Practice Makes Perfect

My post about pizza was only two entries ago, but my second attempt warranted its own post. Instead of baking two thick, bready pizzas in the oven, I was able to thinly stretch that same amount of dough into four thin-crust rounds to be cooked on the grill. Two pizzas were left simple with just homemade sauce and mozzarella. The third pizza I topped with goat cheese, mozzarella, caramelized onions, and grilled chicken. The fourth pizza was topped with sliced black olives, pepperocini, and chicken. Grilling the pizzas was quicker than oven baking and yielded a crispier crust.

The homemade pizza sauce is simply tomato paste, onions, wine, and spices. See the recipe here

Delicious caramelized onions

Before putting the dough on the grill, brush it with a bit of olive oil. Cook over high heat about 5 minutes, flip, and then top with sauce, cheese and toppings. Cook covered another 5minutes.

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Who Needs Takeout?

As much as I love to cook, at times my laziness gets the best of me and I, like many others, succumb to the convenience of the pizza parlor across the street. While making my own pie was not nearly as convenient as takeout, it was not the arduous task I envisioned it to be.

Making sauce and cutting up toppings is the easy part. What has always prevented my (and I imagine most others’) success was making the crust. I recall the first time (as a child) being introduced to Boboli and my excitement that came topping the crust with mozzarella and sauce. As I sat in front of the oven window watching the cheese melt and salivating at my creation, there was nothing else in the world that could match my excitement (perhaps besides a new Cabbage Patch Doll or a new episode of Punky Brewster). My hopes and dreams of delicious homemade pizza were shattered at that first bite. Not even a child’s palate could be impressed by the glutenous and impossibly chewy Wonder Bread masquerading as crust. Many disappointments followed with store bought doughs and, given my lame bread making skills, I never dared to try making my own crust. Until now.

While I cannot say I was one hundred percent satisfied with the result, I did make a pretty tasty meal. The pizza dough was easy enough to make, though stretching it was a bit difficult. I made a little “test” pizza first (to check if I was spot on with the oven temperature and baking apparatus) which turned out crispy and delicious. I had slightly more difficulty stretching the dough thinly when it came time to make the big boys, leaving me with a slightly bread-ier result. Nonetheless, it was still tasty and I will use this recipe again taking more care to stretch the dough out thinly.

After cooking the crust for a few minutes sans toppings, I brushed it with some garlic infused olive oil, added a zippy homemade pizza sauce, shredded mozzarella, and then topped with leftover chicken, kalamata olives (a vice of mine), and thinly sliced roma tomatoes.

Read on for photos and recipes

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