It is the last Sunday of January. We finally got some snow around here:

I invited Niles and Little T over for some pizza today but I wasn’t sure if they were going to come over due to the snow. A lot of the neighborhood kids were sledding down the hill behind our house. This was the first time in a year and a half that we had enough snow for that. Apparently, Little T doesn’t like playing in the snow while it is snowing, so he preferred pizza time instead.

I made enough dough for three pizzas today. The dough was looking really smooth today when I pulled it out of the beer fridge:

As I was moving stuff around to setup the mise en place, I noticed that the flour container has a blister just like the olive oil squirt bottle:

The electric griddle has now taken down two plastic containers. I was trying to be careful but I guess I was not careful enough. This is a new griddle bought within the past six months or so. Now I know why the previous griddle had a large plastic bezel around the entire thing.

Ken’s brother, Mike, sent over pictures yesterday from his adventures in baking pizza. He mentioned that he used this pizza sauce recipe. I figured I would try it out too.

The author of the sauce recipe does not like canned tomato liquid. Let it drain for an hour? I’m too impatient for that. I dumped the tomatoes into a colander and hosed them down with tap water. I cut out the stems as instructed and mashed them up with a fork. I couldn’t find the potato masher and I tried my hands but that was squishy and taking too long. I gave up and put the sauce in the stand mixer using the whisk attachment. It combined well but was still a bit chunky:

Rumor has is that Grotto uses white colby cheese on their pizza. I couldn’t find that at the store, but why not try with some standard colby jack. I put in about 30% of the colby jack to 70% of the part-skim milk mozzarella. I cubed the cheese today instead of shredding:

I was ready to go with the first pizza when Niles and the kid showed up. I assembled the first cheese pizza quickly while we were chatting:

After I launched the pizza, Niles asked what the agenda was for today. I told him I changed something in the pizza but it was up to him to find out what that was. After seven minutes:

He quickly noticed that the cheese blend was new and that something was different with the sauce. The colby jack added a distinctive flavor and it was one that I’ve tasted in other pizzas before. According to my taste buds, Grotto does have this cheese, but in what quantities I do not know. Niles said that the sauce tasted too basic. That something was missing.

Time for some toppings–pepperoni, onion, and some banana peppers. I made the onion slices thicker today but not MOD Pizza thick. This pizza looked great before it even hit the oven:

This pizza needed an extra minute to bake completely:

This was a delicious pizza. This combination of toppings always works well but for some reason it tasted even better today. Two pizzas baked and no slices left over.

I was going to make a pizza for Zach but he had to leave before it was baking time. Ben got the last pizza instead. The always classic pepperoni:

Three pizzas later and there wasn’t much sauce left:

The author of the sauce recipe was against using a blender claiming that chopping up the tomato seeds leads to a slightly bitter taste. I’ve also heard from a few sources to completely drain the liquid in the can because that also contributes to a slightly bitter taste. That is probably why the recipe called for a full hour of draining. After following these instructions there was only enough sauce for three pizzas. When I keep the liquid and blend everything together, I can fill a full 32 oz mason jar which is enough for two weekends of six pizzas each.

I think it is just easier to add honey or sugar.