Pizza

Mom often made pizza from scratch. Homemade pizza is not too difficult. But most importantly, homemade pizza is easy to customize. Mom always made this pizza as thin-crust pizza, but you could use the pizza to make a stuffed pizza if you wanted.

I remember helping Mom make pizza. She always used rectangular cookie sheets and cut the pizza into squares. Cutting pizza into squares is common in Chicago, even for round pizzas, and is known as "party cut" or "tavern cut." Also, Mom had a few mini-pans, that were about 4 inches by 2 inches, and Mom always let me have one of the mini-pizzas that I could top however I wanted.

For the cheese, Mom used to get a block of mozzarella and cut it into slices. Using this type of cheese can create a nice thick layer of cheese on the pizza. For this batch, I made one pizza with sliced cheese and one pizza with shredded cheese.

I suspect that the most popular pizza topping in Chicago is Italian sausage. Mom's standard topping was usually ground beef. For this pizza, I used Italian sausage, but any toppings will work. Sometimes, Mom would use vegetable toppings, but I am not sure my siblings like anything but Mom's standard pizza. The great thing about homemade pizza is that you can use any toppings, any sauce, any cheese that you want.

Pizza 
(yields 2 pizzas)

• 1 package active dry yeast
• 1 cup warm water (110 degrees)
• 2-3 cups flour
• 2 tbsp. olive oil
• 1 tsp. salt
• 2 tsp. sugar
• Sauce (16 ounces of tomato sauce seasoned with garlic and oregano)
• 2-3 cups mozzarella cheese
• toppings such as cooked sausage (about one pound), veggies, etc.
• grated parmesan cheese

Dissolve yeast in the warm water and let stand for about 10 minutes until foamy. Combine flour, olive oil, salt, sugar, and yeast mixture in a large bowl. Stir well until the dough comes together and is stiff. Add additional flour, if needed. Cover dough and allow to rise until dough has doubled, about 1 to 2 hours. When the dough is almost done rising, cook any of the toppings (such as sausage) that need to be cooked. Turn out dough on floured surface and form into pizza crusts. Grease the pans and sprinkle with semolina flour. Place dough into pans and create a slight edge with the dough. 

Cover the dough with sauce, toppings and mozzarella cheese. Sprinkle pizza with grated parmesan cheese. Bake at 375 for 20 to 25 minutes, or until pizza is golden. Enjoy!