Home-Messed Pizza

We forgot to take a foto of the homemade pizza ... until after it was halfway gone.  So, here is half the pizza.  Made the dough from scratch, put on some tomato sauce, thin slices of summer squash, thin slices of onion, some little globs of mozzarella cheese.  Freaked my wife by putting it in a 400 F oven for 9 minutes (which kinda warped the thin cookie sheet/pan).  Tasted really good.

This was the mess left over from making the pizza dough.

We still have 3 more balls of dough in the refrigerator.

each makes about a 9" pizza.

Faster No-Knead Dough

Changes to the recipe previously posted below ...

* add 1/4 tsp red wine vinegar
* and increase the water temperature to "almost HOT"
* then after it is all mixed together, set it aside for only 3-4 hrs for fermentation
(instead of 18-24)

Chile Relleno + A Wimp

 

The wife and I each ordered a chile relleno for dinner this evening.  

She ate hers right down and nibbled the flesh off around the bottom of the stem.  And she had barely a sheen of moisture around her eyes and on her cheeks.

So, I started eating mine ... about 2/3rds of the way through, I had sweat streaming off my head, down my neck, dripping off my nose, and I had to keep wiping my eyes to clear them.

She was sitting over there thinking, "What a wimp!"

I left A LOT of the fleshy part around the base of my stem.

She said, "Aren't you going to eat that?  Give it to me, I'll eat it."

So I gave it to her.  She took a small bite of it.

Then very promptly took it out of her mouth and did NOT eat anymore of it.  Instead, she was grabbing for her waterglass, chips, and anything else that might cut the burn.

It seems that not all poblano peppers are created equal ...

hers was a nice medium ... mine wasn't!

:-p 

Annual School Bus Training

I showed up for our annual - "school is about to start, and you may have to drive kids" - training ... As per the letter they sent me.  I waited and waited but no one came.  Someone finally answered the phone at the office this afternoon and said it had been postponed for the funeral of one of the regular drivers.  Try again on Monday.

No-Knead Pizza

http://foodwishes.blogspot.com/search/label/Pizza
There's a video there to walk you through this ...

No-Knead Pizza Dough Ingredients:
2 oz whole wheat flour (1/2 a cup)
16 oz all-purpose flour, unbleached is best  (3-1/2 cups)
*about 4 cups total
1/4 tsp dry active yeast
1 1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp sugar
 2 Tbl olive oil
1 1/2 cups warm water, (if possible, use bottled/filtered water as chlorinated water can retard the yeast growth)

Stir it all together a little bit until it makes a sticky dough ball.
cover with plastic wrap (a couple of punctures in the wrap)
Then set it aside (like maybe in the cold oven so it will be out of the way)
Note: Rising times will vary based on the temperature. It should probably go at least 14 hours to develop enough gluten, but could take as long as 24 hours to double in size.
Scrape it out of the bowl onto a well floured surface
lightly sprinkle a little flour on the dough and pat it lightly (so it isn't so sticky to your fingers)
gently push it into a rectangular or round shape.
Cut it into 4 pieces ... then form these into balls by gently tucking the dough up into the bottom.
sprinkle cornmeal as needed onto the pan so the dough won't stick
Roll out your dough  as thin as you would like it (you can stretch it out by pulling, tossing, etc. but a roller lightly flowered is simpler) and then set it on the cornmeal in the pan
spread a thin layer of tomato sauce (or whatever - Tbl olive oil with 2 cloves minced garlic) on it, cheese, fresh oregano, basil, whatever sprinkled on top ...
He pre-heated his oven to 550°F, set the pan with the pizza on the bottom of the oven for 4 minutes, then moved it up to a middle rack for another 3-4 minutes.

This is enough to make 4 pizzas ... or you can put the extra dough in plastic baggies and put it in the refrigerator (3-4 days max) or freezer.

Wednesday ...

Yesterday Made bread, found an interesting youTube video about no-knead bread http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13Ah9ES2yTU, cooked up the green beans/field peas, made some fresh salsa (it is so good I could eat a whole pint of it with tortilla chips), today I need to work, and we need to cut up the okra and get it into the freezer (my neighbor's).  The wife did laundry, the dirty dishes were all done, but there are more that need washing today (what a frustrating struggle keeping up with dirty dishes).

Not What It Should Be

Little problems ... Went to walk the dogs tonight .. had to pull them away from the kitten with the mangled leg. Pressure on legs as I walked and pulled backwards against the lunging dogs. Stepped backwards into a hole the pug had dug in the front yard. About fell over, stopped with my cane. Thigh muscle hurt like crazy .. Right calf muscle cramped up. Had to finish walk with cramp. Took lots of pain Meds.
Other issues: Having problems with vision going blurry on me sometimes so I have difficulty reading even with glasses.  I end up having to take naps for my body to recover ... I'd rather not have to do that.  The thought of diet ... ugh.  Whatever . Disregard everything after it hurt like crazy ... and still does ...

My walking cane may embarrass my children ...

It is made of Oak and looks like a saw handle.

Then again they may just say, "We know dad is weird."

The handle had a spot where you could put a quarter ...

so I did.

Still Got ITCHIES

I've still got itchies from those 24 stings ... of course, it doesn't help to keep scratching them. 
Taking short walks with the dogs, kinda hobbling along, and using the cane to brace myself when they try to take-off after squirrels or cats.  Made it up to the shop today, ate a chocolate mint ice cream cone.  Watched a little TV.  Did my reports and turned them in.