Since the movers are coming in less than two weeks, I’m trying to minimize any grocery shopping and use up what I’ve got. Yesterday, I scavenged through the fridge and decided to make the best of what I had: a container of tomato sauce with meat in it, some portabella mushrooms, and scraps of mozzarella, parmesan and asiago cheese. Obviously, my pantry was telling me to make pizza.

This is not a great recipe for making a quick dinner, but on a day when I’m working at home, it’s pretty convenient to put the dough together in the early afternoon and go back to work while it rises. I’ve also made dough in advance and frozen portions. Then, I can put the frozen dough in the fridge to thaw the night before, and make the pizza the next night after work.

I use Bittman’s basic pizza dough recipe, and I do the kneading by hand. Not because I’m a purist, but because I don’t have any machinery that will do it for me.

Take 1 cup of flour, 1/2 cup of cornmeal, 1 tsp of instant yeast, 2 tsp of salt, 1 cup of water and 2 tbsp of olive oil, and use a wooden spoon to mix it together in a bowl. (You can use all flour if you don’t have cornmeal, but the cornmeal really does make a better tasting dough.)

Have another 1 1/2 cups of flour on the side, and add it a little at a time. Once it gets too tough to handle with the spoon, turn it out on a floured surface and continue to mix in the flour. Then knead it for about 10 minutes until it’s a smooth dough. Oil the inside of a bowl, put the dough ball inside.

Cover and place in a warm spot. After a couple of hours, the size of the dough will be doubled. Turn the dough out on a floured surface and gently knead into a ball. (At this point, you can divide the dough into smaller portions and wrap and freeze any that you want to save for another day. I use a quarter of the recipe for a one-serving pizza, or about half the recipe to make the pizza below.) Cover the ball of dough and let it sit for another 20 minutes; it will puff up a little.

While the dough is sitting, preheat the oven to 500, lightly oil a cookie sheet and get your toppings ready. I took out the sauce, grated cheeses, and sauteed the mushrooms with garlic in olive oil. Stretch or roll the dough out to the right size and move it to the cookie sheet. top with sauce, toppings and cheese. Bake for about 10 minutes until the crust is done and the cheese is bubbly.

This made a pretty good dinner last night with plenty left for lunch today. For a variation, I’m also a big fan of using this dough to make Bittman’s pan-fried pizza.