Pizza

[vilasman1]

What furom under which topic should I be ranting about pizza in?

Anyway I made pizza, I made a pretty simple dough, let it rise for an hour or 2 and then put it in the ice box for over night.
Then today I got a 12 oz can of skinned whole tomatos, blenderized them till it was pretty smooth put that in a non stick skillet, put in sugar (didnt measure, but tasted just a hint sweet) and let it simmer? slight boil but not enough to get the stove messy for a total of about 30-40 mins.
I had previously sliced my pepperoni, I sliced butten mushrooms, cut a red and a green pepper in half seeded it,rinsed it and then sliced it, (the next time I wont slice every thing into the same bowl, easier to put each thing on the pizza if you aren't trying to dig through the other stuff) then I added some basil, tarragon, oregano, lemon pepper and kosher salt, again I didn't meausure , i dumped some in and tasted it. Then I grated some mozzeralla, Colby jack and monterey jack.
Olive oil on my cast iron pizza pan, floured it with corn meal.
Dumped my dough on the cutting board, floured of courxe, then me the rolling pin and the dough had a fight and it didn't quite work. Every time i got it strechted it stuck to the board. So I got the best compromise between size and being stuck and got it on the pizza pan. Then i found my little mini rolling pin and built up the placed that were to thin.
I dumped the sauce on, the cheese, the peppers, some chopped onion/peppers, the mushrooms and finally the pepperoni.
In the already hot 500 degree oven and 20 mins later i remember that the back of my oven is hotter than the front.
In any case the pizza was a success.
The next time I will slice everything instead chopping the onions. And I will try some different cheeses like munster or provolone. And really I think I will slice the cheese instead of grate it. Might get better coverage.

[Psiguyy]

So. Your rant is your pizza was a success? :?

[Lifter]

Hi Vilasman

Will post this in anticipation of a blast from IronChef, as Italian Pizza (the genuine stuff!) is greatly different from what you are doing or trying to do...

Anyways, here are a few thoughts...

Make your crusts thinner than what you describe ...they will turn out "stiffer", and a better "carrying platform for the subsequent "goo" you might choose to load them up with...

I'm certainly not much on a "sweet" tomato mix on a pizza; quite the opposite, I'd like the tomato mix to be more in flavour like a tomato paste, but not as gummy, so work that around...

"Italian" pizza semed to me to be a great thin crust, with their fab tomato, a cheese or two and one "theme" ingredient (say pepperoni") and one condiment...onion, green pepper, whatever...

North American is an "opposite" where its thick crust, a pile of tomato sauce, ten thousand ingredients and cheeses, an entirely different animal when you bite it...

Both can be "good" depending on your taste, but its hard to determine where you want to head to...

For a "weirdo" NA pizza, try running up your version of crust, lubricating with a token offering of good olive oil, and a drained can of shredded snow crab, a half can of cooked, and drained mini-shrimp, a covering of a heavy tomato sauce and/or paste...some basil, marjoram, etc, chopped or shredded, minced onion and garlic...finely minced red sweet pepper (hulled, stemmed, de-seeded etc)...about a half pepper only for a 16" diameter pizza, covered with slices of Provolone, and subsequent "sugaring" of Monterey Jack shreds, Old aged cheddar, etc...and bake it really hard....so everything runs together...

Stealing a line from "what makes you a good cook" eat it slowly, and try to decide what you like and don't, and "work on it from there" what you can add, and what you should delete, and you can (probably) come up with what makes you happy...

It will be different for each of us, and there's a point or two that I'd shy away from in my suggestion, but that is me being me, and I'm trying to find a method to let "you" find "you"...

Lifter

[vilasman1]

My wife ate more than i did and even ate the last piece cold. Not sure if it was good or she was hungery but she did have other choices...