My Trip to Bova Foods 7/07/2

I have wanted to go to Bova Foods http://www.bovafoods.com/ for awhile because I wanted to purchase some blue steel blackbuster pans to try in making Greek, Jet's or Pizzarium style pizzas.  I really don't want to drive that far myself, so my daughter volunteered to drive me on Thursday.  I sure was happy to finally be able to go there.  I purchased two different steel pans, Durum flour, some great Italian noodles we had for dinner Thursday night, mortadella, some saffron, and lots of other small stuff.  I also purchased some stainless steel containers and a food grater for market.  It was more of a drive than I thought and we hit construction and much traffic after we left the Pa. turnpike.

At least I finally have some steel pans to play around with and I enjoyed my trip to Bova Foods.

Norma

Dinner Tonight a little late! 7/09/2011

Dinner tonight was a little late from working outside today.  It really doesn't matter though, if I like what I am having for dinner.  It was a quick dinner with the macaroni salad I made and turkey cutlets put into the oven to bake for 2 hrs.  I used fresh garlic, basil, oregano, tomatoes, olive oil and leftover carrots, onions, and celery that I grated in the food processor for the macaroni salad, to put in with the turkey cutlets to bake.  At least it was partly healthy.  I am also going to have fresh blueberries for dessert.  I really like when fresh blueberries are in season in our area.  The smell of the turkey cutlets baking with the other ingredients really made the kitchen smell great.

Norma

Working Outside Today..No Time for Making Pizza, but still studying how to make pizza 7/09/2011

I was working outside the better part of today and was really working on getting my shed door frame straightened out before I paint the frame, maybe tomorrow.  I did drill before I tried to put the screws in, but did put some of them in wrong and also did strip some of them, so that meant I had to take the screws out by hand.  I am surely not the best handy woman, but at least I give it a go.  It took me about 5 hrs. just to get about 20 screws in the door frames.  I did burn my finger for being dumb and touching a hot screw.  I even had to saw one part of the door frame off, so it would fit.

I only worked on my vegetables and flowers a little today.  I also have to fix my other shed door frame another day before I paint it.  There is some wood on the front and back door frame that needs to be replaced.  Some more of my tomatoes are ripening and I can hardly wait to see how they taste.  I also have more flowers that are starting to bloom and also an eggplant that is starting to produce eggplant.  At least it wasn't too humid outside today, but it was still warm and had me sweating.  My Weber grill is waiting until Steve and I have time to work on it to try and convert it to a pizza oven.  At least that is cleaned up now.  I only am going to work outside for about another hour and then am going to make some macaroni salad and some other food.

At the end of the day life is good, because I still can work outside! :)

There are some bees on some of the flowers if I took the pictures right.  I won't be making any dough today or pizzas, but will be studying some more about making pizza.  There is always more to learn.

Norma

how my attempts are going with starting a starter from ground wheat berries 7/09/2011and trying to sprout flour from wheat berries

My ground wheat berry starter is becoming more active.  I don’t know when it will be ready or if it will ever be able to leaven a pizza with it, but it does smell good.  My wheat berries I was trying to sprout kept smelling so bad (think vomit), so I finally threw them away yesterday.  I washed some more wheat berries and put them into another clean Mason jar.  I think I was reading the instructions wrong on how to start to sprout wheat berries.  I kept placing water in the Mason jar with the wheat berries and rinsing them daily.  After I read over the instructions again, I think where I was making the mistake was I only needed to soak the wheat berries for 12 hrs., then rinse everyday and return them to a dark place.  I started to try and sprout another batch of wheat berries last evening.

Picture of wheat berry starter this morning and the new batch of wheat berries I am trying to sprout.

Norma

Another Mack's Pizza Attempt 7/05/2011

The next Mack’s attempt went fairly well.  Steve and I tasted the Shurfine tomato paste right out of the 12 oz. can and it tasted a little bitter like the Gangi Sauce does.  Steve added different amounts of water, salt, sugar, dried basil leaves, and oregano to the Shurfine tomato paste, until we thought it almost tasted like the Gangi sauce right out of the can.  Steve added 1 tsp. of sugar, 1 tsp. oregano, 1/4 teaspoon of black pepper, and 1/4 teaspoon of crushed dried basil leaves to the 12 oz. size can of Shurfine tomato paste.  Steve added water, until he thought the Shurfine tomato paste was about the thickness of the Gangi sauce that comes out of the hose at Mack’s pizza.  The mixture was put into a squeezable bottle to be applied.

Steve and I weighed the dough ball before it was opened and it weighed 20.9 ounces. The dough balled opened up nicely and could be tossed.  Steve applied 7.5 ounces. of tomato sauce with the squeezable bottle and 10 ounces of white cheddar cheese (Steve bought at Russo’s) in two steps. We wanted to weigh the unbaked pie, but were too busy to weigh it.  After the pie was baked, we did weigh the baked pie and it weighed 35.3 ounces, right out of the oven.

The dough ball was pressed out a lot before opening it.  I don’t know why, but the while the pie was in the oven some bubbles wanted to form on the rim and in the middle of the pie.  They were broken with my bubble popper.

The finished pie tasted a lot like a Mack’s pie and the crumb, texture and taste of the crust seemed like a Mack’s pizza.  Steve and I thought there was too much white cheddar cheese added and maybe a little more sauce could have been applied.  The taste of the white cheddar Steve bought did taste almost like a Mack’s pizza cheese, but could have been a little more tangy.  Steve and I both thought the taste of the tomato sauce could have been a little sweeter.  I think if we try the same sauce again we would add more sugar to the Shurfine tomato paste.

All in all this attempt was almost like a Mack’s pizza, but still could use a few tweaks in the sauce and cheese.

Norma

Another Attempt at the Hybrid Reinhart 7/05/2011

I am still having problems when using the hybrid Reinhart formula.  I lightly floured the dough ball.  I didn’t want to put too much flour on the bench or on the dough ball.  The dough ball did open easily, but after the skin was dressed with sauce and cheese, the pizza wanted to stick to the peel in different places.I did use cornmeal on the peel.  I think, but don’t know if I would have floured the dough ball more, it wouldn’t have stuck to the peel.  After Steve and I tasted the half mangled pizza, we both thought it did have a moist rim, but the flavor of the crust wasn’t any better than the preferment Lehmann dough pizzas.

Norma

Some Pictures of Preferment Lehmann dough with and without EL-7 added 7/05/2011

I tried an experiment with EL-7 added to the preferment Lehmann dough to see if I could resolve some of the problems I have sometimes with opening the dough balls.

My results were both doughs this week opened well, but I wasn't satisfied how the EL-7 browned in the crust.

Norma