The Apartment Vegan Pizza

My friend Art writes The Apartment Vegan, a wonderful food blog with lots of recipes and thoughts about delicious food.

About a week or so ago (probably longer) he sent me a text with a picture and description of a beautiful pizza and then my phone went haywire and I couldn't share it with you. I was hoping he would write about pizza on his blog and - behold! He has!

Check out his pizza with fra diavlo sauce! Oh man, also, Art gives helpful hints on how to stretch dough.

Looks delicious, even with the soy cheese. Which, for the record, I am against.

Pizza at home: now with goat's milk cheese!

I am not a big fan of goat's milk cheese, so I was a bit wary when Pizzadelphia brought home a block of goat mozzarella. No longer, though, because it is delicious.

Pizzadelphia made for me last night pizza from scratch, using garlic oil instead of olive oil in the dough. We didn't notice much difference, but just knowing it was in there was helpful for my soul. Crushed tomatoes were the sauce, topped with goat mozzarella, bacon (high five for bacon!), whole cherry tomtatoes, and just a couple of oil-cured olives. I'm pretty sure there were a few grates of parmigiana reggiano on top too. Everything came together beautifully and we continue to enjoy the crispness of crust the pizza stone provides.

I love whole cherry or grape tomatoes on a pizza. They get roasted and when you bite into them have a very satisfying pop and just explode with flavor. The danger, of course, is that they want to roll off your slice while you're holding it.

Pizza dough at home

For one of my birthday parties as a girl my poor, misguided parents indulged my request for a pizza party. The morning of the party they picked up fresh pizza dough from our local bakery, the one and only Del Buono's. (Side note: locals tend to say this "Dell Boy-noes," which is so South Jersey.) They brought the dough balls home, covered them with cloth to rise, and chastised me repeatedly for sneaking little bits of raw dough to play with or eat. Then my friends came over, had a flour fight, made a couple of pizzas, and I had a great birthday.

My mom was a pizza mom at my Catholic grade school. She and a few other moms would go to the school on Friday afternoons and make pizzas for all the kids from pre-made crusts, large bags of shredded mozzarella, and most importantly, Dom Pepino pizza sauce. (More on Dom Pepino in a future post.) Sometimes my mom would bring home extra crusts and we would have "St. Rose Pizza" that night for dinner too. The days when I got to eat double pizza were some of the happiest of my childhood.

A few months ago, Pizzadelphia and I started using the Pillsbury pizza crust you can find in the refrigerator section of the grocery store. It comes in a can, just like the Grands, and rolls out to a square shape. We did all sorts of fabulous pizzas - lamb and ricotta, vodka sauce and sopressata, chicken and broccoli. I loved the ease of making pizza at home, but those roll out crusts make me fart, like a lot, and I think there are some seriously non-natural ingredients in there. I'll check and get back to you.

Recently, Pizzadelphia started making pizza dough from scratch and concocting beautiful pizzas without weird chemicals or xantham gum or anything in them. Just pure, unadulterated, pizza goodness. This is how I know Pizzadelphia loves me. There is no phrase that makes my heart swell quite like "I made you a pizza."

I'm going to try my hand at making pizza dough from scratch this weekend if possible. I am hoping the smell of fresh dough rising under a kitchen cloth brings me back to my childhood, throwing flour at my friends as my parents stood there, horrified by what they brought on themselves.



Del Buono's Bakery
(I think they still do pizza dough. Call and ask. But if not, go anyway for the animal sculptures outside and the amazing rolls and corn muffins.)
319 Black Horse Pike, Haddon Heights, NJ
856-546-9585