Pizza Night!
I love traditions.
Growing up we always at breakfast together. Every day. I counted on it even when I hated it. It brought our family together even in the midst of all the activities my siblings and I became involved in. It brought a sense of unity to our home and its one of my greatest family memories.
And my dad made the best scrambled eggs with cheese ever. He still does.
I’ve longed to create a tradition for my family that will stick with us through all that is to come in our lives. I think we have finally got it! Its Friday night pizza night!
Every single Friday, I make my homemade pizza, my husband pours the wine (or mixes the drinks – depending on the week its been!) and we have our “Singers and Swing” music playing loud.
I have my dough recipe memorized now, and my sauce is simply a can of good quality of crushed tomatoes (Muir Glen is the best!) with oregano sprinkled over the top. Just a light spread of the tomatoes please, don’t go overboard. I promise, this is the best way.
My crust is whole wheat and I always brush the crust with olive oil, a sprinkling of garlic powder and some kosher salt.
The kids help me roll the dough and they always want to put the pepperoni on their half.
For me and mine, we are famous for our caramelized onions, kalamata olives and sometimes sauteed baby bella mushrooms. The combination is to die for!
The kids have grown to sprinkle a few olives on their side as well! I am constantly working on them getting exposed to more and more tastes for their palates – My goal is for them to love many things when it comes to food. We’re getting there slowly but surely.
We finish it off with fresh grated Parmesan cheese.
Oh yeah, and always layer it with the mozzarella cheese first and toppings on top of that!
Pizza night = Happy Kids!! 
Do you have a fun food tradition in your family that brings you all together? Do you make homemade pizza? I’d love to hear all about it!
And, if you’d like to start – here’s the dough recipe!
Whole Wheat Pizza Dough
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup all-purpose flour, or whole wheat pastry, or white whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon kosher salt
3/4 cup warm water (not hot, just like nice warm bath water)
1 pkg or 2 1/4 teaspoons dry active yeast
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1 tablespoon EVOO
Activate the yeast in the warm water with the sugar. You will know its active when its foamy and bubbly after sitting about 5 minutes. In the meantime, pulse the flour and salt together in a food processor. After yeast mixture is ready, add the EVOO to it.
Turn processor to on and slowly pour in the yeast mixture w/EVOO. Your dough should quickly start forming into a ball – process for 1 minute. (if your dough is not pulling together, add more warm water just a tablespoon at a time).
Pat dough into a nice ball and place on a lightly floured counter top and cover with a clean towel for at least 1/2 hour (if you use quick rise yeast it will be ready for sure in 1/2 hour – if you use regular it may take up to an hour – you want it to double in size)
Roll the dough onto a pizza stone or a pizza pan with holes in it.
After toppings are on, bake at 475 for 10-12 minutes.
Love this entry Tam! And can’t wait for the bravery to work with yeast for my own homemade pizza dough!
Even though we don’t do this on a weekly basis, we probably have a “make your own pizza” once a month. Everyone gets a glob of, yes homemade dough, we lay out all the toppints and we’re off and running. My favorite is dough spread with quality in-jar pesto, shrimp, feta cheese, carmelized onions and sun-dried tomatoes. YUM-O! My kids and husband add the meat-stuff and usually use traditional pizza sauce. It IS a fun way to get the family together. Loved the post– thanks for reminding me it’s time to do this again!
You can do it Mar!!!
Julie – that’s great and I LOVE the sound of your pizza combination! Yum!
PS LOVE LOVE the picture of your kids in this article– so cute!
As I think you know, we’ve been doing pizza movie nights on Fridays since I can remember, but I feel better about the pizza since you gave me your dough recipe a year ago – been experimenting with it since and am happy with where it’s at now! One of the things I do is use ground flax seed on the bottom of it.
The kids look SO forward to it each week – we take a hiatus during football season and they do miss it!
What is so funny though is that they often as when I will make “real” pizza instead of the homemade kind – ah yes, always a little mixed up over here!
Also, how do you get away with one pizza?! Dak and Tiga eat one all by themselves!!
Chris, I LOVE the idea of putting ground flax seeds in it – great! We will be moving to two pizzas very soon!