A close call

I hate those times in the kitchen when it seems like nothing is working out quite right. I admittedly get pretty upset when my food just doesn't work. I love food and hate when it's a bad day in the kitchen.

So the picture below shows the pizza before it went in the oven to cook. It doesn't indicate a near disaster. In fact, it looks quite good.
Problem 1: So-so pizza dough. I made what seemed like a promising semolina pizza dough recipe. I thought it would have a better flavor with the semolina flour. It was thin and crisp but the flavor was just... eh. Problem 2: Lack of proper equipment. I didn't have a pizza paddle, so creating the pizza on a cookie sheet that was too small didn't really work. I have a pizza stone, but that was coming to temperature in the oven. And the pizza was not budging from the cookie sheet. At all. A few tears in the dough later, and after smooshing it back together to fill the gaps, and several attempts to transfer later, the pizza was on the pizza stone. Phew.
The actual toppings were good: pesto, cremini mushrooms, sliced tomato, yellow and green squash, havarti, jalapeno, grated pecorino, fresh basil. This was pizza attempt number 2; I think pizza attempt 1 turned out better. Better crust and texture, better flavor. Now that I have the pizza stone I'll keep trying for an even better crust. It's so much fun to create your own since it's so hard to get a decent pizza with good, natural ingredients.