Pizza Party Part II

We had a lot more pizza eaters than bakers for PPPII. Cherry came at the appointed 10AM hour and we whipped up three batches of dough (18 pizzas). The kitchen wasn't pretty:

But the little dough balls were:

Our three batches were: 00 pizza flour imported from Italy, a mix of AP flour and farro flour, and whole wheat mixed with bread flour. We discovered that the 00 flour (what is used for pizza and pasta in Italy) really DID make a difference all the way from making the kneading of the wet dough easier to rolling out easier, to tasting better once it was cooked.

We left our dough to rise and set off to the farmers market. Our biggest score was delicious and cheap tomatoes. FINALLY, tomatoes that actually smell like the ones on the vine in the garden when you are a kid. And it made a huge difference in the sauce...the most delicious I've had in a long long time. At the market we also found early apricots and white peaches for a tart. After that we headed off to Sorrento's. It is an Italian market straight out of the 50's, meatball sandwiches, prepared salads and all. We got prosciutto and brasaola and buffalo mozzerella and ricotta and Parmegiano...and they advertised "sweet European Butter" but were all out when we asked. We sat down for a quick nibble on a ricotta cheese canolo before heading home.

Just plugra, but still beautiful. Use about this much for a large galette.


We mixed the apricots and peaches together and let them sit in a bowl with sugar, lemon verbena and mint. We took the herbs out before we baked the tart, but they made a delicious syrup which I later burned. (Pizza cooks at 550, not tarts).



For appetizers we had brasaola with wild arugula and mustard greens dressed with lemon juice and olive oil.

Though we made artichoke and goat cheese pizza, prosciuto and arugula pizza, egg and anciove pizza, potato and rosemary pizza, and ricotta and spinach pizza, the margherita was the best. As always:


See, I really did burn it. Once it was off the burnt pan and covered in lots of cream, it was actually fairly tasty.

Luckly Oleg turned the camera around at some point. As our resident photographer no one might ever know he was here. Or that he had a pizza named after him (prosciutto, spinach, bechemel, and potatoes) aka the tv dinner pizza.