I add a little dried oregano to my dough, and use half white flour and half whole wheat flour. I also mix the dough in the bread machine because I hate hate hate kneading.

I've been experimenting with flour ratios lately--half whole-wheat is just slightly wheatier than I'd generally prefer. I think I'm going to try 1/3.

Homemade pizza is a regular staple 'round the house. I also use half white and half whole wheat. I make the dough in my bread machine - a two pound chunk. I usually divide it in two and wrap one chunk to freeze for later, so I can pull it out later on if I'm anticipating a busy weeknight ahead.

I use flat baking sheets at really high heat to bake them. First I dust the baking sheets with cornmeal for easy removal. I keep meaning to pick up a ceramic roofing tile from Home Depot to serve as a pizza stone (I hear they're just as good as the much more expensive pizza stones marketed in cooking stores), but haven't gotten around to it yet.

Toppings are so endlessly varied, which is fun. Sometimes we make white pizza, with a ricotta base, and other times red pizza, and sometimes not really any sauce at all, just slices of fresh tomato. Sometime this week, maybe tonight, I'm going to make a pizza topping of asparagus, mushrooms, and caramelized red onion. That should be good.

Asparagus is always terrific on pizza.

I like to cook mine on the back of a lightly buttered or oiled, pre-heated cast-iron frying pan.

I add a pinch of sugar for a slightly sweeter crust. We can taste the difference and the sugar seems to make nice nice with the yeast and keeps the dough flat and tight, so it doesn't rise too much. Our fav toppings are caramelized onions and asiago, or sliced tomato and asiago. Yummies!

Mrs Agogo and I are always experimenting with pizza, but in the past few years we've focused on the sauce and toppings. We stopped making our own dough every since one of our markets started selling fresh pizza dough. It's so damn close to what we'd make that the effort didn't seem worth it anymore.

And in full disclosure, when I saw "we", I mean her. She's the chef - I'm there for moral support and snacking.

Like Miko - we're big fans of white pizza and pizza with no sauce (just a little olive oil). The possibilities are endless. Sometimes I like a heavy pizza with loads of toppings, but I'm starting to prefer a more sparse pizza with just a few ingredients.

Ooh, baking sheets. I've got one with a bunch of tiny holes in it--I usually use that at first, then remove it and cook the pizza right on the oven rack for the last couple minutes. I've also got a pizza stone, but for some reason I seldom use it.

The toppings I usually do for ours are fresh basil, tomatoes, spinach, feta, onion and kalamatas, with a drizzle of garlic-infused OO and a sprinkle of oregano to finish. Simple and fairly common but tremendously yum.

Another fan of carmelized onions here. Carmelized onions and fontina make a damn good pizza.

I add fennel seed to my sauce, too.

Oh and you cannot go wrong with a nice sprinkle (read: huge handful) of good romano on top. We should probably own stock in Locatelli Pecorino Romano at this point.

I also like to roast a little garlic in olive oil, then put both on top of the pizza.

I don't really make pizza at home. Mom does, but not me. I do make flatbreads with cheese and fruit and nuts, using Mom's pizza dough. Walnut, blue cheese and pears is good. I like figs and rosemary, too, with goat cheese. Cream cheese and chutney works.

I've never made pizza at home, but now I want to start!

One thing I like to do, and I can't say for sure if it helps, but I always start my pizza off on the lowest rack in the oven...then move it up to finish it. Seems to work out nicely!

Also, fresh oregano when possible!

Emergency Pizza <--don't hurt me! ;)

My favorite is pork roast and sharp cheddar cheese with a mustard base. I cook mine in a convection oven with a flat cast iron pan. Chicken/cheese/mustard is almost as good.

I think I need to make some pizza this weekend. I have a ball of dough in the freezer that I've been trying to figure out what to make.

I like to make the dough ahead and chill it overnight, which makes it easier to roll out. Like sperose, I often freeze a ball or two and use it later. Lately, I've been using the Cook's Illustrated recipe, which is pretty basic but uses a food processor. (My back problem is aggravated by kneading, which has been a big adjustment for me.)

I don't really have any pizza secrets. The baking stone makes a big difference in texture; Miko, it's well worth having and you can often pick them up, completely unused and still in their wrapping, at garage sales or thrift stores. I got mine at a yard sale fifteen years ago, and it's still going strong. (If you have a crappy little apartment oven like mine, you might want to leave the stone in all the time, to regulate the oven's temperature. It soaks up heat and retains it, keeping the heat more constant during baking.)

Around the same time, a friend emptying out a restaurant gave me an honest-to-goodness full-sized pizza peel, which is handy. Or you can just use a cookie sheet and slide the pizza off onto the stone.

I make my pizzas on parchment, which means I can have several lined up to go in for a big crowd and I never have to worry that the pizza will stick or that the cheese will leak onto the stone and scorch. The parchment may singe and curl and blacken, but it pulls right off the crispy bottom of the pizza when it's cooked.

Anybody got a good pizza sauce? I often use pesto or just olive oil but haven't messed too much with making my own red sauce.

What I've been experimenting with is high temperature cooking. I heat up my gas grill as hot as it will go, turn off one side and put the pizza on the rack. Rotate every so often so that the side closes to the still active grill changes. It's worked pretty well so far (first time I torched the crust though).

I saute some garlic in olive oil, then thrown in some basil/oregano/red chili flakes/fennel. (I think that's the fourth time I've typed 'red chili flakes' today.) Then, add a can of crushed tomatoes. Simmer for 5-10 minutes.

Et voila -- sauce.

I could write and write about pizza since I've been making it once a week for a very long time now but I have a bad headache so you'll have to excuse me.

Surprise topping I have not yet tried since first having: corn. That's right, fresh corn. A friend made it for dinner, and it was fantastic. I embrace interesting food combinations, but everyone I've told of the addition of corn onto pizza think I'm crazy, but others are fans (more fun toppings discussed, like pears).

It's been a while, so I'm fuzzy on the details, though I believe that there wasn't any sauce, and that the corn was layered between the dough and the cheese, with more veggies on top of the cheese. Some day I'll get someone to try it with me.

I seem to recall reading that corn on pizza is popular in some foreign (that is, non-US) country or other.

Also, I've had it on various Mexican/Southwestern/whatnot kinda pizzas, and I like it there.

A few random thoughts on pizza making (I make pizza at least once a week, sometimes more); take with as many grains of salt as you deem appropriate:

The stone is critical; find a way to get one. Skip the cooking store and head to the art supply place. A kiln shelf makes a fantastic pizza stone. My mom picked one up in the 70s before pizza stones were available, and it works great. It's also a bit bigger and thicker than those dinky round ones you see sometimes. Preheat for an hour, and if you remember, hit it with the broiler while you roll out the dough to get it extra hot.

I've made a couple of changes to my dough recipe lately that have helped a great deal.

First, I've gone to all-purpose flour rather than bread flour as a result of an article in Cooks Illustrated. Home ovens just don't get hot enough to crisp up the higher protein in bread flour.

Second, I'm making a much wetter dough: 2 cups flour, 1 cup water, 1 tsp yeast, 1/2 tsp salt. Ideally, make it the night before and leave it in the fridge overnight to ferment. Otherwise, let it rest to hydrate for at least 20 mins; even a couple of hours if you can swing it helps. (See The Breadbaker's Apprentice by Peter Reinhart for more on lnger fermentation; best book I've read on baking). With the wetter dough and a hydration rest, you don't have to knead much at all.

For a quick & easy sauce lately, I've been draining a can of diced tomatoes w/ oregano & basil and then pureeing it with a couple of cloves of garlic and a little extra oregano. Make a pizza, then freeze the other half for next time.

After you put on the cheese give it a sprinkle of oregano, crushed red pepper & garlic powder.

In the summer, peaches, prosciutto and goat are awesome on pizza (though my brother the pizza purist refuses to acknowledge such alternate toppings as pizza).

I occasionally make a white pizza to mix things up: dough as above, then top with olive oil, garlic, fresh rosemary, and Parm.

Mmmmm, goat!

/sorry

I make my pizza dough pretty much like the recipe given but I add more water, don't knead it, and let it sit in the fridge for at least 24 hours to activate the gluten. This makes for a tasty, stretchy dough that will pull into shape and give a crisp-yet-chewy crust.

I don't have a pizza stone but I do have those trays with the little holes in them - I like them. Generally, I pre-cook the base for 5 minutes before adding a thin layer of topping and give it 10 minutes max back in the (extremely hot) oven. Best pizza ever.

I love aragula, bocconcini and pancetta or lamb-mince, feta, thyme and garlic oil on a tomato base. If it wasn't going to be so damn hot today, I'd do this for dinner. Perhaps tomorrow when the cool change comes through...

MmmMMmMmmmm...I love this thread!

We either use frozen dough balls from the store, or occasionally Mrs. Triode makes the dough, using on Peter Reinhart's recipe. (HOFB) (it's pretty wet, and it's better than storebought.)

Our "House" pizza is:
olive oil around the crust edges
Sauce is a quick stick-blender pesto with a dab of tomato paste
Onions sauteed to light golden
Musrooms sauteed w/ garlic & dash of dry sherry
Pancetta bits
Shredded mozz & a few cranks of parm. reg.

Restraint with toppings will pay crispiness dividends. Bake ~5 min at 500+ on the stone until it's 90 seconds from done. Quickly dump a raw egg into the center. When the egg white sets and the yolk is still soft, remove from oven. Crank of pepper. Eat. Yum.