Monday, August 16, 2010

pizza pizza

remember Little Caesar's Pizza? John often reminds me of how much he loved it when he was in high school. the more pizza for John, the better (many of his friends know that you can't really trust John's opinion of how good particular pizzas are because he will factor price into the equation).

this weekend was a good weekend for John because we had homemade pizza two evenings in a row. I made the aforementioned dough on Friday the 13th, and of course, it was a near-disaster. there is something major about this dough that I don't understand! it was SO soft that it was very difficult to work with, and extremely hard to get off the pizza peel onto the stone. as you know, the pizza stone should be piping hot before you place a pizza onto it, so having a disaster with the transfer does not make for a pleasant experience. first of all, there is the panic, as the dough seems to resist the slide-off; secondly, it's terrifying to try to get your hands/tools into the oven to mediate because burnage is so possible; thirdly everything that has slid off the pizza onto the stone is BURNING...I managed to cook 5 of 6 fairly small pies decently, but there was a lot of smoke in our kitchen, and it was anything but a smooth hosting experience.

working with that pizza dough was so aggravating (it tasted fine, but not so dramatically better, or even better at all than the standard, that it justified all the trouble it took to use it), that I couldn't resist the urge to make a second batch of dough on Saturday. this time, I used a recipe from Baking With Julia and it worked like a charm, and tasted delicious. maybe I'm just a fan of NYC-style over Napoletana-style. whatever, I'm not afraid of that. the dough was easily prepared, didn't need to rest overnight, and best of all, it slid right off the peel and onto the pizza stone - PRESTO! NO trouble at all.

since our dear friend, Jack, passed, we haven't had homemade pizza. I've made it before, and obviously, own a pizza stone and peel, but since Jack was such a master, I just let him fill the pizza part of my life. now that I've started, however, I think I'm going to keep going. pizza dough comes together so easily with the help of a stand mixer that there's no reason to NOT have homemade pizza. there's less of a reason to not have homemade pizza when there's basil in the backyard and delicious tomatoes all around us. this summer has been so hot and nasty that the only redeeming parts have been the fruits and veggies.

so I know I'll never win any photography awards, but here are a couple of pics from this weekend's pizza-fest.

sausage pizza from Friday night

pesto slice (left) & margherita slice (right) from Saturday night

the Saturday pizza was taken on Sunday morning, so those slices are definitely a little worse for the wear, in terms of presentation, but they still tasted delicious!

one more photo...yummy breakfast toast topped with anchovy (can't see it), tomato, and softish boiled egg. doesn't it look like an owl? I didn't eat the basil with the meal, but I coudn't resist adding it into the photo for effect.


I generally like my eggs softer than this, but I zoned out Sunday morning and got to the eggs a minute or so late. oh well, at least it wasn't hard-boiled! actually, I pretty much like eggs all ways, so it wouldn't have been the end of the world if the yolks had been hard - just a bit disappointing.

2 comments:

  1. that pizza looks amazing. i'm coming over for dinner when i'm home.

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  2. anytime!!! I can't wait until you're back home : )

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