Last night I finally made pizza and it was better than I ever imagined! I used the exact directions from Ricardo’s Pizza Crust over at AllRecipes.com and I was a bit concerned because the dough was extremely sticky. I also had to let the dough sit for a couple extra hours, in addition to rolling it out 3 times because I was a dolt.

As a note to this crust recipe, I used a pizza stone to bake the pizza in the oven but I think because I went for the thicker crust version, it would have done much better without one. The top was perfectly golden after about 15 minutes but the bottom was barely cooked at all…so next time no stone. If you go with a thinner crust, you should have better results with the stone.

NOTE: We’ve made this pizza crust quite often now, sometimes once a week, and you can easily leave the basil and oregano out if you want. I always throw in the garlic though because it just smells heavenly when it’s rising. The crust hasn’t turned out quite as fluffy as the first time – I don’t know if that has to do with the stone or the multiple risings…but it still tastes awesome.

Now on to the toppings. Aside from doing a few build-your-own pizzas where you just buy a pre-done crust and go from there, I have never really made pizza. But the last time we were in Italy, Stefan and I had an eggplant pizza that was to DIE FOR! Since we have two fresh eggplants here that some friends brought over, I figured this was the perfect way to use them. So I looked up an eggplant pizza recipe and went about trying to achieve the best results.

I sliced the eggplant into 1/3-inch slices, spread them out on a baking sheet which was covered with baking paper and lightly brushed with the olive oil. Then I ground some fresh pepper and salt over the slices before putting them in the oven. They only need about 4 minutes on each side, just until they start to brown. Then you need to flip them over and brown the other side as well.

While that’s cooking in the pot, throw a couple tablespoons of olive oil in a small saucepan with 2 cloves minced garlic and some crushed red pepper. Heat the oil and saute the garlic and pepper in the oil until they become fragrant. Be careful not to burn the garlic!

Your eggplant slices should be about done now so get your crust and spread a tiny amount of marinara sauce on it. We didn’t do this last night but when we reheat it, I think I’ll be dipping the pizza in sauce which should taste even better. It was fantastic the way it was, but just seemed to lack marinara. Then sprinkle 1/4 of your cheese onto the pizza. I used 1/4 cup parmesan plus a handful of mozzarella. Next come the eggplant slices, which you can then drizzle with the olive oil/garlic/pepper mixture. Then load on the rest of your cheese (in our case another 1/4 cup parmesan plus about 3 handfuls of mozzarella) and you’re ready to pop your pizza in the oven.

It will need to bake at about 500° F (250° C ) for 12-15 minutes. Because of the pizza stone mishap I had to remove the pizza from the stone and let it bake another 8 minutes or so. I covered the top of the pizza with foil to prevent it from browning any further and it worked out perfectly (somewhat to my own surprise lol!)

As mentioned before, the only thing I would probably do differently is add the marinara to the pizza…and eliminate the stone. We can’t wait to finally build our clay oven and try this pizza in there…although we may start to draw a crowd of neighbors cause it smells so good when you’re making it!