My Adventures into Gardening last year (2010) Best Places people on this forum have found to buy Seeds or Perennials?

My Adventures into Gardening last year (2010) Best Places people on this forum have found to buy Seeds or Perennials?

If anyone is interested this is a thread I started on pizzamaking.com.  It was about finding different perennials for my garden.  In this thread I had many adventures in gardening and much help from other members on finding seeds.

http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,10535.0.html

In future posts I will post more about my adventures and also new adventures I have in this new year in gardening.

Norma

Milk Kefir Cultured Butter-Easy to Make and Soooo Delicious!

PizzaPolice on pizzamaking.com commented on a thread about making cultured butter with milk kefir and gave a link to a recipe at:  http://www.cakeandcommerce.com/cake_and_commerce/2009/09/cultured-butter.html


I tried the recipe and it came out great!  Thanks PizzaPolice if you ever look at this blog!  I never would have thought of making cultured butter out of milk kefir.

This is the link to where other members of pizzamaking.com are trying to make their own cultured butters.  There also are other recipes for making cultured butters without using milk kefir.

http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,12944.0.html

Chocolate Pizza made with homemade Nutella using Preferment Lehmann dough 2/15/2011

This chocolate pizza was made with homemade Nutella I made using David Lebovitz's recipe at  http://www.davidlebovitz.com/2011/02/homemade-nutella-recipe-chocolate-hazelnut-spread/  I also added some cultured butter (from milk kefir)  I made around the edges.  This dough was a preferment Lehmann dough.  I added some powdered sugar after the bake. 

Many Faces and Coloring of the crusts in using the Preferment Lehmann dough with added dairy whey 2/15/2011

I had added Dairy Whey to a 15 lb. batch of pizza dough to see if there would be better crust coloration, in the amount of 4% to the total weight of the flour. The dairy whey does give better crust coloration, but I don't know at this point if I am willing to absorb the added expense in using dairy whey because I only own a small pizza stand and have to watch my expenses.

What is interesting to me is every pizza that is made has a somewhat different look.  It is almost like every pizza has its own DNA or fingerprint.

Sicilian Pizza & Greek-Style Pizza made with Preferment Lehmann dough 2/15/2011

This was a Sicilian pizza I made out of a regular preferment Lehmann dough.  The preferment Lehmann dough can be used for a regular NY style, Greek-pizza, or other kinds of pizzas.  This pie was dressed with garlic and herb infused olive oil, spinach, brussel sprouts, red peppers, two kinds of mozzarella and Feta cheese.

Pizza

Another attempt for a Pizzarium Style Pizza 2/15/2011

My bake didn’t go as well this week as last week.  I don’t know what happened with this attempt because the dough felt the same as last week.  I didn’t have as much trouble with this dough in developing the gluten.  The dough felt very bubbly and it opened the same as last week.  As can be seen the crumb, after the bake, isn’t as light and airy as my last attempt.  The crumb did taste good and was light.  This pie was first dressed with herb and garlic infused olive oil and tomato sauce, baked and then the other dressings of brussel sprouts, spinach, red peppers Feta, and mozzarella was added and the pie was put back into the oven.

It can be seen on the pictures how the dough looked and the crumb in the baked pie.  Other standholders, a customer and the one maintenance man did really like this pie.

If anyone is interested in what formula I used in this pizza or what comments were made the link to all this is at:

http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,9989.msg127136.html#msg127136

Homemade Nutella

I tried an attempt at making homemade Nutella last evening.  I used David  Lebovitz’s  recipe.

http://www.davidlebovitz.com/2011/02/homemade-nutella-recipe-chocolate-hazelnut-spread/


I used my Cuisinart spice and nut grinder to grind the nuts.  I did everything according to the recipe, but didn’t food process the mixed nuts, milk, dried milk, and chocolate.  I used a spatula to mix.  In my opinon the Nutella does taste like real Nutella.  The roasted nuts do give a great taste to the homemade Nutella.

Pictures of nuts, ground nuts, mixing and after refrigerating the Nutella overnight.  The only problem is I don’t have any Tartine Bread to spread it on.

Another dough attempt at a Pizzarium pizza 2/14/2011

I mixed another dough last evening for another attempt at a Pizzarium style pizza.  I started the dough on Friday by mixing a poolish (I used the same numbers from 1 dough ball for my preferment Lehmann dough) I let the poolish start to bubble and put it into the refrigerator.  I have seen when I make the poolish at market on a Friday and let the poolish only start to bubble how strong the poolish becomes after refrigerating it until Monday, with many gluten strands.  That is why I decided to try a poolish prepared this way.  The others things I changed in this last dough were, I used all KASL in the poolish and final dough, dropped the hydration to 80% and also dropped the oil to 3%.

The first 3 pictures show the poolish yesterday and the final dough.  I have no idea how this dough is going to bake.

Norma