working with my garden, flowers, and pizza dough...6/24/2011

I have been working on my garden, flowers, washing outside windows, general outside work and pizza dough or experiments for the last few days.  At least the garden part is fun and so is the pizza learning.

My tomato plants are really growing fast and now some of them are as tall as I am.  Some of my grape and small yellow tomatoes are ready to be eaten.  I noticed another kind of insect on my tomatoes today and went about killing it so it doesn't do more damage.  I don't know since we received so much rain in our area this year, if this is why the bug seem more plentiful or not.

I have been working on my preferment Lehmann dough, especially the preferment part, because I was having problems with stretching my dough balls out some weeks.  I am also doing some more experiments with the EL-7 product.  It is always interesting to me to know what different things do to dough.

Yesterday was kinda a sad day for me.  The 8 kittens we have taking care of since they were small were taken to the Humane League so maybe they will be adopted.  My daughter and I had them for about 12 weeks.  We really became attached to them and knew each kittens personality.  We had kept them in my one bathroom, because the dogs sure weren't too friendly with them and of course we couldn't keep 8 cats.  I will post the pictures of all the kittens at a later date, because it even makes me sad to look at the pictures right now.  At least our local Humane League this week was giving cat and kitten free for adoption this week.  When we went there, so many people wanted the kittens, but they will have to be checked by a vet, and then will be able to be adopted.  We tried to find them homes, but weren't successful.  I know I will always wonder what happened to the kittens.  They were a lot of work, but they also were so cute.

I took one picture today of our local sweet corn.  It is now ready and so sweet and delicious.  I also bought some small red beets and small red potatoes from the Amish people.  I also took a picture of one sign near the Amish farm.  I have to laugh at some of the signs in our area.

Norma

Hybrid Reinhart Pizzas from 5 dough balls 6/21/2011

These are the pies baked from the hybrid Reinhart dough balls. I used all 5 dough balls. The dough balls were used to bake pizzas from this morning until the second to the last pie of the evening.  I am not satisfied with the bake or the taste of the crust.  The pies didn’t brown as I wanted them to and the bottom of the crust seemed to be a different color.  The bottom crusts were sorta crunchy.  I don’t know why, but 4 pies didn’t need screens and one pie did, near the end of the bake.

The dough balls did open easily and the dough balls didn’t want to stick to the 2 plastic bags.  I don’t know if it was the way the dough was opened or not, but the rims didn’t get consistent. I don’t know if my bake temperatures were right for this type of pie.

I saved one slice and waited about a half an hour, until it cooled.  When I reheated the slice, it seemed dry and the bottom became really crunchy.

Three of the pies were dressed with my regular cheeses and sauce and the other two pies had other dressings.

Norma

Cheesy Bread Sticks from frozen Preferment Lehmann dough ball 6/21/2011

This was a batch of cheesy bread sticks made from a preferment Lehmann dough ball that was frozen.

Norma

EL-7 with Lehmann lower hydration dough 6/21/2011

The EL-7 product did work as intended.  The dough ball was easy to open and before I knew it, I had stretched the skin to 18".  The pie also baked well.

The only problem was Steve and I both thought this pie tasted just like all other pies that can be normally purchased at most pizza businesses.  There wasn’t much flavor in the crust.  Maybe we are getting to be too picky about the kind of pies we like.   I thought the salt taste in the crust was too strong, but Steve didn’t.

Norma