Pizza à la Gibbs

I've been on a constant quest to find the best pizza recipe that is easy to make at home. So far our favorite combo is the crust recipe from the Make-A-Mix cookbook with the tomato sauce recipe from The America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook and then normal toppings.

I cook our pizza on parchment paper on a pizza stone in our oven and that seems to help with making a nice crisp outer crust with a soft and chewy inner crust. Yummy! So I'm not saying that this is the best, but it's the best we've found so far. I do make pizza quite often too, since Jackson loves it more than anything and will eat an adult sized pizza portion on pizza nights. Poor Autumn wants it too and we let her eat our crusts sometimes along with her other meal. She really likes the crusts, but it always feels to me like we're throwing leftovers to the dog or something--I feel bad she can't have her own piece!

Anyway, so here is the crust recipe (please note that I'm not posting the recipe for the mix in the Make-A-Mix book, but if you want to know the Hot Roll Mix recipe, I'll give it to you):

PIZZA CRUST
(adapted from Make-A-Mix)

1 cup warm water
1 T. instant yeast (I have instant yeast from Sam's Club, if you're using active dry then just dissolve it in the water for 5 minutes or so before adding the rest of the ingredients)
2 T. vegetable oil
3 to 3-1/4 cups Hot Roll Mix

Mix together yeast and 3 cups Hot Roll Mix. Mix in water and oil. Sprinkle additional 1/4 cup Hot Roll Mix on board. Turn out dough and knead 15 times or so, adding more Hot Roll Mix if needed. Clean and grease bowl. Place dough in bowl and turn to grease top. Cover and let rise in warm place about 20 to 30 minutes or until doubled in size.

Preheat oven to 425 degrees (with pizza stone inside on lowest rack). Punch dough down. Shape dough on a piece of parchment paper on a pizza peel and put all toppings on. Slide off peel onto stone and bake 10-15 minutes until cheese is melted and sauce is hot. Makes one big (12 to 14 inch) thick crust pizza.


QUICK TOMATO SAUCE
(from America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook)
This is meant to go on pasta, but we like it as our pizza sauce.

Makes: 4 cups

3 T. exta-virgin olive oil
3 garlic cloves, minced (I usually use the pre-minced bottled kind)
1 (28-oz) can crushed tomatoes
1 (14.5-oz) can diced tomatoes
3 T. minced fresh basil (or if Wal-mart's basil is gross, like it usually is, 3 t. dried basil)
1/4 t. sugar
Salt

1. Cook the oil and garlic in a medium saucepan over medium heat, stirring often, until fragrant but not browned, about 2 minutes. Stir in the crushed and diced tomatoes with their juice. Bring to a simmer and cook until slightly thickened, 15 to 20 minutes.

2. Stir in the basil and sugar. Season with salt to taste.

This makes more than what's needed for one pizza and so we usually make a batch and keep it in our fridge to add to other dishes or more pizzas, whichever comes first.