The list of things that are important to a good pizza is plentiful: the dough (you even need the right water), the sauce, the cheese and the wood fired oven. You can get around a lot of those things and make some pretty good pizza at home with a pizza stone. I preheat the oven to 450F with the stone on the middle wrack.
For this pizza I pretty much phoned it in for the above important parts ... the dough was Pillsbury from a can, the sauce was just Barilla tomato and garlic, and the cheese was Italian six cheese blend (Giant brand). For toppings I used some spicy sausage and shiitake mushrooms, so not exactly traditional.
Now, it is possible to cook on a pizza stone without a proper peel, but I don't recommend it. I have an Epicurean pizza peel (you can find it on Amazon here) that I use, but any peel will work.
The key is to be able to get the entire pizza on the peel at once, and to have a slanted front so you can easily get under the pizza. I put a little flour on the peel to put the pizza into the oven to make sure it slides right off and onto the stone. Once on the stone, cook until the crust is browned and cheese is bubbly (I try to rotate the pizza at least once).
Use the slanted edge of the peel to get under the pizza and then with a quick motion, push the peel under until the entire pie is on. At that point you can pull it out and move it to the counter.
It's possible to cut on the peel (especially with an Epicurean) but I don't recommend doing that with a regular pizza cutter as you will shorten the life and effectiveness of your peel. Instead I used a blade style pizza cutter, also from Epicurean, that doesn't damage my peel. So what are you still waiting for? Get a peel and a stone and enjoy!
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