Cooking the Cover, volume 2.

When the March issue of Bon Appetit arrived with a mouthwatering cover photo of homemade pizza, I was elated. "Make Pizza Like A Pro" the cover touted next to the delicious photo.  I gladly accepted the challenge. As you know, homemade pizza is a favorite dinner at my house.  We'd been doing just fine with our current dough recipe, but I was excited to read about new ideas and methods. Last night, we gave it a try.  I was also warmed by the idea of a community of homemade pizza lovers out there, if Bon Appetit was covering it.   

There was a no knead dough that only required a little planning ahead and a rise time of 20 or so hours. Ryan assembled it as I finished cleaning up Thursday night's dinner and then it sat and fermented and grew on the kitchen counter all night and all day Friday.

My husband loves working with dough. I think he did a pretty fine job! He was also happy to find a tutorial in the back of the magazine about how to shape the dough like a pro.

There was enough dough for an extra to be saved in the freezer for next time!

The magazine suggested drizzling the dough with olive oil before adding toppings such as simple crushed tomatoes and fresh mozzarella and not so simple ones too, such lamb meatballs.  We opted for the olive oil and crushed tomato suggestion, fresh and shredded mozzarella and red peppers.  We haven't had fresh mozzarella on our pizza for some time, using instead the cheaper, pre-shredded stuff that comes in a bag.  I don't know what were thinking.  Fresh mozzarella is far superior! Worth the extra two dollars or so.  Finished with a little salt and pepper after it came out of the oven, which was at a super hot 550!,  this was a killer pizza.  Just crunchy enough crust, with a little char in some places and delicious simple toppings.

The finished pizza.

Take the time and make this pizza.  Chop some veggies for a quick salad, mix up a couple of cocktails and make a night of it.  It was a welcome Friday night dinner after a long and crazy week of school and work.