Pizza with Carmelized Onions and Sausage

My kids like an occasional pizza night. Unlike some enthusiastic pizza lovers, I've never tried to achieve perfection in pizza making. Instead, I've got one really reliable and flavorful dough recipe that works for hand formed pizzas that can be grilled or oven cooked.

There are some fundamental techniques that are almost mandatory - such as oven tiles and a pizza peel if cooking in an oven. Cornmeal is needed for transfer to / from the oven.

There's one exception to my approach, which a recipe for Chicago-style deep dish pizza, which is summarized in this article snippet I shared last year. The dough technique was adapted from pastry making and published in Cook's Illustrated. But that's a whole 'nuther story.

What I like about this free-form pizza making:

• You don't necessarily need tomato sauce 
• Choices for toppings are endless (past posts: Carmelized Onions, Figs and Blue Cheese, Potato, Bacon and Rosemary, Alligator Sausage, Roasted Garlic, Roasted Shallots and Spinach.)
• Even leftovers are fair game for potential toppings. 
• Kids of any age can get involved in assembling pizzas or shredding cheese(s)Dough recipes? Frankly, if you use a good source - such as Cook's Illustrated Magazine or The Essential York Times Cookbook or How to Cook Everything - you can't go wrong. 

All right, I'll publish my dough recipe with garlic, olive oil and herbs de Provence. Tomorrow.