Under pressure

I shouldn't be this excited, but the UPS truck just dropped this off for me and I am that excited. What to make first....

Pierogie Day 2012

The annual tradition continued and we all gathered at Aunt Carol and Uncle Lou's house this morning to make pierogies for Christmas Eve. Once a big bowl of filling is prepared, Aunt Carol makes the dough. I roll it out and cut it circles. Amy, Lisa and Amanda fill them. Eric boils them. And Lou enjoys supervising. The kids only had a partial interest in the process this year and instead played with every toy in the house. When the dust cleared, there were 127 pierogie made in about 90 minutes.

 

Goal Update

A few months ago I listed a some goals I wanted to accomplish. The hope was that writing them here would make me do them. I'd consider it so-so. Here's how I done so far:

1. Finish the damn kitchen. Grout, tape, molding, prime, paint, caulk.
This is mostly done. Grouting is done, taping is done, priming is done and the kitchen is fully operational. I still have to run one bead of caulk and paint the molding (it needs 5 minutes of sanding first). I was unhappy with one outlet, but I bought a new one I have it here in the house so that could actually get installed happen any day now. I even know which breaker I have to flip to do it. This will all be done prior to Thanksgiving. That is a hard deadline.

2. Weigh less than 200 pounds. I don't remember the last time the first number of my weight was a 1.
I don't think this is going to happen. I've kind of plateaued. Haven't gained any back, but haven't lost any either. I've been having some knee and shoulder problems so that has really impacted the amount I workout. A better measure of progress might actually be redoing the fit test I too back in August. I was planning to do that in January anyhow. Between the holidays and a few other things including two toxic friend weekends in the very near future...I might be closer to 200 than I am now, but I don't think the first number will be a 1 on January 1st. Someday, just not the 1st.

3. Run a 5k. Without slowing down to a walk.
This one is a toss up. I haven't done it in an actual race, but I can run (jog is probably a more appropriate word) 5k without slowing down to a walk. If I can make it, I'm going to try and run in the Last Run on December 15th. I should just register for it and then be obligated to go.

4. Make another batch of Modernist inspired bacon.
Done and it came out pretty good. The latest use is a bacon and cheese frittata. 

5. Participate in one of the local food swaps. I'm thinking of trading Italian style sausage or pancetta.
I had it all planned out. I was going to make a chicken, sundried tomato and basil sausage almost entirely sourced from Trader Joe's. I was going to go to the October 21st swap in Troy. While I was making sure I could go, a swap in Saratoga got cancelled, the October Troy swap moved to November 4 and promptly sold out. This pretty much happened over a weekend. So food swappers, you won't have Trader Joe's sourced chicken sausage this Sunday. If they have a December swap, maybe I can go. I consider this one a toss up too. I had every intention of going.


6. Cure something out of the new book Salumi which comes out at the end of August.
I'm not sure this is going to happen. There is still time, but in my defense, I made the goal before I saw the book. Not that the book's formulations are difficult, it's just the more I read the book, the less inclined I am to make something out of it. The book's recipes look OK, but I think I would follow similar formulations from other, more advanced/technical sources. Plus, there is now a monstrous dehumidifier in the basement. The old tarp chamber would be defenseless against this beast. If I hang something in the basement now, the cases would harden in less then a week. Not good. I either need to come up with a new system or convert an old freezer or fridge into a chamber.

7. Make pizza. I have sooo many recipes to try. Plus I've got to light up that Firedome.
Done. Also made the homemade pizza steel. I'm also watching the Firedome creator's tweaks to the original. Maybe I'll be able to update the one I have. But as the temperatures drop, I'll be able to keep warm playinig in the kitchen with the pizza steel.

8. Clean up the basement. It is currently a pit of despair. But just clean, not refinish.
I swear, you wouldn't recognize it now. New shelves, clean floor, stuff put away. It's like it is someone else's basement.

Not too bad. I've still got 2 months...

PIzza On Steel

By pizza in the near future, I meant tonight. Here's the stone after 3 flax seed oil curings, one in the smoker and two in the oven.

And the cast iron pans look a hell of a lot better too. They could probably use a few more protective rounds in the oven but three is all they are getting for now.

Around 4 this afternoon, I cranked the oven back up to 550 with the steel on the second to top position for a preheat. I didn't use the top to give myself a little more working room and I remember reading somewhere about being too high makes the broiler less effective. I started pulling stuff together for the pizzas. Got the dough coming to room temperature on the counter. Cooked up some bulk sausage - it is in the bowl with the paper towel. Cut up black olives - the kids love these on pizza, I don't know why. Not that they are bad, but in the realm of pizza toppings, black olives certainly don't make my top 5. Some sauce in a bowl, little bit of parm on the micro plane and a bag of Trader Joe's mozzarella.  

I pointed my el-cheapo temp gun at the plate and registered almost 600 degrees. I wouldn't have thought the oven was over heating. My guess is that I'm getting a reflection off the steel to the heating gas heating element or the temp gun is showing its el-cheapo-ness. Didn't matter, I'm pretty sure the steel was hot.

Pizza number one ready to go in the oven, black olive for the kids. I'm get better at working with pizza dough and this dough was fairly forgiving.

I don't have a clock with a second hand in the kitchen. I would guess I took the pizza out of the oven between 3.5 and 4 minutes. Not too shabby looking.

Pizza number two, sausage ready for the oven.

Here it is out of the oven. Took about the same time to cook.

I remember to take a picture of the undercarriage this time.

Pizza number three was a combo, sausage and black olive. This one may have taken just over 4 minutes. I opened the oven to spin it. One side was browning faster than the other.

All in all, I think the steel performed well. It did cook faster than the other times I had made it with a stone and I think the undercarriage was better. This isn't up there with the best pizza I've had (not really even close), but I have paid for worse. I think less operator error would improve future runs. I'd take the dough out a little sooner to remove more of the chill. I'll hopefully continue to get better at shaping pies. The puffiness of the outer crust is all on me, can't blame the dough for that. The pizza should be bigger for this amount of dough (about 13 oz.) I think I might divide this amount of dough into 4 smaller pizzas to help with the shaping. Time to watch a few more youtube videos of people working with dough. That, and practice.

Any pizzeria's out there that want to train a completely inexperienced, part time pizza maker that is only willing to come in when its convenient for him? No weekends. If so, drop me a line.

Pizza Steel

Somewhere in Modernist Cuisine, there is a discussion on a steel surface being better than stone when a making pizza in a home oven. Apparently, the heat in the steel moves into the dough faster. Based on that information, a guy started a Quickstarter campaign to sell pizza steels. It was enormously popular and tested at the Slice website with very good results. They recommend putting the steel near the top of the oven and heating it as mush as possible. Slide the pizza on the steel and crank up the broiler. A few minutes later, eat. The commercial pizza steel goes for about $75.

I'm of the mindset that this is just a cleaned up piece of scrap steel. So yesterday I stopped by the Steel Supermarket on Railroad Avenue Extension (if you ever just need a little piece of steel, this is the place to go). A piece of 1/4 inch thick plate similar in size to the commercial version would cost about $22. I splurged, added an inch and was out the door for just under $25. Here's my 17" by 14" by 1/4" plate and some of my left foot.

The fine folks at the Steel Supermarket ran the edges with a belt sander. One edge was a little rough but some sand paper took care of that. I cleaned the steel with acetone to remove any production oils. A very thin layer of oil is often used to prevent rust during storage and fabrication. Then there was a very thorough hot, soapy water cleaning. From the sink, there was a quick towel dry and a longer dry in a 200 degree oven. While I was at it, I'm doing a little work on some cast iron pans I had completely forgotten about owning. I found them cleaning up my Epic Dinner Fail.

From the oven, everything got a very thin skim coating of flax seed oil.

I spread the oil all over the plate then I put them all in the offset smoker and cranked it up.  I was hoping to leave the smoking oil smell outside. I got the pit pretty hot. I know I was in the 500 degree range near the plate. Probably a little cooler near the pans. Tomorrow, I'm going to give them all at least two more cycles of oil and heat using the oven. If I smoke us out, at least I should be able to open the windows.

Next up, dough preparation. The bowl has flour, salt, sugar and instant yeast. The cup has water and oil. They all go for a spin in the food processor. The recipe is here.

I kneaded the dough a bit and then divided it in to three balls. They are slowly rising in the fridge.

Not sure exactly when, but sometime soon there will be pizza. But for now, I've got to go clean up the mess I made in the kitchen. The new counter tops are awesome for kneading dough.

Defazio's in the Tournament of Pizza

Another All Over Albany Tournament of Pizza has come to an end and once again, DeFazio's is left the runner up. This year to Marisa's. I don't get it. Sure the pie DeFazio's submitted to the finals did look like their best work, but I've had pizza from Marisa's. I actually drove past it today. And didn't stop. A reheated slice there is alright, but the whole pies I've bought...not good.

I equate rooting for DeFazio's to cheering on the UConn men's basketball team before they finally won a tournament in 1999. That victory was amazing. My brother Mike and I spoke on the phone until 2 in the morning that Monday night. Then we talked to each other almost every Monday night that year. "And how are you enjoying week 21 of being National Champs?"

But this Defazio's loss reminds of UConn's 1990 tournament. Scott Burrell threw a full court pass to Tate George with a second left. In Connecticut, it is referred to as "The Shot." "The Shot" is like DeFazio's submitting the highest rated pizza in tournament history in this year's semi. What a high.

The Tournament of Pizza Finals this year, well that is like the next game UConn played in the 1990 tournament against Duke. Freakin' Laettner. That buzzer beater ended the Dream Season and sent UConn home.  To make it worse, CBS sports played the clip of Laettner hitting that shot during the opening credits for years. Maybe they still do. I don't watch often anymore.

I've got another pizza project of my own in the works which reminds I need to take a few measurements tonight. Nothing like a project to take your mind off the agony of defeat.

The Cheese Traveler

As someone that tries to keep up with Capital District food, how could I not go poke around the Cheese Traveler during the soft opening last week? I didn't take any pictures of the store since there were just 3 of us: me, Eric the proprietor and a woman putting up some painting tape for what looked like a future stripe on the wall. All the internet stories about Eric are true. If you have the time and desire, I believe he would tell you everything about everything in the store for as long as you wanted. Alas, I didn't have that kind of time.

One of the first things that caught my eye was the basket of Olympic Provisions products. I had heard of them before and they have an excellent reputation. They are one of the brands discussed in the last issue of Lucky Peach. Eric kindly gave me a description of the various types and offered samples. I tasted the sopressata and was sold. I'm a sucker for sopressata. Heading back to the cheeses, I picked out the Robinson Family Swiss made in Hardwick, MA. The price tag sticker description says "An award winning farmhouse cheese handmade from a herd of 40 grass fed cows. Made from certified organic raw cows milk." My daughter Allison is a sucker for Swiss and I thought this might broaden her horizons. She really enjoyed the cheese.

I was slightly disappoint in the sopressata. The piece I had in the store was better than what I brought home. In the store, it tasted like the sopressata I tried to make but couldn't. At home, I thought mine was better. So did Allison and Casey. Salami is a fickle beast. I've never made the same one twice.

The Cheese Traveler store looks very promising. I will have to go back and try some of the meats they are offering too. I suspect the place will be packed just before Thanksgiving.