Thin Crust Pizza

Pizza is a staple in our home. The whole family looks forward to the Pizza night on Fridays, everyone for different reasons though. My 4 and 8 year olds love to create their own pizzas and I am highly impressed to see the toppings on the pizza for my elder son are adding up (last night he added mushrooms, capsicums and tomatoes). The younger one follows though he still craves a margarita so he has compromised on eating half healthy pizza and half plain cheese pizza. The husband just loves garlic, jalapenos, sun dried tomatoes and roasted vegetables (the possibilities are endless). And me, well, I am always on the lookout to make the pizza more healthy. Not only do I try to get healthy toppings I also like to play around with the sauce and the Pizza dough.

Have fun creating your own pizzas but remember not to get carried away..too many toppings weigh the pizza down and make it soggy from the center.

1 recipe Pizza Dough

1 recipe Tomato Sauce

200gms japanese mushrooms

1/2 green, red and yellow capsicums each

1/2 Onion

1 tomato

250 gms fresh mozarella (fresh mozarella has no salt)

salt (Do not use salt if you are using a salty cheese)

fresh basil

oregano

grated garlic

red chilli flakes

Preheat oven to 250°C. Place the Pizza stone in the middle rack if you are using it.

1) Wash all the vegetables.

2) Slice the Capsicums, onion, tomato and basil

3) Grate the Mozarella.

4) Divide the dough into 4 pieces and roll out thinly using flour sparingly.

5) Place the rolled out dough on a peel if your are baking the pizza on a stone or on a pizza tray that you will be baking the pizza on.

6) Build the pizza starting with the sauce, cheese, garlic, mushrooms, capsicum, onion, tomato.

7) Sprinkle salt, basil or oregano or both and chilli flakes if you are using them.

8) Slide the pizza on the pizza stone or the pizza tray in the center of the oven for about 8-10 minutes. This will depend on the oven.

9) Once bubbly and golden from top, remove from oven and let the pizza rest for a minute or two before the slicing the pizza.

The following Pizza is one of the favorites with my family, topped with fresh chopped spinach and sun dried tomatoes.