Fourth Attempt: Success!!!

I guess its fitting that for our fourth attempt we would try four new things (well, technically 3 new things and 1 modified thing) but all four were a resounding success!

First, as previously mentioned, we modified our pizza sauce recipe. Last time we used too much dried oregano so we found fresh oregano and only used about 1/3 of what the recipe called for. As you can see below, the result was a less green, more saucy pizza sauce, which all agree was a great success. Spencer and I decided that since we have "mastered" this particular sauce recipe we will move on to another for our next attempt.



Spencer mentioned that a TRUE combination pizza has more than just pepperoni and vegetables and expressed his desire to add sausage to the pizza. So for our second addition to the pizza he took a pound of ground turkey and added Italian Seasoning, salt and pepper. We all enjoyed the sausage and will probably make that a permanent addition to our future attempts.

My dear old friend Brooke (and by old I mean I've known her a long time not that she is "OLD"...I mean we are the same age and I don't think I'm old...sorry I digress) joined us for dinner. She was our photographer for part of the evening. She can be seen below enjoying her first bite of the stuffed crust pizza, which was our third addition to this attempt. This was an easy addition and also one that we will repeat in the future as we all enjoyed it. Spencer rolled out the dough about 3 inches larger than the pan size. We placed mozzarella cheese sticks along the edge of the pan and folded the dough over. I tried to spread the excess out to the center of the pan so the dough would cook more evenly.



Our fourth addition to this attempt was trying a new crust recipe. Brooke turned me on to a website called http://thepioneerwoman.com which has a ton of cool recipes on it. I found several pizza dough recipes and selected one for this weeks crust. The major difference between this crust and my previous one is the amount of yeast used. This recipe called for less than half the amount of yeast and I liked it better.



We always make 2 pizzas (because we always have guests AND we like left-overs). The pictures above show the Combination Pizza and the Stuffed Crust Pizza prior to cooking. (The toppings on both pizzas are identical but the rectangular pizza does not have cheese in the crust.) Side note: the toppings were divided evenly between the pizzas, however the rectangular pizza has a larger surface area and is therefore less dense in terms of toppings; it was agreed by all that the rectangular pizza, as opposed to the stuffed crust pizza, had a better mix of flavors due to the lower density of toppings per slice.



We cooked the Combination pizza first for about 15 minutes but it could have used another 5 minutes or so. The crust was cooked all the way through but was not golden brown on the bottom and was quite pliable. This also could be due in part to being cooked on a baking stone instead of the normal vented pizza pan. As you can see in the pictures above and below, it was still a delicious success and received a thumbs up from both Brooke and Spencer.



We all loved the Stuffed Crust pizza and agreed it should also be a regular addition to our attempts. This pizza we cooked for 25 minutes due to the deficiencies in the Combination pizza crust and it turned out perfectly. The left-overs were highly coveted (Brooke took some home) and devoured quickly (Spencer and I finished it off as a late night snack before bed).



We feel this has been our most successful attempt to date.

On a scale of 1-5, here is our assessment:

Turkey Sausage: 4.37
Pizza Crust: 4.24
Stuffed Crust: 3.7
Overall Pizza: 4.82

We plan to have Liesl and her boys over next time so we may get to try even more new things!