Homemade Pizza

Almost completed snowed in for most of the day today while Chicago recovered from one of the worst blizzards in its recordable history (Watch This! (Jim Cantore)) I still found a way to visit the closest Whole Foods store on Huron for some supplies to make pizza. The store was almost empty of customers and there were only a few employees...two good reasons they were planning on closing at 2pm this afternoon.

I've never tried to make pizza from scratch before, but have been inspired recently by seeing how passionate foodies can be about making homemade pizza at home and discussing the outcome. Since I had a little extra time on an adult "snow day", I thought it would be fun to try my hand at making my own pizza.

The Highlights 

I used Bobby Flay's pizza crust recipe. Here we're mixing the dough:

Letting the dough rest and grow for an hour:

I picked up some pork sausage from Whole Foods for a topping:

I made a pretty basic marinara to use as the pizza sauce. It consisted of San Marzano peeled tomatoes, tomato paste, garlic, basil, oregano, salt, and pepper.

                                                          Here is the pizza pre-oven:

                                                                   And post-oven:

                                   The crust, not as well done as I hoped. I need a pizza stone!

The Verdict

Yeah.....no. This wasn't inedible, but this was hardly Great Lake Pizza! My recipe needs alot of work, including:

• A more subtle sauce. I could probably cut out the basil, oregano, and garlic. Also, I needed less of it...way too much sauce.
• I need a pizza stone.
• I used fresh mozzarella, but I think it needed more of a kick or an extra cheese?

So I have some work to do. But this is a start!