the ny times had some great pizza info

in the food section yesterday. i make my own as well. i DO use a yeast dough. i'm not dependable enough to make my own starter (you know you have to stir it and add more water and flour over a couple of weeks. i just don't like schedules).

i love making my own pizza. it's fun and it's a great activity for friends and family to help with. they can make their own mini pizzas with toppings of their own choosing.

i loved mashed potatoes on a pizza with onions and a little olive oil (cheese is nice but as you know i'm vegan so no more. although i have just discovered the best non-dairy cheese i've tried so far. it's daiya and it really melts and gets stringy. the taste is decent too). spinach is great on a pizza too. a little sauce, some mushrooms, onions perhaps and some blanched spinach. cheese too if you're not vegan (try the daiya if you are). i use what i have on hand for my pizzas. that's how i roll.................

if you've never made your own pizza, give it a try. it's NOT as hard as you think.
(and yes, when i think far enough ahead, i have always allowed my dough to rise at least ONE whole day in the fridge

The Slow Route to Homemade Pizza

By OLIVER STRAND

THERE’S little point in trying to match the horsepower available to a pizzaiolo. Their professional pizza ovens, especially the models that burn wood or coal, are the muscle cars of kitchens: when blazing at temperatures that range from 800 degrees to an infernal 1,000 degrees, they can turn raw dough into a blistered, bubbling pizza in as little as 75 seconds. It puts the home cook, whose oven typically reaches 550 degrees, at a permanent disadvantage.

No wonder some of the pizza-obsessed do everything to coax their ovens into performing above their limits. (Making pizza on the self-cleaning cycle seems to be popular.) The Johnny Knoxville approach has its appeal. But after cooking more than 200 pizzas over several months, I learned an easier way to edge closer to the kind of airy, creamy, chewy, thin crust you find at pizzerias that have otherwise sane people waiting in line for an hour. And it has less to do with heat than good baking technique.

I let the dough rise overnight...............

pics:
pizza:

Jennifer May for The New York Times

The pale crust at left is from newly made dough while the crust at right is made with the same dough, aged a day. More

the daiya cheese packs from the daiya website