Pizza woes again...

It's supposed to be the easiest food in the world to make, right? Then why do I keep screwing it up?!? I can make things far more complex without a problem, but apparently the pizza fairy has skipped me.

The problem lies in the crust, of course.
I've tried different recipes, some failing more than others.
The recipe I've followed lately is
2/3 cup water
1 tbsp. Olive Oil
1 3/4 cups flour
1/2 tsp. sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
1 1/4 tsp. instant yeast

I mix it all together and then knead (adding more flour as necessary to keep it from being so sticky) for about 10 minutes. I let it rise for an hour or so (sometimes more), then knead again, let it rest for another half hour, then try to punch it down and stretch it out. What I usually end up with is crispy crust, when I'm looking for chewy crust.

Tonight I tried using my starter to make a sourdough pizza:

It turned out very good. I was afraid it would be too sour, but the sourness was totally overpowered by the tomato and garlic sauce.

I used something in the ballpark of:

1 cup starter
2 cups bread flour
1 cup water
2 teaspoons salt

I had a bit of extra dough so I made breadsticks too, which are in the foreground.

For the Portlanders reading this site, some interesting news is that A Pizza Scholls moved from the outer westside to SE 47th and Hawthorne (see map).

This place has gotten rave reviews. What they make is really artisan pizza: long, slow rises and nothing but flour, salt, yeast, and water in their dough.

It is only open for dinner, and only on Wednesday through Sunday evenings, but it definitely looks worth checking out.

Since the whole point to having a sponge is to add extra flavor and richness to the bread, is there anything from keeping me from doing the pizza dough as a sponge method, or does that only work for bread?

Recipe adapted from Brother Juniper's Bread Book.
My husband worked at the Br. Juniper's bakery in HS so we've eaten a lot of these things.

The basic idea is that taking a good filling and a good dough and bake them together, how can you go wrong? Think savory cinnamon roll, but use your imagination: you could use any dough and any number of fillings.

The bakery used to make a veggie version on a roasted pepper bread and a meat version on an herb bread. Here I've adapted the meat version to use up what we happened to have in the fridge (some extra Kabanosa, which I've seen called a "Polish Slim-Jim"). I think the bakery used to use some kind of salami. Sausage would be good too.