Homemade pizza

There's something oddly romantic about making pizza from scratch, a sort of Under-the-Tuscan-Sun sort of feel. Maybe I feel that way because I always wait for a warm day before I make pizza dough. I always tell Adam that it's because the yeast needs warmth to rise, but you can really just shove it in the oven on low. I just love the whimsy of mixing flour, yeast, water, salt, sugar and olive oil, setting it in a sunny patch to rise, going for a long walk and coming back to (magic!) risen dough.

Homemade pizza is the BEST way to use up leftovers. I literally went into the fridge and took out all the odds and ends and shoved them all on the pizza: a quarter jar of Texas Martini olives (that had proven too spicy for martinis), some sauteed mushrooms from Friday's dinner, a few strips of bacon, one sad red pepper that Adam had grilled up on Friday, and the last inch of a tube of goat cheese. It was delicious.

I used this recipe for the dough, more or less. I made one big pizza and cooked it for about 20 minutes. My friends always seem impressed when I tell them I make my own dough from scratch, but the truth is it's only a couple of ingredients. I don't tell them that. Sometimes it's nice to impress people.

Happy Monday, loves!

Photos by me on my iPhone, which is why they suck. One day I'll get a Canon and learn to bounce light or whatever. I had sticky dough fingers last night!