p.s.  Yaay I just got my 2012 Yelp Elite badge!

Couple pics of last night’s Challah bake.  I use the recpie from (as usual) Peter Reinhart’s Bread Baker’s Apprentice.

If moved, I’ll try to post a pic and review of tonight’s attempt at a basic Challah.

That said, I’m going to do more searching in Western New York for local creameries and cheese.

Gwen and I, a couple of years ago, purchased this cheese kit from the Homebrew Emporium in Cambridge (link to Mozzarella and Ricotta Cheese Making Kit from Amazon) and made a not-too-horrible mozzarella.  I can’t wait to start up again!

Oh yeah, and apparently I blogged about this a looong time ago!

And, the obligatory bacon-y pic of the day.

Last night’s pizzas ended up pretty awesome.  I cheated on the dough and just bought some pre-made stuff from Wegman’s, which is actually really good.  If you don’t know of the place, Wegmans is a grocery store located mostly in Western New York (Buffalo area) that offers a bit more variety and a different outlook than most standard middle-of-the-country grocery chains.  They are no Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods, but at the same time, they are not plain jane places to pick up bread and milk, either.  Anyway, they make their own pizza dough and sauce for you to purchase when you are in a hurry.

Since the Wegman’s dough comes refrigerated, it needs to be warmed up a little before being stretched.  G and I make smaller, individual sized thinner crust pizzas, so I divide the 28oz of dough into 4, by weight with a dough scraper, making four individual 7oz pieces.  Then I put a couple drops of water on the kitchen counter and roll each piece into a dough ball, degassing them a little in the process.  Two of these get put into ziplock bags that have been sprayed with a little oil, and banished to the freezer for future pizzas.  The other two are placed into bowls that have been sprayed with a little oil (more on that at another point – why to NOT use spray oil – but I’ve been sick all week and was lazy).  The dough is moved around the oil a little to coat, then Stretch Tite (f Saran Wrap – that stuff is terrible) is put on top.  I turn the oven for just a minute to warm it up, turn it off, then throw in the bowls to sit for an hour to warm up and ‘proof’ a little.

After an hour, the dough has both risen a bit and warmed up.  This makes for REALLY easy stretching and tossing and makes the crusts very airy.  G’s pizza tonight had pesto and chicken with olive oil and basil, and mine was a basic pepperoni with onion and basil.  The cheese was a mix of full fat low moisture mozzarella and a little cheddar, all of which I shred myself.  (More on why you want to shred your own cheese later.

Oh yeah, and I cheated on the sauce as well and just used the stuff that came from Wegman’s.  I lost my sauce recipe recently and am in the process of making a new one.

More on baking: our home gas oven goes to 525 – that’s it.  With two pizza stones (one above the pie, one below) heated at max temp. for an hour the pizzas always come out great with an approx. 9 minute bake.  For years I tried to use peels differently, use cornmeal, flour, and all sorts of ways to get the pizza to slide in / off the oven, but I found that the absolute best way to do this for me right now is to put the dough onto Parchment Paper before adding the sauce / toppings / cheese.  To load into the oven, simply slide the paper onto the back of a cookie sheet, and slide over onto hot stone in the oven.  When finished baking, just use tongs to grab the pizza / parchment and slide back to the cookie sheet bottom.  Viola!

Let the pizza sit for a minute, then cut up and enjoy.  I usually add red pepper flakes, a little bit of dry Parmesan cheese, and some garlic powder to mine before eating.

The beginners lessons I am learning, after doing this for a little while are:

1. Be patient! Let the dough have time to warn up and rise a little.  Let the oven heat for the full hour at max temp to get the stones all heated evenly.
2. Give yourself enough work / counter space. The dough needs room to stretch out – a lightly floured counter space needs to be prepped ahead of time, not when you’re trying with two hands to get the dough to the desired thickness while worrying about ten other things.
3. Have everything ready beforehand, of course. Or, mis en place.  Chop, slice, or chiffonade things and put them in a convenient spot.
4. Be patient! Let the pizza cook fully before removing it from the oven!
5. At the end of the day, remember, this is YOUR (or, in my case, partially Wegmans’s….) pizza, so enjoy it any way you want to, and even if it ends up a pizzafail, at least it is YOUR pizza fail, and not the random delivery place you called for terrible, terrible food.  You made it at home, yourself (or with family / friends), with ingredients YOU chose.  To me, that makes up for all the messes, mistakes, and maddeningly terrible pizzas I’ve made in the past.

Oh, and pic ‘o the day!

I cannot wait to make the time to do this!

Here is a quick snapshot of Twink.  I did not name him, and we are still debating a possible change.  He’s a neighborhood stray that decided that he liked our deck late in the Fall.  When the snow came, we had no choice but to take him in, as shelters would have probably put him down.  He’s HUGE – 15lbs, but not fat, just really big.  G took him to the vet and he came out with a very clean bill of health.  He has been micro-chipped, given SoftPaws, and is a wonderful housecat.  The other two cats, Frankie and Willow, are still getting used to his presence in the house, but so far there have been no major issues.

Last week, the New York Times published an article about homemade pet food.  This is something I had been considering for a while, and I do make it a point to give any leftover meats to the cats after they have been diced up a bit.  I think we will probably start to incorporate more of this in to their usual diet of Iams.  (Worth noting, though, is that I have had Frankie for about ten years now and she has been 100% perfectly healthy on a diet of Iams and water for that entire 10 years.  Though she was given her shots and things like that when she was born, I got her at 3 years old and have not had to take her to the vet since!)

The article provides a lot of information about the reasons for making your pet’s food, as well as some links to other useful resources.