I made pizza today!! This is huge for me. Possibly the biggest news since my bangs finally grew long enough to stay stuck behind my ear--hallelujah. Back to the pizza. First things first, there's basically no reason to make pizza from scratch when you live in New York. Great pizza is always less than a couple blocks away, often of the one dollar variety. When a good slice is a) close and b) cheap AF, spending time cooking pizza economically makes little sense.

But I also have a mini fear of making pizza at home. I have a very distinct memory of making pizzas all the time at church youth group. We'd use either English muffins or dough from the tube as the base and then top it with Prego sauce and cheddar cheese. The combo of flavors was suuuper sweet and I learned to stand aside and eat handfuls of pepperoni instead of participate. Bratty, yes, but mama has taste!

In case of emergency, though, and in order to avoid the pepperoni belly I had frequently as a kid, it was high time for me to figure out at-home pizza. So I did today, with a slight variation on Goodie Godmother's fantastic dough recipe, (you must check out her site; cakes galooore!) and it was great. I dug through my fridge for toppings--no pepperoni, alas, but of course we had Korean-style anchovies which are basically stir fried in pepper paste and Sprite. 👍

It was such a success that I took the rest of the day off and have been going through a queue of recommendations on Netflix "because [I] watched Bridget Jones's Diary." Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants, here I comeeee!

Korean Anchovy Pizza

For Dough (Inspired by Goodie Godmother)

3 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/2 tsp active dry yeast
1 1/2 tsp Kosher salt
1 tsp granulated garlic
1/2 tsp dried basil
1/3 cup olive oil
1 cup warm water

For the Sauce

28 oz can crushed tomatoes
4 cloves crushed garlic
pinch salt

Toppings

1 tsp dried oregano
5 oz mozzarella cheese
2 Tbsp myulchi bokkeum (stir fried anchovies)
2 tsp gochugaru

Cooking Directions

Combine flour, yeast, salt, garlic and basil in a food processor. Pulse to mix. Combine water and oil. With processor running, pour in water and oil. Continue to process until dough forms.
Dump out onto a floured surface. Dough will be quite wet. Knead and/or add in a but more flour if needed until dough springs back when pinched. Roll dough into a long rectangle and poke all over with your fingers to create indentations. Fold dough over itself in thirds and then again. Wrap dough in plastic wrap and set aside for 20 minutes at room temperature.
Tear dough into two evenly sized disks. For this recipe, I only use half of the dough and place the rest of the dough in the freezer. If not using immediately, wrap dough again and place dough in freezer or refrigerator (bring to room temperature before baking).
Preheat oven to 500 degrees and place a cast iron skillet or pizza stone in the oven to heat up. Meanwhile, combine tomatoes, garlic, salt, and oregano in a large bowl and stir.
Break one disk of dough into two even pieces. Roll dough out until you have about an 8 or 9-inch diameter. Spoon about 2 Tablespoons of tomato sauce onto dough and spread around. Slice mozzarella into 1/4 inch slices and place half on this pizza. Also sprinkle half of the anchovies.
Carefully pick up pizza, ideally with a paddle, and slide onto heated cast iron skillet--careful not to burn yourself on the hot pan!
Bake for 10-12 minutes and then repeat with remaining dough and other ingredients.
Sprinkle hot pizzas with gochugaru and serve warm.
Note: you will have a lot of leftover sauce. Place in fridge for up to a week or freeze in silicon molds for up to a month.