Sausage & Pepperoni Pizza

More pizza! There can never be enough pizza. I was flying solo tonight and set to task to knock out the kids dinner and mine all in one shot. Recently (when my wife is eating with us) I have been using the pre-made grocery store crust. This is because it is safe and predictable and does not make a mess. It tastes excellent...and it tastes like cheating.

When I make my own crust, there is really no guarantee of anything except for the fact that I will make a huge mess. But it is fun! So tonight, I sort of split the difference. I did not mind experimenting with my own crust because it was just me and the kids, but I did not have as much time as usual so I settled with a dough ball bought from Publix Bakery.

I am one of those annoying people who will talk on the phone while in the line in the grocery store and to prove that, I was actually on the phone while I spoke to the woman behind the counter in the bakery. So I think I missed her telling me something like "we are out of the normal dough, but I do have this dough that will rise so much that it can only be described as Super Thick Crust"....but I am getting ahead of myself.

I first rolled the dough out on my pizza peel, which I had already coated with flour and yellow corn meal. I then made the usual for me and the kids...italian sausage and pepperoni (pepperoni only on the portion for the kids). I always empty the sausage from the casing and brown it on the stove.



As you can see this was some thick crust and perhaps I should have just split the ball and then rolled it out even thinner than I did, but again I was pressed for time.

I then cooked the pizza on the plate setter on the BGE at around 475-500 degrees for about 15 min. It was towards the end of this cook that I noticed how much the dough had risen, so I cooked it a little longer than normal to make sure it was done all the way through.



So at the end of the day, I ended up with a thick crust pizza when I was expecting a thin crust pizza at the beginning of the night. This is typical for the types of things that happen when I play around in the crust preparation phase of pizza making. Luckily for me tonight, it was actually very good and did what many store bought crusts cannot, which is truly be something different from store bought oven pizza.

All in all it turned out well and like every time I cook pizza....I am one step closer to making the perfect pie.