Fang Food: Pizza

As I sit down to write this, I find that it is rather difficult to write about this food we all know so well, and the vast majority of people enjoy. What do you say about something like that? Oh well, here goes. A pizza needs to be crispy, but soft on the inside, excessively cheesy, and enough sauce to taste, but not to make it too goopy (goopy is a technical term). This recipe, when done right, does all of that.

Pizza:

Makes one 15 inch pizza

Ingredients

• 1 package dry, active yeast
• 1 cup warm water, 110 degrees F.
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 2 tablespoons oil
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3+ cups flour
• 1 jar pizza sauce
• 2-3 cups Mozzarella cheese
• Additional toppings of your choice
• 4 tablespoons butter
• Oregano, thyme, garlic powder, basil to taste
• Cooking spray

Directions

1. Pre-heat oven to 425. Dissolve the yeast and sugar in the warm water. Once the yeast has gotten foamy, add in the salt, oil, and 2 1/2 cups of the flour. Mix together until it forms a soft dough, adding more flour if needed. Turn out of the bowl onto a floured surface. Kneed more flour into the dough until it is no longer sticky.

2. Using a rolling pin, roll the dough out until it is the proper size and shape for your pizza pan. Spray down the pan with the cooking spray. Carefully, transfer the dough to the pan.

3. First, spread several tablespoons of pizza sauce on the dough, leaving about 3/4 of an inch around the edge. Then, sprinkle a healthy amount of the cheese on top of the sauce. Once you have enough cheese, add any other toppings you would like. Really, it's all personal preference of how much of everything you want. If you add too much, though, you'll have to add a couple minutes to the cook time.
4. Melt the butter, and mix in the herbs to taste. Brush around the edge of the pizza that doesn't have toppings on it.
5. Once you are done topping the pizza, it's time to cook it. Put it in the pre-heated oven, and cook for 15 minutes. Remove from the oven, let sit for a couple minutes, then slice, and serve!

And there you have it! A recipe for the ultimate party food. One last thing, though. Thank you to my sister Lily for letting me choose what we were going to have for dinner on the day we were celebrating her birthday. Without her letting me do that, this article probably would not have happened. Happy 10th birthday, Lily!

Fang Food is a series of weekly baseball food and drink articles written by prwhitaker1 (Whit), imstillhungry95 (Blake) and Turambar (Patrick). Check out the archive of past articles! Questions, comments, suggestions, concerns? Email us at fangfood@gmail.com or contact us on Facebook..