Pizza Party

So my sweet friend, Christine, tells me that once again we have *discovered* the same thing at the same time. She's had the ABin5 book for a few months but because she's got a brand, new, little Darling to love, nurture and bring amusement to her world, she hadn't had time to delve into the world of bread baking.

She's baking bread like crazy lately. She's made the bagels and ciabata. And yesterday she wrote on my FB wall that she made the Olive Oil recipe for pizza dough.

"Oooohhh," my kids cried. "PIZZA! Let's make pizza for lunch, too!"

So we made the dough, and they walked a mile to Walmart (after earlier walking 2 and half miles home from Mass) to get some more mozzarella. I cooked some Italian sausage for the topping.

We thought maybe we'd Skype Chris's family and we could have a big, rowdy lunch together, maybe next time!

The crust was so what we love. Even without a stone, this crust was by far the best homemade pizza crust we have ever made. And I have been working on pizza crust ever since I discovered in 1986 that there is no such thing as a real pizza in Alabama (Born and raised in Philly. Over the past 24 years, I've found Alabama has many culinary delights, but pizza and cheese steaks don't translate well in the South.) I've come close, but have never had the patience or organizational skills to begin making dough days in advance. If I had that much patience, I'd mix up a batch of dough and leave in the cooler for a few days to let it get slack like Jeff has on the website. We may never get try this dough for naan or pita!

Next time, I will roll some out much thinner for one of the pizzas anyway. I suspect that a stone is in my future for sure since Bud really, really, really liked this pizza crust. I want one that I can leave in the oven. Any thoughts? Or just go with the super thrifty method and get a tile from Lowes?

I made one in the thick, puffy, Sicilian style that many of my family love and it was G-O-N-E. Brushed the raw dough on both sides with olive oil and sprinkled cornmeal on parchment. Baked it in a hot oven. It was really, really good.

There are pictures of the weekend's cookery over at College-in-a-Camper's blog.