Pizza Amore

I have tried numerous times to make pizza dough from scratch--those times ended with results that no one would want to see much less eat. While reading Pinch My Salt one night, I came across a post about making pizza dough with The Daring Bakers (by the way, as soon as I have my own kitchen, I am joining Daring Bakers!). Her post inspired me to give pizza making one more try. The recipe and direction for making the dough can be found here.

The biggest difference between this attempt and previous attempts was letting the dough rest in the fridge overnight. Also, I pulled out our heavy pizza stone...or at least I think it's a pizza stone--I was too young to care about culinary instruments when my parents purchased this device. Anyways, heating the stone before putting the raw dough on it helped to make the bottom of the crust nice and crispy. So with these minor adjustments, I was able to produce delicious pizza combinations with a wonderfully chewy yet crunchy thing crust. Voila! Success!

Pizza Margherita sitting on a pizza stone about to get warm and crusty in the oven

pretty soon that mozzarella cheese will be bubbly and the crust a golden brown

Homemade Roasted Tomato Sauce, Fresh Mozzarella Cheese, Fresh Basil

simple yet incredibly delicious with fresh, bright flavors

Red Sauce, Grated Mozzarella Cheese, Pepperoni, Fresh Cremini Mushrooms

nothing innovative but comfortingly familiar

Roasted Garlic White Sauce, Fontina Cheese, Parmesan Cheese, Red and Yellow Fingerling Potatoes, Fresh Thyme

my only little foray into a less common combination of pizza topping, however, it ended up being my favorite--the colors were beautiful and the flavor was amazing

I see many more pizzas in my future :)