Double vision......

No, that was a Foreigner song.

Double Trouble then?

No, but I love the late, great Stevie Ray Vaughn.

Let's just call it double pie for the Syracuse-Villanova game this past Monday night.

The 'Cuse manged to beat 'Nova in Philly avenging an earlier loss at the Dome.

Sitting at 23-6, and 6th place in the Big East with two games to go we're in pretty good shape heading into March.

So here's the pizza deal.

I'm constantly searching for ways and methods to make a better pie in my home oven.

A year or two ago I had no idea as to the variety of ways one can cook a pizza.

I used to just slap out the dough on a round pan, and bake it at 375 or 400 degrees. 

Cooking time would be about 15 minutes.

It'd make a passably good pie, but nothing to write home about.

Then I discovered Slice. An offshoot of the Serious Eats website, which is basically a running discussion on pizza.  

I could write a ton about Slice, but if you're serious about pizza, I'd recommend that you click on the link above an explore it.

My latest method involves using my pizza stone.

In a discussion on Slice last week about cooking methods, one of the comments inspired me to do the following.

1. I placed the stone on the 2nd highest level and pre-heated my gas oven to 525 degrees for 45 mins.

2. While it was heating up I made 2 pies. A white pizza with Evoo,chopped garlic, onion, sliced tomato, fresh grated parm, mozz, dried basil, and oregano.  The 2nd was a basic cheese pie with tomato sauce.

Here's the white pie on the peel, and on parchment paper, which I've found makes the transfer easy from peel to stone. 

3. After 45 mins. of pre-heat I turned on the broiler for 10 mins. to maximize the heating of the stone (my broiler is on the top of my oven).

4. I switched the oven back to bake @ 525, slid the pies in (one at a time).

They were done in under 5 mins. each.

Here's the finished products.

The white pie.

The cheese pie.

They were both very good.  

A lot better than anything I made a couple of years ago.

I think it's time to make another pie.....