Pizza, Homemade

On Friday Paul, Sarah & Amelia made the drive up from lovely Alexandria, VA to hang with us for the weekend. As a group we voted to make homemade pizzas as a casual dinner. Using dough from Wegmans and fresh ingredients, we worked up three different versions. The first was a straight Margarita with olive oil, sauce, fresh crumbled mozzarella, a liberal dose of Sargento's six cheese Italian blend (mozzarella, provolone, Parmesan, fontina, Romano and asiago), sliced fresh Jersey tomatoes and basil just plucked from the plant.

I thought this was one of the best pizzas we've made at the house. Adding sliced tomatoes instead of just sauce added a nice sweetness and you just can't beat fresh basil. But probably the biggest difference is this time we let the pizza stone heat up in the oven for a good thirty minutes or more which gave the crust a deeper tan and more of a crunch.

Oh, additional note! Once we decided on pizza and after the struggles of the last few times we've attempted this at home, Alan went out to Sur La Table and got us a pizza peel. It's one of those paddle looking things you use to get the pizza from the assembly surface onto the molten hot pizza stone in the oven. I have to say - Oh, Thank God!! Worked like a charm.

The next pizza up was a sausage pie with sauteed onions and peppers. This one was also loaded with cheese. We used a sweet Italian sausage browned and crumbled ahead of time.

This one was good but for some reason not quite as awesome as the last S&P pie we made. I'm thinking it had to do with the brand of sausage used this time around. As you can see from the picture, it was cooked evenly...all bubbly and happy. And the peppers and onions were well sauteed in EVOO ahead of time. It just lacked a bit of tang that I liked so much previously.

Finally, a pie made with arugula and prosciutto. There's no picture of this one thanks in part to the lateness of the evening and the bottles of wine consumed (per Alan's previous post). This was my least favorite. We cooked the pie and when it came out added the arugula and ham. The arugula was okay (looked and smelled like arugula should) but my beef here is with Wegmans. I think the quality of prosciutto was lacking. First off, it was cut way too thickly (the teenager behind the deli counter probably didn't realize the importance of paper thin strips) and without the age, salt, brine I look forward too in great prosciutto. I say all of this because I took out the leftover prosciutto the next afternoon and tried it solo realizing it wasn't up to snuff. I think I'll stick to getting all my deli meats, prosciutto included, from Delicious Orchards.

The only accompaniment to the pizza was a Caesar salad...overall a nice, relaxed meal. Good, not great food but fabulous company and awesome wines.