Finally Tried Some Pizza

I've been meaning to try making pizza for a while, and finally picked up a stone recently. Here's my first attempt. Did two pies - a plain Margherita-style with fresh mozzerella, and another with portabella mushroom caps. My wife came up with the recipe for the sauce, and I made the dough for the crust.

Detailed writeups of the pizzas and sauce can be found here: http://www.fearlesskitchen.com/2008/07/recipe-pizza-al.html

and here: http://www.fearlesskitchen.com/2008/07/recipe-pizza-sa.html

Plain Pizza - Before ...



Mushroom Pizza - After ...


I thought these came out pretty good for the 1st try. They were certainly better than our local take out place. Practice makes perfect - need to make some more.

For the dough, I used my stand mixer to combine 1 cup water, 1/4 cup olive oil, 2 tablespoons turbinado sugar (I wanted to use honey, but we were out), 1 teaspoon rapid rise yeast, 3 1/2 cups of bread flour, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 2 teaspoons of dried oregano, and 2 teaspoons garlic powder. This made enough for two pizzas with decently defined crusts.

For the sauce, we mixed a chopped onion, some minced garlic, a bay leaf, 2 tablespoons of dried thyme, 2 tablespoons of dried oregano, fresh basil leaves, a little salt, and a tablespoon of olive oil with a 28 oz can of crushed tomatoes. This was allowed to simmer for a while as the dough was rising.

Enjoy!

-John