Lazy Person Pizza

So on Monday night I made pizza for my family from a recipe I found on dinnercakes.com (http://www.dinnercakes.com/2009/04/spinach-and-mushroom-pizza-with-moms.html). I was really craving pizza and I asked my dad to go to the grocery store and pick some up for dinner. He came back with raw pizza dough, some marinara sauce, and some mushrooms (because he knows I adore them immensely). So I suddenly became in charge of making pizza for everyone. This recipe was really easy and didn't have too much prep or take a long time to cook which was great because I was starving. I guess I took a few shortcuts as I used a canned sauce and the recipe has instructions for what sounds like a terrific homemade sauce. But I got to use a pizza stone which was really cool! So if you're lazy and you want pizza but you have to make it yourself, I'd say this is your go-to recipe. Spinach and mushrooms can be substituted with anything. Next time I'd probably try olives and sun dried tomato.

So this is my pizza stone. Pretty rad. I greased it so the pizza wouldn't stick.

This is the dough all stretched out and pressed to make a crust. My dad got some herb crust thing. It was really nice because with some pre-made dough the dough comes out a little bland and this one tasted like rosemary.

I put on some olive oil before I poured on the sauce and spread the sauce around with the back of a spoon. The green thing in the sauce is a basil leaf.

Really the only prep I had to do was chop up some spinach and some mushrooms. Like my grandma always says, "Don't make the pieces too big or somebody will choke!"

The spinach

The mushrooms

I used mozzarella cheese as that is what I like on my pizza. Feel free to use whatever cheese you prefer. I like a good sauce to cheese ratio on my pizza.

The finished result!

On the table

So the finished result was pretty good. I thought it could have cooked a little longer so the dough could have had time to rise more because I like a thicker crust and this made a very flat crust, but everyone in my family seemed to like it as the whole thing was gone in twenty minutes. Since this was my first time making pizza I think that I would like to do it again and maybe make something a little more exotic (those are my California roots talking. Hello thai and tostada pizza, Chicagoans and New Yorker's beware). But all in all I would say this was a success.

I'll post again tomorrow! But until then, please enjoy this inspiring photo that I took on the rooftop of the Chicago Children's Memorial Hospital parking lot.