Homemade Pizza

As most of my readers know, I am the mom of seven amazing children.  I will admit that I haven't always been the naturally homemade mom you see today.   16 1/2 years ago I was a macaroni and cheese and chicken nugget kind of mom!  I'm not saying that's horrible,  I'm just saying deep down I always wanted to feed my kids healthy foods without being dependent on the box aisle or freezer section at the grocery store.  Add six more children and a decade (plus) of experience and I have slowly become the kind of 'from scratch mama' I hoped to become!  Tonight I was making homemade pizza with the kids and I overheard my five-year-old ask my seven-year-old why we couldn't just order pizza.  He told her that everything homemade is always better than anything store bought.  I did a little jig in my brain :). 

As soon as they noticed I was kneading dough, the twins came over to the kitchen island yelling "zi-za!!!!" After making two homemade pizzas I had the third lump of dough left, so I let the 2 year old twins make their own pizza.  They beat the heck out of that dough...it was as flat as it could get!  There was flour all over the kitchen, sauce all over the counter, and smiles everywhere I could see. 

" Yes," I thought, "this is the kind of mom I want to be."Enjoy!

Homemade pizza dough (makes 4 large so half it if you don't need to feed an army!) 

6 cups warm water

1 stick butter,melted

2 tbsp yeast

1/2 tsp salt

10-12 cups flour

2 tsp olive oil

Melt butter and add warm water into a bowl.  Sprinkle in yeast and stir.  Let sit until dissolved and bubbly, about 5 minutes.  Dump in the salt, add flour several cups at a time, stir well.  When the dough is starting to stick together dump a cup of the flour onto a clean counter or surface.  Knead the dough into a smooth ball adding flour a Tbsp at a time if too sticky.  Split into 4 equal sized lumps.  Let rest 10 minutes.  

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.  Put each lump of dough onto pizza pan and press flat with your hands (or let your kids go to town :)  Top with pizza sauce, your favorite toppings and cheese.  Bake for 15-20 minutes.  

Now, before you discount this blog as too much work and 'that family is so perfect'.....I'm adding this final picture of my son who got into the lipstick in my purse while I was blogging this post.  Yeah, I'm that kind of mom :)