pizza

There are some things that I've wanted to make, that I've been told are really quite simple but that have always intimidated me. Making fresh pasta is one of those things. Homemade bread. Pizza dough. Are there foods you've been too intimidated to try?

I plan to conquer these fears, starting with pizza. I first made a pizza dough while at home but it was a no-rise recipe off the back of a special pizza yeast (the only yeast the grocery store had.) Here in Berkeley I got a packet of regular yeast, and Partner-in-Crime and I tried again. We followed a recipe for dough from Epicurious that involved a step where you slightly fry the dough. Definitely got a nice char taste that my oven alone couldn't impart. I used my trusty cast iron and it all went smoothly. The biggest thing I learned is you can never roll the dough too thin.

[My first attempt at hand forming the crust. Switched to rolling after this one.]

[Partner-in-Crime prepping the fennel and onions]

[Fresh heirloom tomatoes roasted and then added to olive oil and mozz pizza. Sort of sauce on top]

[The most succesful- sausage, fennel and onion]

[Potato, bacon and fontina. Sadly the bacon burned. I picked it off when the pizza was hot but the burned bacon actually tasted great on the cold leftovers the next day.]