Comfort Pizza

Sometimes a pizza is nothing spectacular. It is just dinner. It is comfort food. Like the companionship of a close friend, you don't have to make a big deal out of it being there. Sometimes a pizza like this is so understated that you forget to write it down. But then weeks later you re-discover the photo on your cell phone and you say to yourself, yeah, I kinda remember that pizza. I can't remember what was on it, but I'm sure it was good.

Yeah, I'm sure it was good.

Opening Day at the Races

I knew it was going to be a busy day with work lasting long into the night. Pizza is good anytime but its the perfect solution for someone working all day with no time to worry about dinner.

I was thinking of an experimental pizza but decided to wait on that and go more traditional and fail safe. Ran home from work, got the dough to mixing and started on grilling the Italian sausage.

Sauce
Spices (including a secret ingredient - no, not that secret ingredient)
Onion
Stuffed peppers (mmmm...yummy sausage)
Pepperoni
Hot Italian sausage
Mozzarella cheese
A little Provolone and a little Parmesan

Golden brown out of the oven and a big hit with the weary workers.

Ahhh, my work here is done!

Deep in love with my honey pie.

There were a couple new things tried in the crust. One of them worked fabulously. The other not so much.



First I tried grating some onion into the flour. The idea sounded neat and it smelled really nice while working with it. But in the end it did not do much to the flavor.

The really good idea was to roll a line of honey into the edges of the crust. This was an impulse move. I realized that the crust was rising really well and I saw the little honey bear on the counter. I had to do it. The edge crust puffed into a hearty breadstick, and the honey inside gave it a dessert like quality. That was some good yummy right there.

The thick crust and plentiful toppings also gave the pizza a deep dish sort of quality. Not a true deep dish in my opinion, because it wasn't baked in a dish. But eating it was still a fork required experience. Almost casserole like in its heft.

And let me tell you about those toppings. Some fresh herbs from the little patio planter, a little more diced onion, pepperoni, mini sweet peppers, and that craving for black olives was a stroke of genius.



After feeding on wedges of this fine pie and stuffing ourselves completely full, we couldn’t resist a few more nibbles on bits of crust and toppings as we were putting away the leftovers. A honey pie to fall in love with.

Sweet Apple Pie

Onion
Sweet mini peppers
Pepperoni
1 fuji apple.
Fresh marjoram
Fresh oregano

Made with a flaky buttermilk crust, some fresh herbs from the porch, and a bunch of leftovers. Sweet onion mixes with sweet peppers and sweet apple for a flavor party.

Not quite right pizza

It had been a long, hot day but despite all that the pizza started out well. A good crust mixture, fresh herbs, the traditional toppings including pepperoni and some pepper and onion. It looked really good before we put it in the oven.

Twenty-minutes later the pizza was golden and melty and smelled so yummy. I was really looking forward to this pizza.

That is when disaster struck.

The pizza would not come off the pan for anything. We sliced it, got a spatula and it still wouldn't come off the pizza pan. I didn't know what happened. Was there something wrong with the crust? Did I press it down too much while shaping it?

Then it hit me. I had moved the racks in the oven the other day and forgot to put them back. We had baked the pizza on the lowest rack and completely shellacked the crust onto the pan. Damnit!!

It had been a long, hot day and I was really looking forward to this pizza.

Although, pizza toppings on pita crackers is pretty good too. ;)

Herbalicious

Her: Um. I accidentally made the pizza green.
He: You what? Oh, I see. That is green.
Her: I'm not sure how I did that.
He: I think I have an idea.
Her: I may have gotten carried away with sprinkling herbs on.
He: Sounds about right.
Her: It's so much fun.
He: I know.

Later…

He: What do you want to name this pizza?
Her: Herbalicious.
He: I was just thinking that.
Her: Herbtacular.
He: Herbgasmic.
Her: Oooh, that was a good bite.
He: Herbarific.

Jerry's Pizza

Before and after


Jerry sure is fun to hang out with. He makes a fine sailor and is a hero to pirates. But bring a buddy if you are cooking with him; Jerry sucks at math.

Jerry's pizza

The sweet smell of basil wafted through the spring air like the perfume of a young girl crushing on Christopher Atkins in the '80's.

Indiana Jones Pizza

The secret ingredient in the crust this time is fennel. It is important to have a secret ingredient. Taking the time to add the secret ingredient is a demonstration to the universe that you care about what you are doing, that you are being mindful. So always add a secret ingredient. It doesn't even have to be a closely guarded secret. You don't even have to be able to taste it. You just have to care. That is what makes pizza taste good.

Besides, fennel is a good compliment to spicy italian sausage; which we cut into discs and fried brown. And then there is the yellow pepper I wanted to use up. Same with that mushroom. A bit of onion was chopped fine, more a seasoning than a topping. Tomato slices too. Pizza is my favorite way to use up veggies out of the fridge before they go bad. We tossed a few pepperonis on there too for good measure.

I added some extra flour to the dough, because I am getting tired of fighting with a sticky dough when rolling it out. Turned out well. I practiced my hand tossing for a bit, I was even getting excited about the idea that I could get an entire crust without using the rolling pin. But the dough got stretched thin in the center and I broke a hole in it. All you can do is ball it back up and do it over again with the pin.

We enjoyed this pizza while playing Indiana Jones Life and watching the Last Crusade. Good times.

Leftovers Pizza

After kind of a bad day and a lot on my mind I really needed something to do, keep the brain busy and all that.

Ah ha! Pizza! (plus this gave me lunch leftovers for the week).

I made too much pizza dough (as usual) and had some serious overlap on the pizza tin so I tried the rolled up crust again, not bad. The pizza consisted of some fairly standard ingredients: pepperoni, sauce, black olives, garlic, bacon and onion.

After all the pizza's we've made we have this pretty much down to a science, 20 minutes at 400 degrees. Weeeeeeeel....

With about 2 minutes left to go I decided I had enough time to run across the street to the store and get something to drink, after the day I had I deserved a full-throttle Coke. I got back to discover that my pizza crust was a little overdone - not burnt but definitely a dark brown - so disappointing.

Word of advice: go with your gut and take the pizza out of the oven!

Happy pizza-ing!

A Moving Pizza

Yummmmmm! Tonight's pizza started with buttermilk added to the pizza dough which gave the crust a flakier texture. Next we added our standard tomato sauce complete with a myriad of spices including oregano, Italian seasoning, garlic etc. etc. The extra yummy included onion, black olives, green olives, yellow pepper, orange pepper, bacon, pepperoni, mozzarella cheese and a little bit of Parmesan cheese. The extra large crust was rolled up to make a "filled" crust of saucy, cheesy goodness.

After about 25 minutes we pulled from the oven a golden brown, steaming, dreamy concoction of red saucy, olivy, cheesy yumminess.

A very hot mixture that ended up as good as was expected with spicy bites here and garlicy bites there. The best part of homemade pizza, the unexpected combination of spices and toppings that create some of the best pizzas.

Happy pizza-ing!