Here is my recipe for an easy and affordable pizza printed in my hungry husky column in the Daily Campus today…

So today’s recipe is for pizza! And in honor of Valentine’s Day earlier this week, I thought I would attempt to make a heart shaped pizza. This pizza is super easy to make and extremely affordable, using ingredients you most likely already have in your kitchen, leaving you with just one ingredient you’ll probably have to buy… pizza dough.

So here’s what you will need to make one almost heart shaped pizza:

– mozzerella cheese

– tomato sauce

– fresh/dried sweet basil

– store bought wheat pizza dough

Here are a few alternatives for you all. I used mozzarella cheese but obviously you could use a variety of cheeses. I simply used marinara sauce meant for pasta so you could play with difference flavors on your pizza. Lastly, I wanted to point out that the grocery store (Stop N Shop) where I bought my dough had a whole variety of doughs you could pick from: garlic and herb, white, and wheat. The dough is extremely affordable and can be frozen as packaged so you can buy lots and freeze it for when you’re ready to make pizza again. Basically for this pizza, I kept it simple but you should feel free to be adventurous with playing with all these alternatives to find a pizza you love!

Preheat your oven to 500 degrees.

Take your pizza dough out of the fridge and let it sit for about an hour before cooking so that it is very soft and malleable, making it much easier to roll out. Dust a cutting board or a clean counter with flour. Then take a small piece of dough, about a quarter of the package, and roll it out to a thin crust. Take a little bit of olive oil and gently coat the crust of the pizza so that it browns nicely. Then add your tomato sauce. Finally add your cheese. Now you can have fun and place any spices or vegetables or any other toppings you’d like to try on your pizza. Then using a spatula, maneuver your pizza off the counter or cutting board and onto your cookie sheet or pizza stone. I use a pizza stone, but this is not necessary for making pizzas. If you have a cookie sheet, you will be good to go!

Then wait about five to seven minutes and your pizza crust will be brown and your cheese will be bubbling. Let the pizza cool, cut and enjoy!