Homemade Pizza!

the before shot - haha ignore my mocs

I made this announcement to some of my coworkers recently yet none of them seemed as excited as I wanted them to, so I'll announce it here too: I conquered pizza dough!  The back story of this is pretty simple: we tend to order in pizza on the weekend, and I decided that one of my goals should be to make my own pizza dough.  Cue the movie reel of me making pizza after pizza (ok, maybe just two or three), all of them soggy in the middle or burnt to a crisp on top just to get the middle set.  I'm obviously a quitter, because after those few failures, I gave up entirely until right after the New Year.  Armed with a gifted new pizza cast iron pan and a fancy pizza cutter, I got to work.  The first recipe I tried did not give me the crispy thin crust I was after, but in that recipe's defense I did not spread it thin enough (resulting in thick, bready dough that required over-baking and resulted in browned cheese on top...meh).  I immediately abandoned that recipe and went back to google square one. 

This is what I found.  And it worked!  Worked like a charm.  The key, I think, is getting the stone hot and letting it stay that way for almost an hour.  I've started making a fresh batch on Sunday morning, then freezing half of it for the next week.  At the risk of sounding terrible domestic, there is nothing that makes me feel like super mom and super wife like pulling freshly made pizza dough out of the freezer and having a home-made pizza by dinner. 

For sauce, I use Mark Bittman's basic tomato sauce recipe - similar recipe here, although the one I use starts with browning smashed garlic cloves and then simmering with canned tomatoes.  A quick spin with the immersion blender and I've got smooth, homemade pizza sauce.  You could also add bay leaves, or chopped basil.  What I love about making the sauce and the pizza (aside from the fact that my husband loves - no, LOVES - pizza) is that I can use up what I have on hand.  Last night it was green peppers/red onion/pepperoni.  A few weeks ago it was olives/sweet onion.  My next goal is to make a cream pizza sauce, like this, and maybe add some poblanos as toppings.  Any other pizza ideas?