Look, mommy, I made a pizza all by myself!

Full disclosure: I may have been brought up in Massachusetts but my pizza aesthetic comes from visiting Brooklyn nearly once a month for the first 17 years of my life.

Pizza is near and dear to my existence.  Previous to my life here in Minnesota I was living in the epicenter of all things pizza, Brooklyn.  I'm not going to argue pizza pedigree or street cred or even philosophical differences.  I'm just going to state that I have high standards for pizza deliciousness level.

It's hard to get psyched about making home made pizza when I pass Punch on my way home from work.  Although it isn't New York style pizza it's a pretty damn delicious treat and not unreasonably expensive.  Plus they have those cards for a free pizza and well that's kind of awesome.

Still, making your own pizza is like giving birth, or so I hear.  You create something in a big mess and then 9 months (or minutes later) something kinda beautiful pops out of the oven.  Of course I spend every day in a shop surrounded by delicious pizza making ingredients so there is great temptation to access my inner pizza-making artist self.  Huh?

My food ethos is buy the best ingredients you can afford and don't muck them up.  Our sandwiches are a great example of that.  Simple, delicious ingredients combined to make something even more deliciouser.  Here's what happened on my pizza:

Italian burrata ($12)
DOP San Marzano Tomatoes ($5)
Castel di Lego Olive Oil ($27 for the whole bottle)
Fresh Basil
Parmigiano Reggiano
Fra'mani salametto

That's it.  I'd say the burrata and the san marzanos were the key.  Oh and of course owning a good pizza stone.  My oven only goes up to 500 degrees (though has anyone else considered trying to cook it on the self cleaning cycle--I suppose you'd have to unplug the oven to get the door to unlock) however the crust had a nice crisp edge.

Certainly I was satisfied with the two pizzas that I made and they were just as delicious as anything I could buy and the cost was probably around $10 a pizza and I had left over san marzano tomatoes to use in salsa.  Not super cheap but I haven't seen too many burrata pizzas around town.  And if you used our fantastic calabro whole milk mozzarella then you'd probably cut your costs in half.