Friday Night Pizza is a tradition at my house, on the Friday’s I spend at home, which is most of them! It’s easy, cheap, doesn’t require too much thought and is delicious. Generally, I use whatever vegetables are left in the fridge and cook them a bit and sun dried tomato paste as the sauce and whatever cheese is on hand. The major effort is making the dough but to be honest, that’s not that hard and you can make it in the morning before you go to work, leaving it on the side to rise during the day or if you find that too much work, you can make the dough at the weekend and freeze it, just make sure that you take it out to defrost before you go to work, I do both depending on how much energy and how busy a week it’s been!

Friday Night Pizza has become such a tradition that we took dough up to Northumberland with us for it and we’ve made it a couple of time with Oli, although he’s mostly interested in the cheese.

I’ve even convinced Ryan that it’s better than buying Domino’s and it’s great to eat cold as leftovers.

I’ve used lots of different versions of pizza dough and the latest and so far the best has been the one I found in Dinner, A Love Story. It’s actually Jim Lahey’s Pizza Crust with more yeast and less rise time, the original is all over the internet, but you should check out the DALS blog or cookbook both are excellent and full of good ideas, even if you don’t have kids!

It’s really easy to make and use, which is essential to Friday Night Pizza joy. I use 2 cups of bread flour and 1 and 3/4  plain flour although it’s good using just one type.

I really don’t like soggy pizza and I really don’t have the energy or the money to play about with pizza stones and peels especially on a Friday night. So I cook the pizza dough by itself for about 10 minutes and then flip it over, add the toppings and put it back in the oven for another 10 minutes, when the cheese is nice and melty it’s done.