Don’t Try This at Home…

Several years back, way before I became interested in cooking, I was invited over to my friends Betsy and Dustin’s for homemade pizza. I was very impressed by this, they even made the dough from scratch! So I decided if they could do it, I can too. Boy, was I wrong. Beth and I both tried to make the dough, mixing yeast with warm water (why does yeast smell like baby formula?) letting it sit, kneading and finally getting annoyed that it wasn’t coming out right. If you are bored at the gym, try kneading dough as a workout. That’ll definitely make you sweat. I can’t really describe what the dough tasted like, but like a handful of other homemade conconctions we’ve tried, it wasn’t worth the effort.

So last week we decided to try pizza again with my brand new pizza stone, a birthday present from my favorite cousin. We had made this in Florida a few times and it came out great. All we did was buy the pizza dough and place homemade sauce, part skim mozzarella cheese, olives and mushrooms on it. You do need to roll the dough with a rolling pin, and place both flour and corn meal on the stone so the dough doesn’t stick. If you like a thinner crust pizza, try cutting the dough in half and making two pizzas, one at a time, instead of one large one.

We also tried the Pillsbury Pizza Crust, which comes in a rolled tin just like the Pillsbury biscuits. It makes more of a square Sicilian crust but it is easier since you can just press the dough into a greased cookie sheet. It was like having pizza made on Pillsbury rolls and was very tasty.

Helpful hints: Do not try to use low fat cheese for this, it doesn’t come out right. Also make sure you use dough from a really good pizza place. We tried the dough from AJ’s in Forest Hills, and the dough was definitely sub-par to Big Louie’s in Hollywood, Fla.

You can place any of your favorites on the crust with sauce, such as chicken or shrimp.