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The bright-red "Let's Pizza" machine uses infra-red rays and technology developed at the University of Bologna to knead flour and water into dough, spread it with tomato sauce and a choice of topping, and cook it -- all in less than three minutes.

Hmmm. Tasty cardboard? I can't imagine a pizza dough without yeast, which all beer lovers can acknowledge, adds its own flavor and complexity to the party. Beyond that, there's the issue of activating the gluten in the flour, which isn't gonna happen in 3 minutes.

YOU WANT PIZZA? Check this out...

Okay, use your bread maker machine on the 'dough' setting to mix, rise, punch down, rise and generally save your arthritic hands from doing the serious manual labor of creating a good dough. Pour the ingredients in, and walk away. Five minute task. It'll let you know when it's done around an hour later. Everybody has a breadmaker stacked on a shelf somewhere, don't they?

Okay, when the dough is done, take a tennisball sized gob and stretch it out into a disk the size of the griddle you have. What? Of course you know how to spin a ball of dough into a disk. Imagine your name is Antonio, and you've worked in the pizza shop since you were 12. Just do it. You really can't get it wrong. It doesn't even have to be round.

I got a 14" round Circulon griddle with silicone grips from the kids for Christmas. Perfect.

Now, turn on the broiler to max temp to be pre-heating.

Throw the disk o dough on your olive oil coated, rocket hot ovenproof (most any griddle can be oven-proofed by covering plastic handles with lotso tinfoil) griddle pan to cook the underneath, while you spread your goodies on the top. No, you don't need a wood fired 1000 degree imported Italian oven to make good pizza.

Once the underneath is cooked (lift an edge and look at it) you move the pan to the broiler to cook the top. Once the top is seared to perfection, you have the closest thing to real pizzaria cuisine that can be done in a home kitchen, and it costs a couple bucks each.

Got guests? Make a bunch of dough, a variety of bowls of toppings, let them create their own, cook it up. We're only talking a couple minutes in the pan and a couple more in the broiler. They cook very fast.

I dare ya to try it... (yah, we did last Saturday). Awesome.