they traditionally make both marghereta pizza and white pizza in southern Italy, and it's astoundingly good - yes, all about the bread.  

24 minutes ago, Deephaven said:

Temp control is huge on all breads and pizza is a bread.  Cooking the sauce and melting cheese doesn't take much, but that is not what is tough.

 

You are completely right on NY though.  Terrible pizza there.  Detroit may even be better, lol.

It may take some practice and know-how and I've found a great stone to go in a normal oven. Obviously a proper oven is going to kill it, but to say it cannot be done? Never say never! LOL ?

You guys are serious!!! I eat every pizza I see and don’t think about the ingredients for a single second. $.88 totinos is pretty tasty!!!! I mean come on, are we talking about piddling around all day or are we going to eat????!!!! The only detail I can remember about pizza is I had one with spinach on it that nearly killed me once. Fast forward 12-13 years now everyone puts spinach on every single pizza you see, I think they are trying to kill me........

 

my fiancé on the other hand is a pizza details fanatic and likes this place the best 

 

http://www.adopopizza.com/restaurant

 

10 minutes ago, TnRiver46 said:

You guys are serious!!! I eat every pizza I see and don’t think about the ingredients for a single second. $.88 totinos is pretty tasty!!!! The only detail I can remember about pizza is I had one with spinach on it that nearly killed me once. Fast forward 12-13 years now everyone puts spinach on every single pizza you see, I think they are trying to kill me........

I love Totinos pizza! 

5 minutes ago, 12poundbass said:

I love Totinos pizza! 

Pappa Murphy's is our close favorite

Use to hit up Godfather's - but the one semi-near me closed down - nearest one now is 20+ miles away...through traffic...so an hour-plus to get yummy, greasy pizza.

5 minutes ago, MN Fisher said:

Pappa Murphy's is our close favorite

Use to hit up Godfather's - but the one semi-near me closed down - nearest one now is 20+ miles away...through traffic...so an hour-plus to get yummy, greasy pizza.

My mom lives across from a papa Murphy’s and brings them home sometimes, pretty good! I used to live near one but they closed down due to a collective lack of intelligence shared by the entire staff 

5 hours ago, Deplorable Fisherman said:

False and ... they don't make pizza in Italy, just so you are aware. 

 

That must be someone that has never been there, because they dang sure don't know what they are talking about.  

Now, if you think most of the crud we get here in the states is good pizza, then no, they don't make your style pizza in Italy.   After six years of eating real, Italian pizza, it's hard to eat pizza's from these joints here in the states.

 

I don't know what kind of magic wand you can use to cook a good pizza dough in your average home oven.  Mine home over will go to 550F and it still doesn't get hot enough with a stone in it.  

When you slow cook a pizza, it's going to dry the dough out a lot.  No way around that.

18 hours ago, Deephaven said:

Let us know how the Ooni is.  It is on my list of highly likely summer purchases....and as an alternative to a true pizza I love a slice of Chicago as well.

I got the Ooni as a Christmas Gift and have yet to take it out of the box. I think it's going to make it's way to my summer home. Me thinks it will get more use there.

As a side on Chicago Pizza. Instead of your traditional yeast cornmeal/flour dough, I read on another forum about making it with a pie crust. I used my butter shortcrust pastry recipe I make apple and blueberry pie with. That pizza was off the chains!

Paul Newmann's is the only grocery store pizza I can swallow.  Trader Joe's makes pretty good, and I really like their spanakopita.  

True pizza dough is made with semolina 00 flour and a coarser grind is generally used for shaping and on the peel so it slides off.  That's were I have to vary, to buy semolina in small amounts it's too expensive. I have to order it and pay shipping.  I bought a 50 pound bag once at a good price and it got old before I could use it all.  Because of that, I use King Arthur Bread flour, and let the dough rest in the refrigerator about 16 hours  before using it.  I do use the semolina for shaping and on the peel.  Can't stand the taste on cornmeal on them. 

I buy 00, 14.2%, 11.7% all in 50lb bags.  The more exotic grains and such I buy in much smaller quantities.  Have a full on restaurant supply in my kitchen though.  Used the 00 to make some Chicken Parm tonight at the request of my 9 year old.  He loves homemade noodles.

Now, that looks good!

I make my own pasta's also and wish I could use enough 00 to order the 50 - 55 pound bags.  When you are normally just fixing for thee, it takes a while.   

When we can get all the grandkids and great grandkids over, it still only take one five pound bag of flour and that usually make two or three extra pizza's.  

I ordered the 50 pound bag a couple of years ago for pizza's (the oven was fairly new to me then) and to make a bunch of Panettone's to give friend and neighbors for Christmas.  Five months later I still had almost 20 pounds and it had gotten when I made pizza's with that old, you could tell the dough was old, and really not very good.

I've thought about ordering it and putting it in the freezer to see how it would keep, but the wife keeps it so full, she would fuss if I tried to take up that much room in it, and it's a 22cu.ft. freezer.

 

Thanks.  Since the beginning of Covid I have used over 300lbs of flour.  It is just 4 of us.  We never eat out though and make everything from scratch pretty much.  Grow a lot of our own greens hydroponically in the house as well.  We LOVE to eat.

19 hours ago, MN Fisher said:

Use to hit up Godfather's

I used to go to the Godfather's buffet in Minnetonka regularly growing up too.  Its a shame its gone now.

Looks good @Deephaven! 

 

When it comes to pasta, we don't buy it from the store either. Growing up as an Italian American I learned how to make pasta from my grand parents. Futticcine, spaghetti, ravioli and gnocchi are mainstays in our house along with meatballs, chix and eggplant parm, braciole. Nothing like it. 

We don't eat it it very often anymore, but when we do, it's a real treat.

My father and I still make about 100 - 200 ravioli for Christmas.  If you're gonna make it, may as well make enough to freeze for later. ?

 

It's been a while since I've done that much cooking.  As mentioned, I lived in Northern Italy for five years and in Sicily for one year.  I feel in love with European foods, and especially the Italians.  While in northern Italy I had 72, Fiat Dino and my wife had a Porsche 911 (bought with blown engine and built a 350hp engine to put back in it) and with no speed limits on the Autostrada's and Autobahn's, it didn't take long to get most any place in Europe.  So, we took advantage of that.  We would go to different cities in Italy, Switzerland, Austria, and Germany every weekend we could, just to try different places to eat and see Europe while there.  Even got to see the Shroud of Turin while they had it on display back in the late 70's there.

 

Anyway, the cooking I enjoy doing (other than Carolina Style barbeque) are the dishes I learned from Europe.  Back then, I found that being American, if you visited a restaurant a few times and enjoyed a couple of particular dishes, the chef was more than willing to tell you how to make it, and even let you watch him make it and take notes.  They didn't use recipe's so you couldn't just ask for that.  The Italian's and Swiss were much better about that than the German's and Austrian's though.  There was an Orsini's in northern Italy we ate at often I think I ended up with half his menu.

 

Now day's, I don't have the time and the wife looks for any excuse she can not to cook.

 

Just thought about a funny happening while there.  We had a Grandfather's clock custom made in Switzerland and you should have seen the looks we got hauling it back tied on the top of a Porsche 911, in the box it was almost as big as the car.

 

I think we cook more in the winter time than we do in the summer. Saturday's and Sunday's up in a Northern state in the winter is the time that we do most of our made from scratch cooking.

I'll still prepare pizza dough the night before in the summer, but that's about it. Summer time is for the grill to us.

Anyway, this thread has been fun.

Last night (Saturday night) was a last minute decision to have pizza for today (Sunday) so I prepared a Biga for an overnight preferment. 
 

I underestimated the humidity last night and today, my dough went a little wild. 
 

Anyway, my daughters vegan pizza and my sausage pepper onion tasted great.

 

Sausage peppers and onions 

You can see how much lift I got even tho I used very little yeast. 

Tasty ? nonetheless