Can I come over?

But I still have 3 more dough balls in the fridge, so there will be more tomorrow.

I can bring a bottle of wine.

How hot was your oven when you put it in?

My oven just will not get hot enough.

I really want a new oven, but a gimbaled propane oven is sooooo expensive.

My pizza is always, well.... soggy.

If your pizza is too soggy, try using a no-sauce sauce. Dice up some Roma tomatoes, wrap them in cheese-cloth and squeeze out all the moisture you can. Season the tomato as you normally would with salt, oregano, etc. Brush a layer of extra virgin olive oil on your crust before putting the tomato and toppings on. I find this trick works pretty well with home ovens that tend to make soggy pizza.

I usually slice up the tomato for a Margherita pizza, salt it and let it sit in a colander for an hour or so.

But I think chopping it up and squeezing might help.

Just dice up the tomato into small pieces and leave them as is. If you puree the tomatoes, this breaks up the cell walls and releases the moisture within. So it's basically just making a pizza without any sauce with just the diced tomato used instead.

Also you want to get your pizza stone as hot as possible. However long it takes for your oven to normally warm up to it's hottest temperature, double that at least if not longer. Then set your oven to broil for 5 minutes to get the surface of the pizza stone as hot as possible.

You also want your pizza stone to be about 8" from the top element, which usually means the rack position that's one down from the top. That part of the oven will be hotter than the lower racks.

One problem I have is that I have to be somewhat frugal about the propane, so pizza may just not be something we can have at home.

Thanks for all the advice, though. Someday I may again have a normal stove. In the meantime, I make a mean stromboli!

I haven't tried it, but sounds interesting!

http://on.aol.com/video/baking-pizza-in-a-homemade-brick-oven-507004166

"We’re going to be using some tiles that we can purchase at the hardware store to convert our standard Brooklyn rental apartment junky oven into a really great heat capturing New York style brick oven. You just need unglazed quarry tiles from the hardware store."

It tops out at 500. Before I put the pizza in, I put it on broil for about 5 minutes to get my pizza stone as hot as possible. When the pizza goes in, I set the oven off broil, cook the pizza for 5 minutes, then 2 more with it back on broil. For this pizza which has a thicker outer crust than I usually bake, I should have baked it for at least 6 minutes instead of 5 initially. Tomorrow I will try that and see how it works.

Real pizza ovens get much hotter.

If you had 1500 degrees at your disposal, it would be much easier!

like 20 mins, so it's a deep down recorded heat, not just surface.

Pizza in general looks great - definitely on the right track. I once dedicated a year to perfecting this stuff - takes retries and retries, but unless you char-burn the bottom, it's good eatin' the whole experiment through.

The last 5 minutes I put the oven on broil to heat the surface even hotter. I can generally get the pizza stone surface to about 550 as measured with my infrared thermometer.

This is what I do. I put in on a cookie rack and keep moving it around. A lot of moisture comes out of the bottom of the crust. Also, I cook the pizza until the cheese gets golden brown.

Stolen from The California Pizza Kitchen Cookbook

Ingredients
1 teaspoon active dry yeast
½ cup plus 1 tablespoon warm water ( at about 110°F)
1½ cups bread flour (high gluten flours also work)
2 teaspoons sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons extra virgin olive oil

Directions
Dissolve the yeast in the water and let it proof for 5 to 10 minutes. The yeast should have a little island of fizz/bubbles before you start. (if you're using instant yeast dissolve it in the water and skip the proof).

In a separate bowl mix all of the dry ingredients and create a little well in the middle. Dump your yeast mixture and the olive oil into the well and stir with either your fingers or a wooden spoon. Once a lumpy kind of dough forms lightly oil your hands and start to knead the ball. Knead it for at least 5 minutes, until the dough is smooth but slightly tacky. Lightly coat the ball in olive oil and place in an airtight container, allow to rise at room temperature for 1½ to 2 hours.

You can use the dough at this point, but for a finer texture and a nice, mellow sort of tang do the following: Deflate the dough, bunch it back up into a ball, put it back into the container, and stow it in your refrigerator overnight.

About 2 hours before you're going to make your pizza, remove the dough from the refrigerator, deflate again, and split into 2 equal portions. Roll both portions into balls, sealing any cracks as tightly as possible. Place the new dough balls on opposite sides of a shallow dish and cover with plastic wrap. Let them sit at room temperature for 2 hours (they'll be much easier to shape).

Top your pizzas however you like.

Heat your pizza stone (or failing that, the floor of your oven with both racks taken out) to 500°F, roll out your dough balls, top them, and slide them into the oven using a cornmeal-dusted pizza peel (or anything smooth and thin, like a cutting board).

You can make pizza out of just about any bread recipe. However, I went the extra mile and made a pretty sophisticated dough for this pizza. The recipe is pretty complicated and involves Italian 00 flour, a lot of steps, and a lot of time to develop. Lately I've been into making artisan bread and it's not for the faint of heart if you do it right. The techniques involved take a bit of time to learn and require quite a bit of attention to detail, but the same techniques are used for a lot of different types of bread.

The recipe I used turned out fantastic. Normally forming the crust is a pain and you often get tears when you try to make the crust very thin, especially if you form it by hand instead of rolling it out. The recipe I used had a strong gluten structure so it held up to forming quite well, but still had great texture and flavor. Now all I need to do is build a wood-fired pizza oven in my backyard.

that looks magazine worthy

and tummy worthy.

beautiful