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.

Pizza Expedition

This weekend my boyfriend and I decided to finally have our pizza-making night in-- a much-anticipated event. What a night it was! I made a thinner crust dough that turned out well. The best part is that no rise is required. I didn't push it out in the pan due to lack of space so it still had a slightly chewy texture. If you want the crispy crunch of a typical thin crust pizza I'd form it into a bigger pizza. I don't have a big cookie tray so I used two pie pans to make two pizzas about 8 inches in diameter-- around the size of an individual pizza from California Pizza Kitchen.

After an expedition together to Whole Foods to assemble the necessary ingredients, we put together a tasty array of toppings: fontina, andouille sausage, button mushrooms, and roma tomatoes. He made a fantastic sous-chef by preparing all of the mise en place while I kneeded the dough. I spiced up Whole Foods pizza sauce (Hey, I made the dough. What more do you want?!) with garlic, italian herbs, and red pepper flakes. The fontina cheese is still a great melting cheese with a slightly sharper flavor than mozzarella. For an even sharper flavor I grated pecorino romano on top of the fontina. A chiffonade of basil on both pizzas and diced fresh jalapeno on his pie completed the dish.

The mise en place and actual cooking took around 40 minutes start to finish-- proof that you can make a home-cooked pizza in about the same amount of time it takes to sign onto Papa Johns, select and order a pizza, and await it's arrival. You're in charge of the ingredients so you can be sure there are no surprises.