1 cup warm water
1 tablespoon yeast
1 tablespoon sugar
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 teaspoon salt
3-1/2 cups flour

28 ounce can plum tomatoes
1/2 cup red wine
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/2 cup fresh basil, chopped
16 whole basil leaves
8 ounces mozzarella, thickly sliced
2 ounces Parmesan, grated
salt and pepper

1. Combine water, yeast and sugar in a bowl and allow to proof for about 10 minutes.
2. Stir in the salt, then whisk in the oil until well blended.
3. Gradually add in the flour until you have a soft, elastic dough.
4. Knead on a floured surface for a few minutes, then place in a greased bowl, covered, in a warm place to double in bulk.
5. Once the dough has doubled, punch it down and let it rise a second time.
6. Meanwhile, prepare the pizza sauce. Drain tomatoes, reserving the juice. Squish whole tomatoes in your hands, removing as many seeds as possible.
7. Put the reserved juice along with red wine in a sauce pan over medium-high heat and bring to a boil. Reduce until very thick.
8. Add the crushed tomatoes to the reduced sauce, along with red pepper flakes, olive oil and 3/4 of the basil. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
9. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
10. Separate dough into 2 separate pieces. Roll out dough to the size and shape you like and place on individual baking sheets.
11. Divide the sauce amongst both pizzas and sprinkle with remaining chopped basil. Arrange basil leaves where each slice would be and top with a slice of mozzarella cheese.
12. Bake pizza until crust is golden brown, about 25-30 minutes. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese, slice and serve.

Makes 8 servings

When I made the Stromboli it was as a way of making pizza without actually making pizza again, since it'd already been done previously. Technically I've even eaten pizza twice so far this year. I'm sort of unclear about my own rules on this matter. For example, when I made California Rolls I felt as though I couldn't really make sushi again, even though I've eaten it a couple times since then. Obviously there are many more types of sushi than California rolls, as there are many more types (and ways of preparing) pizza than how I had. So maybe I'm sort of bending my own rules here or maybe I just didn't clearly define them enough. In the interest of this theme, I'm going with it.

As you can see, I made a Margherita Pizza, which we ate with margaritas. This was supposed to be our original blender christening, but it was a little postponed. The margaritas went too quickly to take pictures of them (what does that say about us, really?) but throw some ice, water, lime juice and tequila in a blender with a bit of triple sec or sugar to sweeten and you'll be good to go.

Since the recipe made enough for two pizzas, Shannon made one with feta, sliced tomatoes and pineapple which was superior to mine. She was a little worried that the sauce would be too chunky, but it was absolutely perfect. Thankfully, I can make a good tomato sauce. Unfortunately, I haven't quite got the pizza part down yet and the crust turned out kind of like a bread stick. It was crisp, not chewy. This was mostly due to trying to troubleshoot the inner part of the pizza being kind of doughy. Shannon assured me it was fine, but I kept trying to bake it more until it no longer had a hint of gumminess. This totally ruined my ooey gooey cheese and made it more of a crisp cheese-like topping. Perhaps my penchant for thin crust pizzas is basically what ruined this for me, since I remember pizza with thick crusts being inherently gummy anyway. I don't know. What I do know is that I am going to invest some time and effort into making the perfect pizza crust when this project is over!