Growing up on part of LI that had fantastic, huge, foldable pizza sold from independent pizza parlors in every strip mall, when I went to college in Albany, I was shocked and dismayed to discover Pizza Hut pizza. I didn't actually recognize the pan pizza as pizza. Knowing I would never be able to reproduce the pizza parlor crust, I never even tried making pizza dough until two days ago.
To make sure there was no comparison to real pizza, and to add to the challenge, I make gluten-free pizza dough. I am not an experienced gluten-free baker either - it was only a week ago that I made my first gluten-free baked good and I can't say I was thrilled with the result.
No way was I going to try to compete with the traditional tomato sauce and mozzarella pizza either. I had enough dough for two pizzas. Sunday's pizza was topped with basil pesto, roasted red pepper, goat cheese, chicken sausage with spinach. (pesto and pepper homegrown and prepared last summer and frozen, goat cheese from Cohoe's R&G Cheese).
The only part of tonight's pizza that was cooked was the sliced red onions cooked on the pizza dough. After crust was baked, a sour cream/dill/lemon/red onion mixture was spread on it, followed by capers, and smoked sockeye salmon. Knowing this was going to be a crispy crust and nothing like the soft foldable pizza of my youth, I cut this pizza in appetizer size squares.
Does anybody still can you neighborhood pizza place a pizza parlor?
