Pizza was always the easy meal. It just entailed picking up the phone, calling Lily's, the neighborhood shop, and waiting for it to be delivered.

Then Trader Joe's came along with its fresh dough and changed all that. It was still easy. The dough was made. But it required a little bit more work (like making sure I had cheese in the house).

Then a few weeks ago, I took it a step further. We had cheese and pizza sauce and "macaroni" (as my daughter calls pepperoni). We just didn't have the dough.

So I opened up the optimistically titled "How to Cook Everything," cookbook by New York Times author and blogger Mark Bittman and tried his recipe for pizza dough.

My husband got the book last year for Christmas just because I knew he was a fan of Bittman and it promised a lot ... how to cook everything. It's actually been a go-to book ever since because the recipes, for the most part, are pretty simple.

And that's what I found with his pizza dough recipe. It was really simple. Fun to make. And my daughter loved to watch it "get big" as it rose.

Mark Bittman's Pizza Dough (here's one of his recipes for sausage-zucchini pizza)

3 cups all-purpose or bread flour, plus more as needed
2 teaspoons instant yeast (I only had active yeast, which you'll need to mix with some warm water. Click here for a breakdown on the two yeasts).
2 teaspoons coarse sea or kosher salt
1 to 1 1/4 cups water
2 tablespoons olive oil

If using a food processor, combine flour, yeast and salt in the bowl, turn the machine on and add 1 cup of water and the oil through the tube. Process for 30 seconds adding up to 1/4 cup more water until the mixture forms a ball and is a little sticky.

I hate using a food processor just because I don't like cleaning all those parts. If you're doing it by hand, combine half the flour with the yeast and salt in a bowl and stir to blend. Add 1 cup water and the olive oil, stir with a wooden spoon until smooth. Add the rest of the flour until the mixture becomes too stiff to stir. I kneaded it for about five minutes.

Form the dough into a round ball, put in a bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Let it double in size ... about 1 to 2 hours,  but you can leave it longer. I made it in the morning and let it rise all day in the refrigerator.

Let the dough rest on a floured surface for about 20 minutes. Oil your baking sheet, press the dough ball into a flat round on the sheet and put your toppings on it.

Bake at 500 degrees for about 15 minutes. 

Looking for more recipes? Go to www.trianglemom2mom.com/eat and check back here every Wednesday.