Six Pizza Saturday

We fired up the oven around 3:00 and by 5:30 the 1st of six pizzas went in. The evening started with a plain mozzarella. Closely followed by a plain sauce using San Marzano tomatoes of course. Then I began prepping the Summer Special.

Pizzas three, four & five were a Summer Special (Fresh Tomato, Onion, Zuchinni, and Calamata Olives), Buffalo Chicken, and Grilled Eggplant.

 

We sliced into the Buffalo Chicken pizza to soon and it cheese oozed a bit. But this one got high marks. The toppings included marinated grilled chicken tossed in Archie Morre's Buffalo Wing Sauce, whole milk mozzarella, and blue cheese. Full of flavor. I purposely baked this one in a pan but next time I'll try it right on the bricks.

 

 

 Finishing off with a Pepperoni Pizza using turkey pepperoni. Family, good food and drink, and let us not forget ice cream and homemade cookies rounded out a nice Summer Saturday evening.

Summertime Pizza

Well as usual time just seems to slip by. I modified my evaporator back into a brick oven and it's better than last seasons. Now if I can only use  it more often.

I'm still a novice dough maker and still trying new dough formulations. I do have a new "go to" which uses some oil and a touch of sugar. The addition of oil and sugar take it away from the true New York style dough which includes only flour, water, yeast, and salt but the flavor and workability suit me well for now.

I also just received a special gift from my friend Gus, the owner of Apollo Pizza in Derby, CT. He gave me two of his very well seasoned pans for me to play with in my oven.

Saturday Focaccia Lunch

What a beautiful Saturday afternoon. I had to get some yard chores done and I'm thinking "what better way than to fire up the oven to help keep my mind off the yardwork".

I made some dough up late morning and by 3 pm the focaccia were done.

Sunday Dinner

Finally went back to try my hand at making some dough and pizza. Now that tomatoes are coming in a bit and my basil is bustin out, what more of a reason do I need then to make some fresh pesto and native tomato pizza. Here a some pics of last nights creations.

For more pics visit my photobucket album at
 http://s778.photobucket.com/albums/yy67/Valleyman_bucket/Wood%20Fired%20Oven/

Memorial Day Weekend Pizza

Well on this beautiful Memorial Day weekend we had our 1st backyard party which included grill food near the pool and pizza down further in the back. Thanks to all my help especially my brother in law Mo who managed the two grills which enabled me to focus on  pizza making. The night before the party I made 5 batches of dough which yielded 8 pizzas, 1 rosemary garlic focaccia, 1 baguette style bread, and some breadsticks. Yep, a carbo loaded food fest!

I was so busy trying to keep everything coordinated I didn't get much in the way of pictures. All in all it was a good time and a some more experience for me.

Baked my first Loaves of Bread!

Well yesterday I set out to make a door for the oven with the hopes of trying my luck at some bread baking. Below is the oven loaded with loaves and closed off with the door soaked in water .

So I quickly learned how much skill is needed to make  and bake bread. The once risen dough was cut  and shaped into four loaves and were placed onto cookie sheets dusted with cornmeal (not enough I found out). When I went to move the loaves onto the peel they were stuck to the cookie sheets. I nudged them free and the nice fluffy loaves sank and never came back up.

Here are the loaves of bread. A little flatter than I'd hoped but  tasted really good dipped in some olive oil with a touch of salt.

Modifying the oven floor

The  image below shows an early attempt of making pizza in the oven in 2009.  I spent a lot of time constructing the fire arch for syrup season last year. In the late autumn I decided to try the oven for cooking  pizza. So using our existing pizza stone I placed it on top of the fire grates to form the floor of the oven.

While it served it's purpose well it didn't survive the harsh temperature changes of being outside. So I went  into this season planning to put in a floor consisting of fire brick. To make a level surface, I placed a  piece of sheet metal cut to fit the floor. Next I used sand to level the bricks. This worked pretty well but after 5 hours of fire in the hole the bricks became slightly uneven.

I attribute that to the metal heating up and buckling up slightly. My next fix will to get some refractory insulation board and place that on top of the sheet metal then place the brick on top of that. I may still need to put a 1/2" of sand to stabilize the bricks.

From the outside, the  whole unit was warm to the touch so I'm also going to put a layer of the insulating board on top and on the backside of the rear wall. Without major revisions to modify the side walls, they will remain as is.