What happens when you crave pizza

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pizza, postaday2016

  
What happens when you crave pizza? You make it. At least that is what I did, though it’s been a little while since I have made pizza at home, I didn’t expect to have the headache I got trying to make it successfully today.

First it started with the pizza dough, it didn’t rise as much as it should, could it be the yeast or the water temperature? Second my oven was giving me no end in sight of trouble, it wouldn’t heat up to 500 degrees, it got to 325 and there it stayed. I left each of the pies in the oven for at least 30 minutes, over cooking the cheese, yet still getting the dough cooked all the way through. In the end,  I still ate 5 slices, I was really hungry. This endeavor took several hours all in all. What an adventure in pizza making, I’m still glad that I took the time to suffer through this because it really it the spot or maybe my craving was that serious. Who knows, but as you can see I have pizza left over to satisfy the next craving.

Leftovers no more, hello pizza!

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leftovers, pizza, postaday2014, turkey

We did the leftovers justice, nothing got thrown away and I can comfortably say that our turkey and all of the fixings were well honored this year. But all good things must come to an end and pizza was such a welcome relief after all things turkey and turkey inspired.

I made my usual pizza dough which includes whole wheat flour mixed in with the unbleached flour; 2 cups and 1/4 unbleached and 1 and 1/4 whole wheat flour is the ratio that I use. All of the usual suspects were used; the Cento Pizza Sauce, fresh mozzarella, shredded mozzarella, sliced onion and fresh basil. I had extra bacon left over from breakfast that morning and that went on top because as everyone knows; everything tastes better with bacon. 😀

I made two pizzas and of course that means leftovers, but I never mind leftover pizza.

An Ode to Frankie’s Pizzeria

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closeings, pizza, postaday2014

Imagine my sadness when I discovered that may favorite pizzeria in all of New York, that I have known since 5 years old, was closed for good without any warning.

I remember going to Frankie’s with my father when I was about 5 or 6 and a slice was a quarter. Their pizza has been the definition of consistency; same great crust, same great sauce and same great cheese.

I am still taken aback by the thought that I will never again bite into a slice of Frankie’s. I make my own pizza at home and I really love my pizza, but it is a very different pizza than Frankie’s and so there was always room in my heart for both.

An era is gone, a great era of pizza, Astoria is a little diminished with the loss of Frankie’s.

What a birthday celebration for my husband

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birthday, golf, pizza, postaday2014

Today was my husband’s birthday and I hope that he had a nice one. He asked for a bouquet of love which I was more than happy to go harvest from the backyard.

We went golfing with my husband’s cousin and his son. I didn’t play, I watched because I was way too exhausted, but my impression of golf was that it is really, really hard to play. There are so many different strokes that you have to master, so many ways to hit the ball and too many variations in terrain. Watching the three of them play definitely impressed golf’s difficulty in my head. John, our cousin hit a sign and made a huge dent.

Finally, when we got home, I rushed around to get the two remaining pizza doughs rolled out and assembled with sauce, cheese and other toppings and into the oven. I am not sure what happened, the only thing that I can think of is that the dough being at rest for so long, maybe needed to be kneaded some more or it needed more flour, because for the first time, both pizzas stuck to the pizza grate. However did that unfortunate hiccup stop us from devouring the pizzas? No, it didn’t.

I was a little stressed with the pizzas being stuck, but no one cared, we dug in however we could and honestly the pizzas tasted really good.

I hope that my husband had a good day.

A pear and chocolate tart and pizza dough

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pizza, postaday2014, tarts

Last night I made my cousin Francoise’s recipe for pear and chocolate tart because today it is going to be delivered to an associate and friend of my husband’s. Tomorrow I will be making another one for our family because our daughter was not too pleased to find out that this tart was leaving the premises.

The tart is very simple to make; all you need is a basic pie crust dough recipe, the one with flour, chilled butter and lard, salt, sugar and ice water. Once the ingredients was been pulsed enough to form a ball, you cover it in plastic wrap, chill for 30 minutes and then roll it out onto your pie tin. The chocolate part of the tart is done by melting a bar of chocolate and pouring it and smoothing it all over the base of the pie crust dough. You then take a big can of pear halves and fan them out on the melted chocolate. You beat four eggs, 5 tbsp of sugar and a cup of heavy cream and pour that on top. You put the tart into a 375 oven for about 40 minutes and voila.

I am making pizza dough for our cousins who are arriving this evening so that I have something almost ready for them when they file into the kitchen all hungry and tired. Pizza dough is another easy thing; flour, salt, yeast, warm water, pinch of sugar and drizzle of olive oil and you let it rest. Pizza is fun because you make of it what you will; loaded with tons of stuff or as minimalist as you dare, it doesn’t matter as long as you like it.

The therapeutic beauty of pizza dough

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baking, pizza, pizza dough, postaday2014

Today while my husband is away in Canada on business, I am at home with Jack and our son, and what better way to enjoy my rare moments at home then by making pizza dough. Recently my go to dinner choice has been frittata, but it’s awfully hard to make frittata when you don’t have eggs and I was too tired to go food shopping, luckily I had all of the ingredients for pizza. I am never too tired to whip up pizza dough, all it takes is a measuring cup and my trusty Kitchen-Aid mixer and voila, pizza dough. This time, I did take the time to knead the dough towards the end by hand because I was getting annoyed with the dough hook, it kept getting embedded with the dough and only spinning it around instead of working and kneading the dough as it should for optimal gluten production. Kneading is relaxing, the dough feels elastic and smooth to the touch and the rhythm that you get into kneading is almost hypnotic,

So pizza is what’s for dinner tonight.

The baker within

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baking, pastry, pizza, postaday2014, writing

Yesterday I made pizzas once again, two pies, for the three of us. As I was preparing them and getting them ready to put in the oven, I couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to sell my pizzas. The two pies did go really quickly, there were only three slices left for the next day and as of now, those three slices are long gone. Both the baby boy and my hubby rave to me how good they are, so I get curious and that leads me to daydream about a pizza empire in the Laurie fantasy land that is my imagination.

Now I know that owning and operating any food establishment is as far from fantasy land as you can imagine, I know that from seeing my father handle the day to day operations and responsibilities of his restaurant. So my flights of fancy are just that, flights of fancy. However it doesn’t change the fact that I love cooking and baking for not only my family, but for people in general.

I have a fairly large amount of puff pastry dough that I made during the holiday’s in the freezer, this is the first time that I froze the excess amount and I am curious to see how it will thaw, so next weekend I am contemplating what to create with this puff pastry dough. I know that Pillsbury puff pastry sheets work quite well when defrosted, but is that because of the additives or does puff pastry dough in general freeze well? Next weekend I will find out, the question remains; what should I bake? The issue at hand is that it is only the three of us and I am on a diet so what to do with the extra’s. I could, I suppose, give it to the neighbors.

What to bake? Do I make elephant ear cookies, do I make an apple tart, do I go out of the box and do something complicated with pastry cream and whipped cream? I suppose I’ll have to see how I feel next weekend.

These thoughts of baking professionally come and go, it is never serious because I am too fatigued on a good day for it to ever come to fruition, but it doesn’t mean that I don’t dream about it. I do know that in the cold, hard light of reality, I am not talented enough to make a serious go at owning a bakery shop, my baking skills are at the caliber of a home baker, not a professional one. My goodies are made with a lot of love and whenever the people I love eat them and express their appreciation, that is what makes me very happy and fulfilled, I suppose that I start feeling this way when it has been too long since I received a little approbation for my baking efforts. I have to confess that I can be a little needy when it comes to compliments for things that I do and what I create. That is my confession of the day.

New York pizza

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favorite, food, pizza, pizzeria, postaday2013

Everyone has a favorite pizza place, mine has always been Frankie’s pizzeria on 31st between 23rd Ave and Ditmars Blvd. I remember eating there as far back as when I was five years old, I think, I remember a slice being 20 cents. This being New York City, there isn’t a shortage of “best” slices of pizza, I found mine a long time ago, not too far from my house. My hubby actually has come around to admitting that Frankie’s is his favorite as well. I love all of the pizza’s elements, the pizza crust which is a thin crust, nice and chewy and with a nice crunch at the same time, the tomato sauce is well flavored and they don’t go overboard with the cheese so that you can taste the sauce. The balance between the components is what defines this pizza and makes it the best in my book.

On the other hand I do prefer eating my own pizza that I make at home because my slices don’t sit as heavily as Frankie’s, my pizza crust is thinner and with the sliced onions, excellent Cento tomato sauce that I have found and the combination of fresh mozzarella and regular mozzarella, it seems that you can eat it without it going to your hips, lol.

Regardless, pizza is a wonderful food, I have never considered it to be “junk food”, it is simply bread, tomato sauce and cheese. I love it, it’s a finger food and fun to eat, albeit I always seem to eat it and drip it on me. I am gradually getting to a place where I have to accept that I need to break out the bib, the adult bib in my case. Sad I know, but my shirts and blouses are getting stained way too often these days.

Christmas Eve and a gift or two

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Christmas, pizza, postaday2012, presents, spoiled

Happy Christmas Eve everyone! I am writing to you using my Christmas present, the new Ipad and the keyboard/cover. No more typing with my pointer finger,not that I minded all that much, I was getting pretty proficient at it. My hubby asked me if we could exchange a present or two this evening because I think that he was getting impatient for me to start using my new Ipad to blog with as I usually do this time of night. He was also excited to give our babies a hint of what is to come tomorrow, a little tease if you will. He is our family Santa, he is so adorable. I love my hubby and it’s not the Ipad talking.

Today was a busy day and I knew that it was going to be hectic so I figured that hors d’oeuvres and pizza would do very nicely for a Christmas Eve dinner. The hors d’oeuvres were creme fraiche, smoked salmon and duck pate on small toast points and we even went fancy on the pizza. My hubby seared a breast of duck and sliced it on the bias, that went on one half of a pizza, the other half had prosciutto and the cheese I used was both grated mozzarella and fresh mozzarella, The pizza was delicious and the thin slices of duck were brilliant. We haven’t gotten around to dessert but that can wait until tomorrow. Meanwhile I have more presents to wrap, I told you that today was hectic. I am now going to see if I can upload the pictures that I took with my new fangled Ipad.

My personal pizza shop

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fresh mozzarella, herbs, homemade dough, pizza, postaday2012, thin crust, Viking oven

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I am tempted to start a pizza shop but there are many hurdles, the most important one is the dog factor. You can’t get a permit with dogs in the house unless you can keep them out of the kitchen. It would be a tremendous amount of work and in order to become a food purveyor, you need to be ready to commit yourself 200% which I am not up to doing at the moment, but when you get crazy compliments over your pizza, it is easy to let them steer you to fantasy land where you are the latest pizza queen.

 

I am more than happy with my writing and reading schedule not to mention taking care of Rex and Jack and the rest of my babies (my hubby, my baby boy and my baby girl). I’ll just invite people over for the odd weekend retreat to Blandford where I can cook to my hearts content and then spend the rest of the week recuperating.

 

By the way pizza number three came out of the oven and was gone before I even thought to take a picture, but I should have taken a picture of number four just to show that even the pizza queen can have an off pizza. I was sitting in the living room with my IPad playing spider solitaire when I looked up and said merde! I ran to the oven and pulled out an extra crispy burnt around the edges pizza, oops. It was still good but you have to like really caramelized cheese. It still went like hotcakes. I don’t mind burnt crust, it wasn’t charcoal yet, such a dark brown. It can happen to anyone, you would think that by now I would learn my lesson , but no.