Pizza (can never have enough.)

Yesterday, I made the starter doughs per the recipe in Peter Reinhart's Whole Grain Breads. Today, I put them together and completed the dough. Froze 5 of the balls and let one sit in the fridge for tonight's dinner. This time, instead of making 2-3 ounce balls of dough, which makes like one pizza, I made 5.5-6 ounce balls of dough so I can have leftovers each time. Yay!

I also made fresh tomato sauce last night since I was almost out. Today, I also wrestled with my food processor to shred the mozzarella. I refuse to buy pre-shredded cheese because it's got other ingredients in it to keep it dry and separate, plus it's never made with whole milk cheese. And that is the difference between ok pizza and awesome pizza, I have decided. Put it all together and it's ready to go into the oven. Here it is on the pizza stone...

Out of the oven....I made the crust *slightly* thicker than usual, which made it so much easier to handle.

Ready for eating......mmmmmmmmmmmmmm.......in Italy, they serve it with raw prosciutto, so, what kind of wannabe Italian would I be if I didn't serve it the same way ;)

Adventures in Pizza

It's already really clear that I love pizza. But on this crazy Montignac thing that I am trying to follow, my normal homemade pizza is a bit out of the question unfortunately. So looking for other solutions, I first tried using a 100% whole wheat pita (I'll say that bread and cheese on this plan aren't supposed to go together, but I can't give up pizza completely, I just can't. So I am just seeing this as an improvement and I don't think a small pizza on some kind of whole wheat bread a couple times a month is gonna keep me from losing weight.)

Not too bad.... but not quite good enough either :(



Then I tried 100% whole wheat lavash bread. I cut the bread in half and pre-baked it for just about 1 minute in the oven on 500 degrees.


I added a bit of pepperoni b/c dammit, I wanted to. This was much better than the pita. For the pita I think I will stick to making chips! :) But I would try this pizza on the lavash bread again for sure.


I finally tried making whole wheat pizza crust from scratch using 100% whole wheat flour. Something did not turn out right :( The glutens in the flour wouldn't develop (does whole wheat flour even develop gluten?) and I couldn't stretch it. It tasted alright but the texture was more like a cracker than a chewy pizza crust :( I did put a bit of flaxseed meal in it to bump up the health factor but I don't know if that would make a difference. So that was disappointing - I didn't even photograph it ;)

Pizza again

Made a pepperoni pizza the other night. I used the Fresh & Easy dough instead of TJ's and I think I prefer it a bit better. Not sure why or even how to explain it but it seems to be a little more pliable or softer or something. Maybe less gluten developed? Anyway, used up half of the precious TJ's Italian Starter Sauce that I have remaining and my preferred whole milk mozzarella that I sliced as thin as I could. To try to avoid disaster, instead of trying to get the raw pizza right on the stone, I made it on the back of a cookie sheet, put the cookie sheet in the oven for a minute, which helped the crust start to cook, and then slid it onto the cookie sheet for the remaining time.

Meanwhile, I toasted the pepperoni on a separate pan and dabbed off most of the grease from it, cut the slices in half and put them on the pizza halfway through cooking. I prefer to do it this way because it seriously cuts down on the grease the pepperoni leaves on the pizza and also it prevents the pepperoni from burning. Of course, I overcooked the pizza by maybe 30 seconds, so as you see in the pic the crust around the edges is a bit charred, but it was fine and nicely brown underneath.

All in all a very tasty personal-sized pizza and that's all that matters :) I use about 3 ounces of dough stretched as thin as possible, about 4 spoons full of sauce and about 3 ounces of cheese, sliced really thin and placed evenly over the sauce. It's just right for a filling but not excessive dinner and cooks up in about 7 minutes at the oven's hottest temp. Still on the quest for a perfect pizza but I feel like I'm getting closer. Next thing I'm gonna try is making my own sauce with canned San Marzano tomatoes.

Welcome!

I've been talking a lot about food lately. I've also been getting more into photography. So I thought, why not chronicle my quest for food perfection with a little blog? When I make something interesting or find something interesting in the markets, I can photograph it here using the techniques I'm studying and share it (it will improve when I get a new camera, so til then bear with me!).

I know, you're probably wondering, who the heck is she and why should I care, there are a million food blogs out there? I think what makes me different is that I'm a picky foodie. No, REALLY picky. I hate cooked vegetables, I hate most sauces, I hate things mixed together, I hate all seafood - yes all seafood, I hate fruit and chocolate/dessert mixed and the list just goes on and on and on. I don't even like wine.

So you are asking, what DOES she like? I like meat, yeah I do, especially beef (prime rib would be my ultimate dinner of choice). I also like random things like olives (I'm obsessed, I admit it), chocolate (only dark!), I love most fruits and vegetables (but only raw!), I like spicy things, pasta, I loooooove pizza, and pickles, and cheese and most kinds of salty chip-like foods, and the list goes on!

So to get it started, here are a few things i've made recently. the way I'll do it is if I use a recipe, I'll link to or post the recipe in case people are interested in trying it :) Have fun and please comment!

Margherita Pizza (Ingredients: Trader Joe's pizza dough, Trader Joe's Italian Tomato Starter Sauce (which they seem to be out of now, so substitute the marinara sauce in the green can), and WHOLE MILK mozzarella - sliced THIN. And that's it. the secret is a super thin crust, super hot oven, not too much sauce and cheese, and a pizza stone.


Tried these Nutella Cookies from a Giada De Laurentiis recipe I had seen a while back. I changed it up a bit by making them bigger than her recipe called for (I did 1.5 ounces each) and I didn't use any of the sugar. Also instead of a Kiss in the middle I used a Dove Dark Chocolate square. I also cooked them a bit less (about 10 min, and then just 1 min after I put the candy in). This combined with the larger cookie size resulted in a really lovely soft cookie that stayed soft for days. yyyyyuuuuuum.


Bucatini all'amatriciana (ingredients: Bucatini (available at TJ's now as 'bucati'), good tomato sauce, some bacon with fat removed, a little onion, garlic, and lots of grated cheese).

Had this dish in Rome in the Jewish Ghetto overlooking the Teatro Marcellus, what a memory. A traditional Roman dish, my recreation comes close. I don't like onion much, so I leave it out for the most part. Next time I make it I'm going to try some Pancetta cubes I bought in TJ's. Mine's not perfect, of course, but it's also not bad :P



So anyway, this is the kind of thing I'll keep posting. I hope you enjoy! And if not, it's at least a way for me to chronicle my discoveries and creations for myself ;)