Homemade Pizza

I'm going to share with you two of our all-time favorite pizzas. We make pizza every Friday night for our family and for some cute neighbor kids that have caught on and just happen to show up our house around dinner time every Friday :) . We always have at least four different varieties of toppings but the two we always come back to and have every week are chicken and spinach with alfredo sauce and bacon, rosemary and potato. Yes, potato. I was skeptical at first but it is so amazingly delicious.  My kids can't get enough of it.
Lets begin.
First, if you have a baking stone, place it on the lowest rack in your oven and preheat to 500 degrees. If you don't have a stone you can turn a baking sheet upside down and use that.

My very well loved stone. I prefer this rectangle one over the circles that I have had in the past.  I love that I can make french bread on it and usually fit two or three personal pizzas that my kids make.

Now you will need to make some dough. The recipe we use most is from here at Mels Kitchen Cafe.
A little side note from me, when she says to add flour until the dough clears the sides of the bowl, if you are using a Bosch mixer I've noticed that you have to make sure it clears the inside part of the bowl also. Not just the outer part.

After it clears the inside and outside part of the bowl it should still be slightly sticky

Because I only have one pizza peel and I make at least 5 pizzas I like to roll the dough out on my counter and then transfer the dough to a piece of parchment paper.  That way I can put a pizza in the oven and while its baking prepare another one and then immediately after taking one out, I can throw another in the oven.  Also, my husband is not a huge fan of cornmeal on the bottom of his pizza so this way you don't have to use it. When you pull it out of the oven the paper will be dark and crispy. Don't let this scare you. I've done this hundreds of times and it has never caught on fire. The pizza also slides easily off of the parchment after baking. It doesn't stick at all.

For the chicken and spinach pizza:
 either make your own alfredo sauce (our favorite here) or you can use a jar of sauce.
Grilled chicken or you can use a rotisserie chicken-my personal fav. and chop or shred into bite sized pieces.
Spinach

Spread a good amount of sauce on to your prepared dough.

Now, heat up a tsp. or so of olive oil in a sauté pan and throw a handful of spinach in there and season with a little salt and pepper.  Let it wilt just a little and flip over. This whole process should only take a minute or two.

Arrange the chicken and spinach over the sauce and then cover with freshly shredded mozzarella.

See how brown the parchment gets? I promise my house didn't burn down

Bake for 9 minutes and then place on a cutting board and let sit for a few minutes before slicing to give the cheese a chance to settle.

What you will need for the potato pizza:
2-3 medium Yukon Gold potatoes
1/2 lb. bacon, cut into small pieces and cooked until no longer pink but not crisp
pinch of dried Rosemary crushed

-For the potato pizza, boil the potatoes until they are almost cooked through. Once cooked, slice the potatoes thinly and set aside. Roll out your dough and drizzle with a little olive oil and sprinkle with a little bit of pepper. Evenly cover the dough with mozzarella and then arrange the potatoes in a single layer and add bacon and lightly cover with rosemary.

Bake for 9 minutes. Again, let sit for a few minutes to let the cheese settle.
Enjoy!