National Pizza Month

Pizza is fun to make. My favorite pizza to buy is cheese pizza from Little Ceasars! They have yummy cheesy bread sticks too. Since we can’t always buy pizza, we sometimes make our own.

I will share a recipe later in this article, but first let me tell you about where pizza came from. Many people think Pizza came from Italy, but people have been eating something like pizza for much longer.

The Babylonians, Israelites, Egyptians and other ancient Middle Eastern countries were eating flat, un-leaven bread that was cooked in mud ovens. The bread was kind of like a pita bread, which is still common in Greece and the Middle East today. I don’t think they called it pizza, but it sounds just like pizza. Un-leavened bread is a flat bread with no yeast in it. The pizza we eat now does have yeast in the dough, but it wasn’t always made that way.

The Bible talks about the last supper and how Jesus broke the bread, prayed and gave it to the disciples. He did this as an example of his death on the cross. Jesus never sinned and the bread with no yeast in it is a symbol of that.

Mark 14:12, “¹²And the first day of unleavened bread, when they killed the passover, his disciples said unto him, Where wilt thou that we go and prepare that thou mayest eat the passover?

¹³And he sendeth forth two of his disciples, and saith unto them, Go ye into the city, and there shall meet you a man bearing a pitcher of water: follow him.

¹⁴And wheresoever he shall go in, say ye to the goodman of the house, The Master saith, Where is the guestchamber, where I shall eat the passover with my disciples?

¹⁵And he will shew you a large upper room furnished and prepared: there make ready for us.”

Yeast makes bread puff up. Maybe you heard of a person being described as being ‘puffed up’, which means full of pride. Jesus was humble, not puffed up.

1 Corinthians 13:4, “Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,”

Have you ever had flat bread before? We sometime sget Indian Flat Bread from Trader Joe’s. It’s very good.

Now people make pizza with a crust that does rise a little bit. We make a recipe that my mom learned when she was a little girl.

What you’ll need:

A baking sheet

Dough (We have used Pillsbury’s biscuits. Sometimes you can get the generic brand for four rolls for a dollar.) Preheat according to the package directions.

Tomato sauce

Italian Spices

Garlic (crushed)

Mozzarella cheese (grated)

Pepperoni

And any other toppings you like.

In a small bowl mix tomato sauce, crushed garlic, and Italian seasonsings. How much really depends on your family. Fresh garlic is strong so you may not want to use a lot of that. Mix well. Set aside.

Flatten out dough to make a flat circle on the baking sheet.

Using a spoon you can place some of the sauce mix on the dough then sprinkle wth grated cheese. Add some pepperoni and bake according to the dough directions.

Some other toppings you might want to use is:

-Fresh slices of tomato with fresh basil

-Sliced mushrooms and black olives

-Canadian bacon and pineapple

-Cooked chicken breast pieces that have been marinating in KC Masterpeice BBQ sauce and cooked bacon pieces.(Not the imitation bacon bits. those do not taste very good.)

What are your favorite toppings?