We'd always head to Pizzaville (Lenny's) in Mt. Washington. The place was full of character, had pretty decent food and was never packed. It's been closed for a while now I believe.

(04-24-2014 09:49 PM)glacier_dropsy Wrote:  I think you guys are being way too easy on Larosa's. They have always had the sweet red sauce, which I think is pretty damn good. But it was about 15 years ago they started using frozen dough in all of their stores, and that's when I stopped caring for the future of Larosa's. Their pizza pretty much sucks now. If you take the time to raise your own dough, you can make way better at home with a pizza stone, a can of dei fratelli sauce, cheese and toppings.

There is just no doubt about it - you are dead on.

Maybe you have tried this way of making dough and crusts at home. Its really the secret to getting both that incredible crusty outside and the slightly chewy middle "bite"

Take what the recipe call for in total flour and use 1/2 regular unbleached AP flour and 1/2 "00" Italian pizza/bread flour.

You can find "00" flour at Jungle Jim's, Italian Deli's and sometimes I just order it off Amazon


Also I still do some pizzas with red sauce. But have really started to make more with simple olive oil based sauces. I thought my kids would protest but they came on board enthusiastically.
1/2 cup or so olive oil - throw in a few cloves of garlic, a 1/4 or 1/2 teaspoon of oregano, a little black pepper and a few red pepper flakes in a saucepan and heat it on the lowest possible setting for as long as you want to infuse it all. I leave it on for a half hour to over an hour.

Here is my tip for the truly insane - Awesome pizza needs extremely high heat. Production line pizza ovens like LaRosas are great for making a lot of pizzas, bad for making excellent pizzas. If you want to mimic a raging top end pizza oven in your own home here is what you could, but definitely should not do:

Your oven probably has a self cleaning mechanism with a bar that you flip over when you want to start the self clean process. Your oven is capable of getting far hotter than your temp dial reads in order to burn off carbon and other deposits, This bar pulls a lever that locks the oven so that you can't open it mid-process and get a face or arm of inferno and also so you, devious bastrd, you, cant try and cook awesome things. And the safety feature works very well to do what it was meant to do and to prevent.

Unless you were to file down the internal latch mechanism rendering the safety mechanism useless. And thus allowing you to clean your oven and/or have unfettered access to this nuclear hot feature for cooking .

Please understand this is not a recommendation, it is potentially unsafe and will certainly void any warranty you might or might not have. Unless you want to make great pizza crusts, cast iron pan sear thick steaks etc - then go ahead and do it.

Eastside- you think my landlord would appreciate me adding a ridiculously hot cooking feature to his oven? He could add it to the house description when he lists it.

This thread is making me hungry, going to have to make some tuna pizza soon.

(04-25-2014 12:11 PM)bearcatmark Wrote:  Eastside- you think my landlord would appreciate me adding a ridiculously hot cooking feature to his oven? He could add it to the house description when he lists it.

Absolutely Mark!

You are unlocking hidden value in his appliances, who wouldn't appreciate that?

I might suggest a strong window exhaust fan and figuring out how to disable the smoke alarm too.

(04-25-2014 02:28 PM)Eastside_J Wrote:  

(04-25-2014 12:11 PM)bearcatmark Wrote:  Eastside- you think my landlord would appreciate me adding a ridiculously hot cooking feature to his oven? He could add it to the house description when he lists it.

Absolutely Mark!

You are unlocking hidden value in his appliances, who wouldn't appreciate that?

I might suggest a strong window exhaust fan and figuring out how to disable the smoke alarm too.

FWIW, the guys at Jungle Cooking school recommend buying canned Italian plum tomatoes and simmering them down to the volume and consistency you desire. Spice as needed. They gently use a spoon or manual potato masher to help the large plum toms to break up. It works.

(04-26-2014 07:09 AM)beck Wrote:  

(04-25-2014 02:28 PM)Eastside_J Wrote:  

(04-25-2014 12:11 PM)bearcatmark Wrote:  Eastside- you think my landlord would appreciate me adding a ridiculously hot cooking feature to his oven? He could add it to the house description when he lists it.

Absolutely Mark!

You are unlocking hidden value in his appliances, who wouldn't appreciate that?

I might suggest a strong window exhaust fan and figuring out how to disable the smoke alarm too.

FWIW, the guys at Jungle Cooking school recommend buying canned Italian plum tomatoes and simmering them down to the volume and consistency you desire. Spice as needed. They gently use a spoon or manual potato masher to help the large plum toms to break up. It works.

No pantry is complete without some good canned tomatoes. A tomato that has been allowed to ripen on the vine and properly canned will always taste better than a tomato picked while green. It can still turn a pretty red color, but the flavor and consistency are worlds apart from a vine ripened tomato.