National Pizza Day - February 9th

Today is National Pizza Day! After making pizzas every Sunday for the last 8 months, even though we just had pizza, we're having it again! You can't just let a day like this pass unobserved!

And I know what most everyone in this house's favorite pizza style is. Even though I'm partial to my yeast crust, the kids and Theresa like Thin Crust pizza a lot better. I'm still a big fan of the tworedbowls.com recipe for Cracker-style Thin Crust Pizza. 

I made the dough ahead of time and gave it an hour to rest. This recipe doesn't use yeast, just baking powder, so it's not going to puff up. 

After a rest, I sandwiched each piece between two sheets of parchment paper. 

Using my rolling pin, I was able to roll it pretty thin indeed. 

Everyone is getting their own pizzas tonight, so I get to choose all my own toppings! For me, I'm choosing sausage, bacon, goat cheese, pineapple, and a good sprinkling of red pepper flakes. Yum!

Hey Alli, what do you want on your pizza? 

Alli - Just sauce!

Really? No cheese, toppings, or anything? 

Alli - No, just sauce. 

I had her come taste the sauce to be sure. Yep! She loves sauce. 

I don't have a particular homemade sauce recipe that I love. For this one, I mixed Italian seasoning, garlic, onion, and sugar with a can of tomato sauce and tomato paste. 

That's it! Just the crust and sauce. 

Compare that to Theresa's pizza. I asked what she wanted on it and she said the barest amount of tomato. 

This looks like a tomato was walking by and barely brushed up against the crust. Ian gets more ketchup on his face when he eats hamburgers than is on this pizza, but, that's how Theresa wants it. 

Along with the lightest sprinkling of mozzarella, there's also mushrooms, olives, and ham. 

Ian wanted to help make his pizza. He wanted to make sure he's getting exactly what he wants tonight. 

That's it. That's all the cheese he wants tonight. 

Just a quick aside, but something I want to remember. Ian's face is all red in the photos above because he just finished a big accomplishment. Today is the 100th day of school and the students were tasked to find 100 things they could share with the class. Ian is choosing 100 Minecraft tokens. While Ian was jumping on the trampoline for PE at home, I made a random comment he could do 100 backflips today. 

He took that challenge and then completely blew it out of the water! He decided to go bigger. A lot bigger. Throughout the afternoon he was coming to give me his latest count, and right before dinner, he was almost finished.

Here's the recording I took.

Amazing. 

Back in the kitchen, he wanted to make sure he got enough pepperoni. I invited him to do the toppings himself. He completely covered the crust 100% with pepperoni!

Then helped trim the edges of the parchment before it goes into the oven. 

Everyone was looking forward to pizza night tonight. 

From the top to the bottom, Theresa's looks good, or at least good to her. 

Ian was happy with his pepperoni creation. 

Alli loved how hers came out. 

And mine looks fantastic!

Time to slice and serve. 

Perfectly thin. I remembered to dock the crust this time, so it didn't get a crazy air bubble and puff up. 

The bottom was a perfect cracker crust. 

Thin crust pizza is Ian's second favorite meal we make at home, just after cheese fondue. Alli is a big fan too. 

And a quick look at the leftovers proves how much everyone loves it. Theresa left just one slice of hers that should couldn't quite finish. She said she was so full and should have stopped way before that. She likened to it to chips, where it was light and crunchy and so easy to eat a little more. 

Happy National Pizza Day!