Friends BYOI (Bring Your Own Ingredients - crust, sauce, cheese, toppings...and drinks) and take individual turns making their "prize winning" pizza for sharing. Everyone helps out on clean-up. It's a gathering of friends for fun, laughs and pizza.

Pizza Dough

Three ways to bring your pizza dough to Pizza Nite:

1. buy uncooked pizza dough from a pizza joint (easy and fun)
2. buy a ready-made cooked pizza crust from the grocery (easy but not fun)
3. make your own pizza dough from scratch, as follows: (challenging and most fun)
   

   Ingredients:

   • 3 1/2 cups flour
   • 1 cup warm water (between 85° and 115° F)
   • 2 tbsp yeast (I like my dough a little yeasty. You can use less)
   • 2 tbsp sugar or honey (I use Muscovado sugar)
   • 1/4 cup olive oil
   • 1/2 tsp salt

   Preparation:

   1. Making the sponge/poolish
      Mix water, sugar, yeast and 1 cup regular flour in a bowl. Cover until it starts to bubble (first rising, around 45 mins). This can now be used. However, if you want a more flavorful pizza dough, keep this covered in the fridge overnight or a full 24 hours.
   2. Kneading
      Mix the rest of the ingredients (flour, salt and oil) and start kneading (tip: press on with your body weight, not just your arm power). The dough should be soft without being sticky. Too sticky, add flour. Too hard, add water. You're done when the dough bounces back when you poke your finger onto it. Cover until double in size (2nd rising, around 45 mins).
   3. Scaling and shaping
      Punch the dough to take the air out. You can cut it up and use only what you need. You can cut it up into 3 and shape them into balls - one of those balls should be good to make one 13" regular pizza. You can freeze the 2. Flatten one ball into a circular shape. I usually flatten it on the same tray I will bake on so I don't have to make a transfer - I just apply a little oil on the tray before flattening. Using both hands, one on top of the other, press from the center outwards to stretch it in all directions. You can flatten it more by using a rolling pin (or wine bottle). Take a fork and put puncture holes all over the dough to keep it from bubbling up while cooking (which also holds the sauce in place). Wait until double in size (3rd and last rising).
   4. the dough is now ready for baking

For a more complicated pizza dough but much better, here's a video by Vito Iacopelli

Pizza Sauce

Two ways to bring your pizza sauce to Pizza Nite:

1. buy a ready-made pizza sauce from a pizza resto or from the grocery
2. make your own pizza sauce from scratch, as follows: (challenging and most fun)
   

   Basic Pizza Sauce

   Ingredients:

   1. ripe fresh tomatoes (use just enough for sauce consistency)
   2. fresh peeled crushed garlic (according to taste)
   3. bunch of fresh basil (in Thailand, there are 3 types...use the sweet basil with green stem, not purple) or oregano
   4. 1 small can, tomato paste (great thickener and holds the sauce together)
   5. teaspoon of sugar (not to sweeten, but to reduce acidity)
   6. pinch of salt
   7. fresh ground pepper
   8. generous amount of olive oil (quarter cup? really, up to you for consistency)

   Preparation:

   1. puree the fresh tomatoes in a blender and strain on a sieve. Keep the liquid and the pulp.
   2. combine basil leaves, garlic and the tomato liquid in a blender and liquify. Transfer all to a pot and heat up. Remove immediately the moment it boils. Strain the liquid and discard the pulp
   3. add the liquid, sugar, the tomato pulp, salt, pepper and tomato paste in a blender and puree again
   4. on slowest blender setting, start pouring small amount of olive oil into the sauce until well blended. Adding oil last prevents the oil from separating
   5. sauce is ready. Pack in serving size containers and freeze