We made out first pizzas on the Akorn. 3/4 cup of warm water, 1 package of yeast. Let it sit for a while. Mix up 2 cups of all purpose, 1/4 cup of olive oil, teaspoon of salt, 1/2 teaspoon of sugar. Mix all of that together and let it sit for about an hour on some floured surface. It will about double in size.

Get the Akorn going good to about 600 degrees. I used the ceramic heat deflector beneath the grill and Mrs. Irish's pizza stone on the grill. Let everything heat up like a mofo.

Toss some corn meal on a cookie sheet and take half the dough and throw it on there. Roll that crap out.

The first one we slathered on some tomato sauce we had been making, some chopped fresh basil and some mozzarella and a drizzle of olive oil. Threw that pizza Margarita on the stone for about 5 minutes.

Same for the next one, but we put fresh pineapple and ham on it.

Pizza Margarita:


Hawaiian:




It was pretty dang good for our first time. There is still room for improvement and we already have a better plan for next time. We are shooting for the best pizza we have ever eaten.

amazing how a "grill" can give pizza a new dimension. pizza rocks

What's your sauce recipe if you don't mind me asking?

It is amazing. Pizza needs to cook HOT and that is not an option for the oven inside the house when it's past 100 degrees outside. Plus, my indoor oven can't get hot enough to do one of these right.

Plus it gives it that wood fired taste that you can only get at a high end pizza place like Post Office Pies or Bettola.

I'm going to crack an egg in the middle of my next one like they do at Bettola. That was the best pizza I have ever had in my life. period.

Real basic...

Tomato sauce
salt
pepper
oregano
garlic
sugar

Simmer in a pan for about 15 minutes to marry all the flavors. Taste and adjust seasonings about midway through.

Drizzle olive oil on the crust after you roll it out and before you ladle on the sauce and over the top of the pizza before you cook it.

We figured keep the sauce simple and let the toppings stand out.

Like I say this homemade pizza in the Akorn is something new to us, and even though the first ones were great, we will still be tweaking and experimenting with the basic recipe.

We do Fresh Market already made dough. Add our toppings and little olive oil and corn meal on stone to keep it from sticking. Great meal
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I may have to give this a try. I wonder if it would be even better if the sauce was made a day or so ahead of time. I cook a lot of soups and stews that seem to be better on day 2 than it was on the day I cooked it. Chili always seems to be this way. It's like the spices have had time to be infused after it sits a day in the fridge.

FYI, you can buy frozen chunks of pizza dough. The only place I've ever found it was at Whole Foods. I'm not a baker so I refrain from all manners of bread making.

The dough is the easiest part... Mainly because Mrs. Irish makes it... Seriously... it's easy.

We did some more...

Homemade dough the same way... Mrs. Irish uses Frank Stitt's recipe for the dough. This time for the sauce we used a jar of her home canned heirloom tomatoes, fresh chopped garlic, red pepper flakes, fresh basil, oregano, thyme, olive oil, tomato paste, salt, pepper and a but of sugar and simmered it for a while.

The pizza was the fresh dough, the sauce, fresh basil and mozzarella. Right when I put it on the stone I cracked a fresh brown egg right in the middle.







Once we get this basic pizza mastered, then we will start branching out with toppings.