Pizza party...

I've had a pizza stone in my kitchen arsenal for years now. I figure close to ten years is long enough to sit around collecting dust. So tonight I used it and had a little pizza party with my family.

The most intimidating part about homemade pizza is the dough. I thought I'd ease into things with store-bought dough.

Trader Joe's sells fresh, ready-made pizza dough in regular AND whole wheat. I went with the whole wheat. I also didn't know how to make pizza sauce so I picked up some high quality marinara sauce. My topping choices were slices of fresh mozzarella, Calabrese salami, shitake mushrooms, slices of fresh tomato, fresh basil leaves and sweet onion.

The kids had a blast making theirs. Some sauce, salami and mushrooms were all they wanted. My hubby and I made a classic Pizza Margherita...tomatoes, mozzarella and basil. As well as The Works which is what I will call our "everything on it" pizza.

I have to say, the whole process was surprisingly easy. It did take some work to tame the dough. No, the amoeba-shaped pizzas were not intentional. But the rest was just opening a jar and slicing ingredients.

Before prepping the pizzas, I placed my stone in the middle rack of the oven and set it to 450 degrees F.  I prepared each pizza right on a pizza peel (a wide paddle-like tool crucial in getting the pizzas safely and swiftly into the oven). I then slid the pizza onto the hot baking stone and baked for about ten minutes each. Sprinkling a little ground corn meal onto the peel before you put down the dough helps prevent sticking.

Next step in pizza making, homemade dough and pizza sauce!

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