By Susan of Farmgirl Fare

Cranking up the oven to 500 degrees for a couple of hours might not be your idea of fun during late summer, but that’s just what you should be doing right now. Backyard gardens and farmers’ markets are brimming with vine-ripened tomatoes, bouqets of basil, and all sorts or other pizza-friendly ingredients, making this the tastiest time of year for homemade pizza.

Whenever someone tells me they want to try baking their own bread but have no idea where to begin, I suggest they start with pizza. This is the equivalent of learning to make biscuits or scones before attempting Danish pastry and éclairs. Pizza dough is not temperamental or fussy. The actual hands-on work usually takes less than 10 minutes, and you can let it rise for as little or as long as you like. It is extremely difficult to ruin and will almost never let you down. Serious pizza dough disasters are rare.

When two friends and I started a new blog called A Year in Bread last year, we naturally tackled pizza dough first. The touch of honey in Kevin’s favorite crust gives it a “nicely sweet lilt.” Beth’s signature pizza dough conveniently rises in the fridge overnight, and my simple recipe produces a crisp, chewy crust that you’ll be sinking your teeth into in less than three hours.

Can’t wait that long? Andrea at Andrea’s Recipes makes a kid-approved, whole wheat pizza crust that goes in the oven in under 30 minutes. Over in the kitchn, Emma shares her tried and true, no-rise thin crust recipe for those in need of pizza in a hurry.

If thick crust is your thing, don’t miss Chopper’s amazing Meatball Deep Dish Pizza over on Belly Timber; it bakes in a cast iron skillet and is served up with a side dish of pizza history.

Of course there’s more to pizza than just the crust. Faith from the kitchn tells us that “good sauce is essential to great pizza, and homemade pizza sauce is almost as easy as opening a jar.” She offers up recipes for both red and white sauce, “since some toppings do better on a mild, creamy base.” When faced with a bounty of tomato ’seconds’ in my kitchen garden, I turn them into a flavorful sauce that cooks up quickly and requires no blanching, peeling, or seeding.

Pesto makes a perfect pizza ’sauce,’ and a pizza topped with homemade basil pesto and slices of fresh tomatoes is my idea of the ultimate summer indulgence. Some pizzas don’t call for sauce of any kind, such as this simple Three Onion & Three Cheese Pizza, or the gorgeous Pear & Gorgonzola Flatbread with Baby Arugula & Shaved Parmesan that Jaden made in her Steamy Kitchen using no-knead pizza dough.

Even those who eat gluten-free don’t have to go without pizza, as deliciously demonstrated by Natalia the Gluten Free Mommy and Karina the Gluten Free Goddess.

Still not ready to turn on the oven? Then crank up the grill and cook your pizza outdoors instead - right after checking out these helpful grilled pizza tips on Slice, a part of the Serious Eats food blog community. Or walk through the steps with Nic in her Cooking School grilled pizza post on Baking Bites.

For those of you who love New York style pizza and know that - soaring summer temperatures or not - when it comes to pizza, the hotter the oven the better the pie, ex-New Yorker Jeff Varasano is about to become your new hero. He shares his famous New York pizza recipe on his popular website, along with extensive pizza making tips and instructions on how he rigged his home oven so that it’ll heat up to a crust-charring 850 degrees. Jeff is even turning his passion into a new profession; construction has just begun on Varasano’s Pizzeria, which will be located in the Mezzo building on Peach Street in Atlanta.

One of the best things about homemade pizza is that the possibilities are endless, and you’ll find all sorts of other pizza recipes on FoodieView.

Susan Thomas shares recipes, stories, and photos from her crazy country life on 240 remote Missouri acres on her award-winning blog, Farmgirl Fare - and always has at least three kinds of homemade pizza in the freezer.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 2nd, 2008 at 8:25 am and is filed under Recipe Roundup. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.