Another Greek Pizza, made with leftover Dough: Ischia starter Pizzeria flour 10/11/2011

I used the one leftover Craig’s dough ball, (with the Ischia starter from Steve’s pizza party)  that was unfrozen  (last week), then refrozen, then unfrozen again Monday, was made into a Greek pizza Tuesday.  The Greek pizza made with Craigs dough really turned out well.  The crust was very tasty and there was a nice crunch on the bottom of the crust.  The inside crumb was super moist.  I used Steve’s 10” steel pan to make this pizza.  The steel pan was brushed with manteca.  I posted on my results at
http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,15787.msg156498.html#msg156498
I think this was my best Greek pizza I made.

Norma

Hobart 20 qt. mixing, mixing the Preferment Lehmann Dough for Market 10/10/2011

I only wanted to take one video of my 20 qt. Hobart mixer mixing a 15 lb. batch of dough today, but somehow, I must have touched the button on the camera to shut it off several times.  The water and preferment are already in the mixer bowl, then I added KASL, IDY on the one side, and salt on the other side.  After the dough was mixing well, I drizzled the olive oil down the edge of the mixer bowl.  It is a little dark at market on a Monday, so these videos might not be the best.  After the olive oil in mixed a little, then I set the timer for 6 minutes.  These are also the pictures I took when I must have stopped the video.  The last video shows how my finished dough looks before balling.  If anyone is interested in seeing how my preferment Lehmann dough is mixed, these are the videos for one batch of dough.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4maOxJhWF38
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fN5YK0rxcAE 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3w18ZxvEOHo 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xDgm4PIulw 

Norma

Les’s Sauce Again, Working Outside, and Fall in our Area 10/15/2011

I really love Fall in our area, with the cooler temperatures, and the leaves soon going to be changing to beautiful colors, but do really dread when all my plants outside, including vegetables, my fresh tomatoes, and my perennials need to be cut down.  The tomato plants are almost done producing tomatoes, the perennials are starting to dye, and only the annuals are holding up for a little more until frost comes,  Now more work needs to be finished outside. My mums soon are going to be blooming. It is dark in the mornings now, and also gets dark much earlier in the evenings.  I like when it is light outside longer in the evening.

I spent the better part of yesterday afternoon cutting down plants and generally working outside.  I have a lot more work to do outside. I used tomatoes that were ripe to make Les’s tomato sauce again last evening.  All that are left of my tomatoes now are what are on the picture I posted below.  The tomatoes are a lot smaller now. They probably will be used to make my last batch of Les’s sauce for the year.  I do have a lot of Les’s tomato sauce frozen.  I used some of my favorite Les’s sauce for dinner last evening.  I do really love the fresh flavor of Les’s sauce on almost anything, including pizza.

Soon dreaded winter will arrive in my area of the world.  The reason I dread winter is because it seems so long and we could get lots of snow that I might need to shovel.  I guess the seasons in our area could be compared to the cycle of life.  They are beautiful days in your life, and also days that are more dreaded by different circumstances in life.  I try to enjoy the beautiful days, and just try to get though the dreaded days, because there always will be beautiful days ahead.

I do have a few roses that are still blooming, but they are also starting to look sickly now.  The picture below is how one of my roses look now.  Not the beautiful rose of summer.  The stink bugs are becoming more plentiful now, because they are looking for warmth.

Norma

Mellow Mushroom another attempt with frozen dough ball 10/04/2011

The experimental MM# 2 dough went well, in terms of the dough not being extensible, and the pie being tasty.  I let the dough ball warm up for 1 ½ hrs, until the dough ball reached 56.8 degrees F.  It was cooler at market this week.

Steve and I had to get ready again for this experimental pie.  The stickers were placed on the cutting board, I applied one tattoo and we got the signs ready.  Steve and I put the pictures I had printed out on the Plexiglas.  Steve brought a bottle of home brewed beer, so we would be like MM and have beer.  He brought some kind of Belgian Strong Ale called something like Dieu Du Ciel, meaning “sample of heaven”, but I can’t get the first name of the beer spelled right, because I am not familiar with home brewed beers.  There were two supermen on the pictures, one being Peter, and the other superman was the shroom.  They both were watching what we were doing.

The dough ball did stretch out very nicely, and could be tossed and twirled.  I did tossed and twirl the skin, but I am still throwing vertical.  Steve did take a video of me tossing and twirling the skin.

The MM# 2 skin was dressed with my regular tomato sauce, spinach, apple sausage, salami (I had baked in the oven) and part skim milk mozzarella.  The pie was baked in 5 ½ minutes at about 525 degrees F.  Then melted butter with garlic powder and parmesan cheese was applied, after the pie came out of the oven.

The only part of this experiment that didn’t go well, was there was no more sweetness in the crust than my last attempts.  The pizza and the beer did go well together though.

Video of me trying to toss and twirl the dough. Lol, I am not a good tosser or twirler!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beBtRT_7Cew

Norma

Dough and Pizza with the Dry Malt DME-B product 10/04/2011

The dough with the Dry Malt DME-B product was made into a pizza.  The dough handled so beautifully and easily stretched to a 18” pizza, even though I only wanted to open the skin to 16”. The dough could have been tossed and twirled, but I didn’t open it that way.  The finished pizza was crisp on the bottom crust, and slightly crisp on the rim, with a fairly moist crumb.  The only thing Steve and I didn’t like about this experimental pizza was there didn’t seem to be much of any taste in the crust, even though I basically used a Lehmann dough formula with added DME-8 dry malt.  The dough was almost cold fermented for two days.  The characteristics I did like using the DME dry malt, was the crisp bottom crust and the slightly crisp rim.  I wonder what should be my next experiment with the DME-B Dry Malt product to find if I can produce a better pizza.

Norma