"The good news is: there is pizza, ice cream, and beer"

No truer words have been spoken (by our waitress at Picco Saturday night, to the man at the table next to us who asked, "What's the good news?"). To keep with the good word, last night's menu at casa de Emily was pizza, brownies, and wine.

Our first foray into 100% homemade pizza (no store-bought dough or sauce for us!) actually went pretty well. Sunday afternoon's dough making was only slightly disastrous; apparently the sides of my flour "well" were not high enough to hold the water/yeast/oil mixture, as it broke the barrier and went careening across the counter, under the coffee maker, onto the floor... basically everywhere in a gooey, yeasty mess. I was able to scoop enough of it up to create a somewhat workable ball, though I think the flooding issue caused me to over-knead the dough, resulting in a less-stretchy-than-desired consistency when we actually rolled it out last night. It wasn't bad by any means, but a created a denser crust than I would have liked; I can do better.

Sauce prep was a piece of cake! Both the dough and sauce recipes came from Jamie at Home, the sauce consisting of whole canned tomatoes (San Marzano, because I love the can design! I need to find a reason to buy diced tomatoes so I can get the purple one...), olive oil, garlic, and basil simmered over the stove. Couldn't have been easier, and it was delicious!

Combined with some farmer's market produce and delicious, sustainable sweet Italian sausage from Lionette's, we arrived at four pizza combos:

1. Sausage, mushrooms, red onions, fresh and shredded mozzarella (the crowd favorite)
2. "Mexican" pizza with corn, black beans, jalopeños, red onion, and cotija (a close second)
3. Japanese eggplant, zucchini, corn, fresh and shredded mozzarella
   
4. "Pesto/Margherita" with a pesto base (no tomato sauce), sliced heirloom tomatoes, fresh basil, and fresh mozzarella

Overall, the pizzas were a hit. I'd definitely like to continue experimenting with different crusts, toppings, etc. to perfect my craft. Luckily I think I have lots of willing test subjects...