Pizza, Pizza, Pizza

Emeril's crust with home-made tomato sauce, onions, pineapple, jalepenos, and light on the mozzarella and parmesan.

"Don't put any of that yellow stuff in it this time, OK?"

My husband's request not to use any cornmeal in the pizza crust I was about to make.


"Just make it regular this time."

Meaning, don't try to make it healthy by adding whole wheat flour. 

So this time, I decided to just make a simple crust from good old white flour. I found this excellent recipe from Emeril. It rose better than any other recipe I've tried, it was faster, didn't use a ton of flour, and once baked had a nice consistency of crustiness with a little chewiness. 

I didn't want to get out any heavy artillery I'd have to later clean, so I opted to use elbow grease to get the dough formed - which worked out fine. It also made a giant overly stretchy dough - so I made us each our own pizza. One with peppers so hot, even my husband broke a sweat, and one with pepperoni for myself.

Emeril's crust with home-made tomato sauce, giant pepperoni, onions, pineapple, mozzarella, cheddar, parmigiano and basil.

The entire week has been full of pasta and pizza. It really was the best and worst, near and far. After making and eating my own pizza for two days, we ended up out with my husband's sisters. Our only common food ground is Italian food - but even then only pizza really. 

We ended up at Il Brigante at the seaport. The pastas were standard, the margherita pizza was just ok. I ordered the Buffalina pizza thinking fresh buffalo mozzarella sounded great - but the pizza had no sauce and was drowning in the slightly bitter cheese. Immediate indigestion.

Somehow we found ourselves out with the girls again on Sunday at dinner time. We had decided to take a scenic drive out the North Fork. We were starving right around Riverhead, and, thanks to Yelp for iPhone, found a nice little pizza place. It turned out to be the most amazing margherita pizza any of us have ever had. Crusty and crunchy on the bottom, firmly supporting a thick juicy layer of the most flavorful, sweet, tomato sauce. This place was worth the drive out, just for the pizza - better than anything you can get in NYC and that's saying a lot!

Tomato Sauce for Pizza

(enough for 2 large pizzas)
1 28oz can peeled Italian Tomatoes (Whole) in sauce 

6oz can of tomato pasteOlive Oil

1 clove garlic, sliced
½ tsp sugar
Salt
Pepper
1 T Basil, chopped

1. In a stockpot, drizzle a little olive oil over medium-low heat. Add garlic and cook slowly for 3-4 minutes.

2. Add entire can of tomatoes and sauce and tomato paste. Simmer over low heat about 45 minutes. 

3. Blend in a blender, or with an immersion blender until consistency is smooth.

4. Season with sugar, salt and pepper. Continue to simmer another 15 minutes and stir in the basil at the last minute.