I’ve been making pizza every Friday for well over ten years.  There isn’t much to it.  One of the nice things about pizza is you can get as complex or simple as you like.  You can buy special gear, make your own dough, sauce, even cheese.  Or you can pick up all the ingredients from your local supermarket.  All you really need to start is an oven and a cookie sheet.

Let’s start simple.  My local grocery store sells ready-to-roll dough.  A few aisles over you can find sauce, cheese (grated mozzarella to start), and whatever toppings you want (I like pepperoni).

Now to get cooking.  Crank the oven to 450F and give it about 30-45 minutes to heat up.  Later we’ll get a bit more complex by introducing a pizza stone.

Take the dough and roll it out on to the cookie sheet.  You’ll likely need to stretch it out a bit.  Start from the center and stretch gently outwards until you have a size that you want.  You may need to put a bit of flour on the dough to keep it from sticking to everything like your hands.  Once you have that set, the rest is pretty simple.

Put on about a spoonful of sauce on the dough and spread it around with the back of a spoon.  In my case it’s a large spoon.  Don’t go too heavy though.  Spread around the cheese on top of the sauce.  Now add your toppings.  If you’re working with something like onions or green peppers, you may want to sauté it in some oil for a few minutes beforehand (if sautéing is scary, don’t worry and just toss ’em on).

Stuff the cookie sheet into the oven.  Set your timer for 10 minutes.  When the timer goes off, crack open the oven and take a look.  If the crust is looking light brown and the cheese is looking bubbly, you’re good to go.  Take it out of the oven and the pizza should just slide off.  Cut and eat.  Just remember it’s been in a 450F oven.