Once upon a time I was hungry. So I made pan pizza in a cast iron skillet

Day 1

Pizza Dough Ingredients – enough for two 10 inch skillets, or one 14 inch skillet:

• 2.5 cups flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp yeast
• 1 cup warm milk (about 100°f or 38°c)
• olive oil

Mix the flour, salt and yeast. Add Milk. Lightly mix, should be a little sticky. Split in half if making 2 pizzas, flatten, and move to lightly oiled pie dish(es). Cover and refrigerate for 12 to 24 hours.

Pizza Sauce Ingredients – I never use exact measurements :

• 1 Tbsp diced onion (I use sweet onion)
• 1/2 Tbsp diced garlic
• 1 Tbsp Italian seasoning
• 1 Tbsp olive oil
• 1 can (6 oz/170 g) Tomato paste
• 1 can (15 oz/425 g) Crushed tomatoes in puree, or tomato sauce
• 1 tsp sugar

Mix onion, garlic, Italian seasoning, and olive oil in a sauce pan. Cook over medium heat until onions are translucent. Add tomato paste, crushed tomatoes or tomato sauce, and sugar. Bring to a simmer. Then let cool. Place in refrigerator for tomorrow. Makes enough for several pizzas.

Day 2

Putting It All Together Ingredients:

• Pizza dough
• Pizza sauce
• Cheese
• Toppings

Pull the dough out of the refrigerator. Lightly grease a cast iron pan with olive oil. Put the dough in the pan. Gently stretch the dough toward the edges of the pan, leaving 1/8 of an inch around the outside. Let it rise for about 1 1/2 hours.

After the rising has finished, it’s time for assembly. Sauce, it doesn’t take much. Cheese – I happened to have shredded Parmesan, Mozzarella, and Cheddar. I hear Monterey, and Munster are good choices. There are probably others. Other toppings: Pepperoni. You may pick and choose as you wish. Add your own too.

Bake at 400°f/205°c for about 25 minutes. Pull out of oven and let sit until it stops sizzling. Unstick any pizza cheese from the pan using something like a knife, and lift to see the bottom of the pizza. If it’s not browned, you may use the stove to finish it off using medium heat, for about 5 minutes. If the bottom is browned, then you may slide the pizza from the pan to a cooling rack. If you want to cook a second pizza in the preheated pan, you may need to add a little bit of oil, and reduce the cook time to 20 minutes.