My wife loves Sally’s Baking Addiction and uses it all the time. She told me once she never got a bad recipe from there 
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May 1st is Labor Day here and so we are having a long week-end. “Traditionally” one would go on a Maiwanderung (May Hike) not too far with lots of beer either during or at the end of the hike. We decided to invite some friends over for a very short hike onto our terrace for a pizza party.
This was our first truly big outing for the Ooni oven we acquired last year.
Previous attempts had seen quite a few burned crusts and so I consulted with @Captbnut and some youtube videos how to improve the quota of edible pizza. We did a trial run of new technique and new recipe last Monday and we got zero leftovers yesterday. Well not quite, we only made 14 pizzas not the full 16 dough balls I had prepared.
I found this recipe in this video from the local TV Station. This is pizza dough made from 2kg of “00” Italian pizza flour. I had to make it in two batches. Otherwise it would be too difficult to handle. Here’s the amount for 1 batch
- 1kg flour
- 650ml water
- 5g fresh yeast (or 2.5g dried)
- 32g salt
- some olive oil.
Knead the flour, the yeast and most of the water (500ml) in the machine until it comes together. Add salt and some more water, keep the machine running, slowly add the rest of the water and keep it in the machine until it sticks to the hook instead of the bowl.
Now comes the fun part. As shown in the video I put on some (leftover pandemic) plastic gloves to help and it was a revelation how much easier things got with them. Take the dough onto a flat surface and rub both dough and surface with some olive oil and “fold” it for 5-10 minutes until it becomes stretchy. When the dough has absorbed the olive oil re-apply.
Once you think you folded enough transfer the dough into a container with a lid that you then either let sit at room temperature if it is for use on the same day or put in the fridge for up to 24 hours. 2-3 hours before you want to make the pizza take the dough from wherever it is and divide into pizza sized portions. The size of the portion depends on the oven. Ours wants 200-220g which makes ~8 portions from a batch. Bigger ovens will have 270g portions. Use scales to weigh the dough.
Roll each portion into a nice ball–I used a tiny bit of flour to assist at this point but I tried to avoid it as much as possible to keep the 65% hydration.
I have a special container for letting the portions rest until use, it stacks up and has a loose lid on it. One layer can be seen with the dough above. Luckily this fit our fridge for the over night usage. On Monday we used the dough on the same day and it was also very good.
Yesterday, my timing was off by 2 hours because we ate later than anticipated so my dough was out of the fridge far longer and it became quite sticky and difficult to handle but still managable. The resulting pizza was very good.
The sauce recipe was taken from the pizza bible but obviously it is only loosely related at this point. I made 2 batches of this which was just the right amount (a bit is left over now) for the dough above. 1 batch:
- 1 can (400g) of tomatoes “stückig” (already diced)
- 1 half container (140g?) of concentrated tomato paste (Tomatenmark)
- some salt
- some oregano
- some olive oil
- 3 fresh tomatoes (not San Marzano but similar looking), removed the kernels and then diced into small pieces)
Puree everything but the fresh tomatoes then add those, keep at room temperature until used if made the same day. Over night it should be in the fridge but take it out on time to get it back to room temperature before use.
Toppings:
- Pecorino Romana
- Mozzarella (bought shredded, because for the amount of pizza we made everything else would be too stressful to handle)
- For the meat eaters: Salami from Tuscany with some spicyness
- For the veggies: red peppers (Spitzpaprika have less water content) and some champignons
- Some basil on top for everyone
Here’s the prep station for the pizzas:
I forgot to take more pictures of the pizza we made yesterday but here’s one from our trial run on Monday:
We made a total of 14 pizzas yesterday only one of which we ended up having to make into Calzone because we messed up the dough before transport to the oven.
Except for the Calzone nothing got burned.
We had 2 leftover portions of dough because even with 12 hungry mouths to feed we had some leftovers from the 14 pizzas for #13 who turned up later. Of course we had cake, snacks and dessert that our friends brought 
Good times.
PS: my non-alcoholic aperitif (migraine meds and alcohol don’t mesh well) was Sanbitter, Angostura, Orange Slice and some good non-alcoholic sparkling wine (we finally found a type I like)
PPS: I totally forgot to mention what helped us avoid burned crusts! It was two things really:
- we used the gas unit to power the oven because it gives more consistent heat and is easier to handle than the wood for large amounts of pizzas (my partner added a bit of wood in a metal container for some smoky flavor)
- instead of trying to turn the pizza with the fancy Ooni tool for turning we did what most of the videos I saw did and pulled the pizza out of the oven, turned with hand and put it back in. Do this twice with 30 second bake time in between for a total of 90-120 seconds of bake time and voilà no burned crusts!
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I had some overripe bananas and a weekend of long walks coming up, so it was time for chocolate banana bread.
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i was already hungry… now its worse and i don’t even like raisins
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I got given a rotisserie attached for my barbecue for my birthday.
Did a leg of lamb. Served with With
New potatoes (in rosemary and garlic)
Chargrilled tenderstem broccoli
Butternut squash, sweetcorn and feta salad
Salsa Verde
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Not exactly the right thread because the pork in the Hackepeterbrötchen is raw but this is so tasty we couldn’t resist when we saw the butcher had the meat prepared. The type of bun is classic and there must be onions. Yum. Best lunch in the colder seasons (we get it about once or twice a year.)
Just in case you don’t want to see this…
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It was the 11/11 which is St Martin’s Day in Germany which means traditional goose eating. We went to our favorite place to have a fancy goose menu along with the classics.
On top of everything our favorite sommelier gave me a sip of the wine package with every course but just so that I could smell and taste and drive everyone home.
Sadly, I am not used to eating so much meat in one sitting anymore.
The traditional part is bottom left btw. The rest is the bonus courses 
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As we do, we had our big start of the year BBQ party yesterday.
The chickenwings are actually next to the ribs I just couldn’t see it at first. The one with the lid has baked feta cheese with some veg … the actual vegetarian main dish wasn’t grilled this year becaues I made potato waffles with sauteed mushrooms which the non-vegetarians also got to enjoy after the vegetarians had had their portions.
This is the first time in years that we had snow on Jan 6.
So cold. But at least no rain, now wind… just cold. Just cold works. Wind is bad.
30 people to eat all the food.
Ribs take about 6 hours:
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Valentine’s Day here in Canada. I decided to try and do something a little special for my partner today.
And “special meal” almost always means Alton Brown.
It turned out pretty well!
The Challa I was able to find is a lot smaller than his, so I made way more (leftovers for later today), but the orange thyme syrup is legit way better than I expected. Oh, and I used smoked turkey instead of ham (Andy doesn’t like ham), but I think it would be way better with ham.
Tasty. Andy liked (but didn’t love) it. But gods a lot of work… and $10 worth of guyere, and $10 worth of turkey and a lot of work.
But legit good. But maybe too much work for the amount it was good.
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Corned beef hash does not take forever, though longer than Roger’s recipe,
I make it in my wok. A largish potato diced, goes into boiling salted water for 15 to 20 min.
I dice an onion and start to fry it adding the potato after draiing it.
I then add a tin of corned beef, diced. (It’s easier to do this if you put the tin in the fridge for a while to firm up the meat.)
I fry the result until it’s mixing together, turning frequently and trying to develop a bit of burned texture. I add some dashes of Lea & Perrins and a sprinkle of Carraway Seeds towards the end.
Serving with either a poached egg or some baked beans is optional. .
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Kanadaskiurlaubsgedenkfrühstück
(Canada skiing vacation memorial breakfast)
For Valentine’s we cooked “Sanji’s Curry” from the anime cookbook.
Does not look quite as good as the original but very tasty (and too much)
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The curry looks good from here. And there’s no such thing as too much curry! 
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Made some soups to take over to my parents yesterday. One of the recipes included the dreaded phrase I would love to purge from the brain of every recipe book author on the planet: a “pinch”.
They clearly have no idea how inconsistently they are collectively using that term. It seems to mean anything from an eighth of a teaspoon to about two whole teaspoons. It drives me crazy. Give us a damn measurement! I know that you, the recipe author, never measure it – but you, the recipe author, know what you mean by it. So, just for fun, how about dispensing the amount you actually mean into a measuring utensil and writing down what that turns out to be, instead of saying “a pinch” or “a dash”, or any other “haha! not going to tell you!” phrase that gets tossed into these texts. And if even you aren’t sure how much you need, then take a “one in the pot, one in the measurer” approach, and when the food tastes right, measure the second lot. It’s not rocket science.
So anyhow, given the requirement of “two pinches” of fennel seeds, I ended up with something which tastes of almost nothing but fennel. Sigh.
At least the second one worked out ok.
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I’m going to nail my colours to the mast and say that anyone who uses “a pinch” to mean 2 tsp is objectively incorrect.
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Try reconstructing mediaeval recipes some time. “Take sufficient of nutmeg.”
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There is a 2 finger pinch and a 3 finger pinch.
Since I barely ever cook according to recipe … I do fine with vague measurements or simply verify with a second similar recipe if something seems off. Fennel seeds can be very strong. I only have 1 bread recipe that uses them and they are combined with other spices to balance the taste.
Medieval recipes are weird they seem to use too much spices when they use them. I have give up on recreating such recipes after a few attempts they do not match my modern tastebuds. I mean recipes from a couple of decades ago tend to seem antiquated to me…
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Cinnamon in a mediaeval recipe is the goldschläger of the mediaeval world, a big part of it is showing off that you can afford it.
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