Pizza Night

Friday night pizza is a longstanding tradition in our household. For many years we struggled to find a delivery service that was up to our impossible standards- thin crispy crust, arriving hot but not soggy. Understandably, no one was up to the challenge.

For a while we would walk up the block to Hornero, a local hole in the wall that turned out a very acceptable wood-fire baked pie. (Incidentally, the family that owns the place hails from Argentina- we weren't aware till we visited Buenos Aires that this confers credibility in the pizza- making world almost as golden as Italian pedigree) But we quickly tired of having to make the outing, and we were paying the restaurant price for take away, which hurt a bit.

We had played around with making our own a few times, but about a year ago we got into the regular habit. And it seems like we're not alone!

Our friend Kiira over at Eat and Greet recently had a great post on a pizza smack down she competed in (pic below from her post)

If you want a little fun, take her challenge & vote your selection at her blog.

Our weekly efforts are a little more lazy. We've fallen into a bit of a rut lately, albeit a very tasty one. A while back we did our own taste-off & really liked this one, originally from Bon Appétit (January 2008) and found on Epicurious. We substitute cremini mushrooms for chanterelles & prosciutto or jamon serrano for pancetta. We have also chosen to eliminate the mozzarella (sacrilege to some, we're sure), finding the finished product to have been smothered by all the formaggio. And somehow, we've come to regularly add a bit of roasted sweet red pepper.
But that's the beauty of home made, isn't it? You can play around with the ingredients as often as you like & never get bored.

A foolproof pizza dough recipe from Martha Stewart is the base. Each batch of dough will make about 4 weeks' worth of pies. We separate into individual balls & throw it into the freezer where it keeps like a dream.

Above- Ready for our humble electric oven.
Below- 20 minutes later.

Of course, individual preferences must be catered-to! One of us likes the full-on arugula leaf while the other prefers it like a chopped herb topping

Last night we cracked a bottle of Sangiovese- Merlot blend recommended recently by our friend elle.elle. Served up in our trusty Riedel Syrah stems, it was a perfect match. (more on the wine in a future post)

And with pie on plate & wine in hand we settled-in for Friday night's essential viewing!