Poor Girl's Pizza

Since I'd procrastinated my grocery shopping as usual, on Sunday afternoon I opened the fridge to find nothing but a lonely tomato and a chunk of old feta cheese. What's a girl to do? Make pizza! There's always flour in my cupboard, usually a packet of yeast too, and some olive oil, and that's all you really need to make a good crust. Top your pizza with any old thing you have in the fridge (well, maybe not anything) and you've got an easy, cheap meal. My pizza recipe:

Combine 2 teaspoons dry yeast, 1 teaspoon sugar, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1 tablespoon olive oil and 1/2 cup water in a bowl and set it aside for about ten minutes. Then, when it looks all bubbly, mix in 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, forming a ball of dough. Turn it onto a floured surface and knead it for about five minutes, until it is smooth and elastic. Coat it with a little oil or cooking spray and put it back in the bowl, covered, to rise until doubled in size (about a half hour).

When the dough has risen, stretch it out nice and round and flat onto a pizza pan coated with a small handful of cornmeal. Rub some olive oil all over it, then add your toppings. I used dried basil flakes (fresh basil would have been even better), tomato slices, and crumbled feta cheese. Salt and pepper it too, if desired. I like to salt the crust nice and good for sure.

Bake it for about 15 minutes in a 450 degree oven, or until the crust and the edges of the topping look toasty brown. Depends on how crunchy you like your pizza to be. Anyway, right when you take it out of the oven, rub butter onto the crust. Then slice it up and enjoy!