Pizza is the fallback. When there's nothing to eat, we order it.
It's a good solution, but it's not the only one. For way less money, you can make your own. It might even be just as quick as waiting for a delivery from a popular parlor that's backed up 45 minutes or an hour.
Pizza is not intimidating. As yeast doughs go, pizza crust is the simplest one you could make, no need to knead. It's a bonus to have a pizza stone for the oven, but mine broke long ago, and I get along fine without it. (King Arthur, the flour folks, advertise their model as a baking stone, not a "breaking stone.") If you don't have a round pizza pan (I don't, either), just call your pie a "Grandma pie," which is always made in a rectangular shape.
Strictly speaking, you don't really need tomato sauce, though it's a good thing. In season, just top the pie with mozzarella, fresh tomatoes and olive oil, and strew it with fragrant sprigs of basil as it comes from the oven for the classic pizza Margherita.
You can make creative toppings to your heart's content. Fresh mozzarella is now readily available, but if you don't have it, you can make a non-Italian but kid-friendly pie with Cheddar cheese and a green vegetable such as broccoli. My current favorite toppings involve homemade mozzarella I buy at Windy Acres - a farm stand just west of Edwards Avenue on Route 25 in Calverton - combined with onions sauteed in olive oil or drained, sliced artichoke hearts (keep a 14-ounce can on hand), a good drizzle of olive oil and a generous sprinkle of sea salt.
Or just make pizza bianca with no cheese, the simplest of all: Dimple the dough by pushing your fingertips into it all over the surface, slosh good olive oil generously over the crust, and sprinkle with coarse sea salt. A modest scattering of rosemary is optional.
The best part: You can make pizza for breakfast, before the local pizza place is open, or late at night, when it's closed.
Pizza dough
This simple recipe is adapted from one on the back of a Fleischmann's yeast packet. I make the dough more "slack," increasing the ratio of water to flour. I also use more oil, and I set the oven temperature higher. If your supermarket carries King Arthur's organic all-purpose flour, I find it makes an exceptionally light, tender crust, even better than plain all-purpose. Try it both ways.
Ingredients
1 envelope active dry yeast
1 cup water, warm, not hot, to the touch
1/2 tsp. sugar
3/4 tsp. salt or 1 tsp. sea salt
21/2 cups (or a little more) all-purpose flour
1/4 cup olive oil, plus some for greasing the bowl and topping the pizza
1. Soften yeast in warm water, with sugar, in a mixing bowl. Add salt, 2 cups flour and the oil. Stir in just enough remaining flour to form a soft dough, and give it a few more vigorous stirs. Place in a clean, oiled bowl, turning to coat the top side of the dough. Cover with a clean dish towel.
2. Let rise about 45 minutes, or until doubled, in a warm place. About 15 minutes before dough is ready, set a shelf on the lowest rung of the oven, and heat oven to 500 degrees.
3. Punch dough down. Pat out thin into an oiled 13-by-18-inch half-sheet pan or round 18-inch pizza pan. (If dough doesn't go clear to the end of sheet pan, don't worry about it.) Top with desired toppings. Bake 12 minutes, or until the underside of the crust is crisp, with browned splotches. Check after 10 minutes. (Lift with spatula to see how it's doing.) Makes about 4 servings.