
I like my sauce to cook as long as it can. It's a really simple sauce, just a can or two of tomato sauce, garlic, onion, oregano... Then you can put in whatever else you like. Diced tomatoes, green peppers, pepperoni, mushrooms. All of these will make your sauce richer and more flavorful. Even if you put them all in it, it takes maybe 5 minutes to throw together. From there, add some water, and leave it on low to impregnate the flavors into the sauce. It's so easy I do it while Sirenita is eating lunch. And then I neglect it all till right before I leave to pick up The Accountant. Before it's time to go, I shut off the sauce, plop the dough onto a cookie sheet, spread it out to cover the sheet, and throw it in the cold oven for a second rise. When we get home, the dough is ready to cook, it takes maybe 20 minutes. Once it's ready, spoon the sauce on, put some cheese and more toppings on, back in the oven for 5 minutes, and you're good to go!
It seems really complicated, maybe... But honestly, if you want a hearty home cooked meal with minimal effort, pizza is totally the way to go. There is nothing else that requires so little of my attention and tastes so good as Pizza does... So if you have time in the morning, or a few hours before you want to eat, and don't want to spend a lot of time cooking at meal time, wow them with your pizza, and enjoy the leftovers! You can even make the dough up ahead of time, pop it into the freezer right after you kneed it (don't let it rise) and leave it there till the day you want pizza. Pull it out in the morning, throw it in a bowl and let it thaw. As it thaws, it will rise, and voila! Home made pizza dough!
