OHHH.
Making pizza is EASY.
I had no idea.
I follow a food blogger named Jennifer Perillo on Instagram, and she’s always posting gorgeous photos of the homemade pizzas she seemingly whips up on a whim, and it’s all very delicious-looking and wildly impressive, and also has always seemed to me like something that I will never be able to do. I’ve always wanted to try the homemade pizza thing myself, but have been paralyzed by the fact that a) I do not own a pizza stone and b) that I am so terrible at baking that I’m fairly certain that my incompetence extends to pizza.
But?!
Easy. (And while I’m sure a pizza stone would produce better results, an oiled cookie sheet worked just fine.)
Full disclosure, though: I think 90% of the reason that it was easy was that I did not actually make the complicated-sounding part (a.k.a. the dough) myself – I bought a bag of fresh pre-made dough from Trader Joe’s. I also turned the dough out onto a surface that I had dusted with pancake mix rather than flour because I’m out of flour and because the idea of going over to my neighbor’s to borrow a cup of flour is just far too suburbanly adorable for me to handle, but guess what pancake mix is, mostly? Flour. So I figured it would be fine (this kind of “figuring it’ll be fine” is what usually gets me in trouble when baking, but this time it actually was fine).
So I dumped my Trader Joe’s dough onto my pancake mix-ed countertop, stretched the dough out into two discs that vaguely resembled individual pizzas, and started in on the toppings – which is obviously the fun part.
Pizza One I brushed with olive oil and then topped with homemade tomato sauce and sliced fresh mozzarella. After it came out of the oven (10 or so minutes at 400F) I sprinkled over a little fresh basil (from my very own basil garden, tra la la) and Maldon salt. YARRRR.
Pizza Two I brushed with olive oil and then topped with a generous amount of crumbled goat cheese, sliced peaches, and torn-up prosciutto. Once it was baked, I added a pinch of sea salt and a bunch of arugula, and oh my GOD it was good. The kind of good that makes me okay with having abandoned the glorious wonder that is any and all New York City pizza for the chewy mess that they call pizza at the only pizza place located within a ten-mile radius of my home.
New weekday dinner staple, right here. So if you have any fun topping suggestions, will you let me know??
