Daring Bakers Do Pizza

As I’m sure those of you with any connection to the food blog world already know, this month’s Daring Bakers challenge was pizza. It was hosted by Rosa over at Rosa’s Yummy Yums and was great because it was really open-ended. I’m really in under the wire here due to a series of complications. Mostly, the recipe specifies that you take the dough out of the fridge exactly two hours before you are going to make the pizza. I’ve had difficulty with those scheduling constraints, so it took me until tonight to get it done.

Now I’ve already mentioned that pizza dough is a regular around here, but this challenge involved a twist. We were required to try tossing the dough just like you’d see at your favorite pizza joint. I quickly learned that this was not my strength. I should have anticipated that the fact that I can’t reliably catch a ball, set of keys, pen, etc. would naturally translate to pizza dough as well. Yep, I could not catch that dough for the life of me. It was particularly soft and sticky and… well, let’s just say I need some more time to work on my technique.

Pizza!

Making pizza is a fairly regular occurrence around here. Besides being a crowd-pleaser, it fits my criteria for including at least 3 food groups and, of course, cheese gives it a one-up in my book. Speaking of cheese, Jeff uses a dairy free brand called Rice Shreds with a lot of success. Tonight, I did 1/2 tomatoes and kalamatas and the other 1/2 green peppers, mushrooms, and pepperoni. Jeff loaded his pizza with mushrooms, chicken sausage, green peppers, and pepperoni. I find that leftover pizza makes a good lunch during the school year. Jeff made an extra last night to take for lunch today and then promptly forgot it, despite my reminder note on the door! Oh well, lunch tomorrow.

Hope these recipes for homemade dough and sauce find a place in your kitchen!