Pizza Making

I decided a few weeks ago to do some research about Pizza Crust. I wanted to make pizza crust and I wanted it to be GOOD. And I didn’t want pizza crust that was like American “Pizza Hut” pizza crust. I wanted something Italian. Something authentic…

Best Pizza Dough Ever Recipe – I changed nothing about this recipe. I know a nicely done recipe when I see one! I’m not crazy. (Well okay. That might be overstating things… but alas. I changed nothing about the beautiful recipe in that link). In telling her story on that post she says – “For a long time I didn't really know where to look for guidance - I just knew I wanted pizza the way I'd enjoyed it in Rome and Naples.”

That caught my attention. AUTHENTIC. That’s what I wanted!

And it’s good. It’s an involved recipe. And you don’t get to make it and eat pizza the day you  make the dough – so no instant gratification going there but this is GOOD. So very very good. Perfect texture. Hmmmmmmmm… (I’m so glad while I write this I made dough today and I get to eat more tomorrow!)

Once you have this beautiful crust there are topping decision to be made. I really don’t think you could totally screw this up – unless you just put way too much stuff on the pizza. She recommends four things or less – and that includes your sauce and cheese. She called what we often get as pizza the “kitchen sink” approach. I thought that was funny.

So here’s the choices I made -

Cheese – Olive oil with garlic crushed and heated in it to intensify the flavor – brushed it on the crust then mozzarella and parmesan. It was like this delicious melt in your mouth giant breadstick. This was Leah’s favorite. “MOM! This is GOOD!” in some kind of shock at what had just happened in her mouth. It was very funny.

Basil Pesto, herb seasoned chicken, a little mozzarella, a lot of parmesan:

a small batch of Alfredo, brushed it on the crust, sprinkle with nutmeg, fresh spinach that I blanched and squeezed all the water out of obsessively (heaven forbid I risk my crust with soggy spinach!!), and then a lot of mozzarella, a little parmesan…

Drew requested that one of the pizza’s be “Hamburger Pizza”. I swear I didn’t think I could bear to just sprinkle hamburger on the pizza. Seriously. It seemed wrong to put that on this crust. Like it wasn’t worthy or something (I’m so MENTAL!!!). But I love the man so…

tomato sauce that I’d made the day before (fresh basil, some dried Italian herbs, garlic – very fresh tasting), the hamburger (which I browned but added to it: cumin, garlic powder, onion salt, pepper, white pepper, red pepper, Italian herb mix –), then as the hamburger was almost browned I added about half a diced onion and then cooked until totally soft onions, covered in a lot of  mozzarella. This all satisfied my mentalness about jut putting hamburger on a pizza but this was AWESOME. lol

This is the only one I remembered to take a “before” picture of – the hamburger pizza.

And that’s it. Pizza.

*happy sigh*