Mmm… a simpler pizza this time: chili topped with cheddar cheese. I was a little worried about the chili escaping and overflowing the sides onto the pizza stone. So when I stretched out the dough I made an effort to keep a 1/2 inch margin that I left alone. This puffed up enough to make a dam and kept the lake of chili and molten cheese at bay.

I was curious on how the whipped pizza dough would turn out. But I was not in the mood for pizza. So I just threw the dough on the pizza stone with nothing else on top. And when I returned after 4 minutes, I was surprised! The thing had puffed up like a ball. I took it off, let it cool down, and cut it open.

I had made pita bread! The steam was intense enough to split the dough in half. I just had to butter it up and try it out. And it was pretty good. I bet I could make a Texas-sized pita pocket sandwich.

It seemed that there was no difference between using the dough attachment and the whisk attachment for the wet kneading. So on the next day I tried a pizza out. A Philly Cheese Steak Pizza. Which was not bad at all. Hrm. I think I will stick with the dough attachment in the future though. A whisk is just too strange.

I did buy the Magic Mill DLX 2000. And I used it to make the next batch of dough. It is quite different from the Kitchen-aid. And will take some getting used to. It is essentially a big bowl that spins around. On one side of the bowl is a loosely pressed scraper. And on the other side is a rolling pin like device which is secured by an adjustable swinging arm. This is what the wet knead dough looks like after an initial mixing of the flour and water.

After waiting for twenty minutes, the next step is to mix for five minutes. Which turns out like this. A little more mixed but not perfectly smooth.

You then add the flour in small spoonfuls waiting for it to incorporate before adding the next. Which turns out like this. We shall see how it turns out.

This weekend I tried wet kneading with my whisk attachment. We shall see if there is any difference. I am guessing that it will be worse. I am really tempted to buy a Magic Mill DLX 2000.

My pizza loving readers have called out for more. And who am I to deny them? I have a friend, Norbet, that says over a good beer: “I like to think with my stomach.” Well, my stomach gave me a burst of inspiration. Or was it acid-reflux? Anyways, I decided that the next pizza would be Swedish meatballs! So I diced up some new potatoes and browned them in the oven. I made the Gräddsås sauce with some extra cornstarch to thicken it up.

Of course, I had to try some Lingonberry jelly on top! Mmm… not bad at all. I am telling you that the pizza is a food delivery system.

The next pizza that I cooked was a dessert pizza. Cooked Granny Smith apples with home-made caramel sauce. Next time, I should put a strudel topping on it.

What is this, my eighth posting in the pizza series? I must be boring you folks by now. But I could care less. After all, this is my journal, dammit!

I followed through with the threat I made last time and cooked up some curry sauce! I used three cups of water, one of the packets of solid curry (which kinda looks like a bar of chocolate), and four teaspoons of cornstarch. I wanted a gelatin-like consistency and boy did I get it. Since I like the Japanese meal of breaded pork, vegetables, curry sauce, and rice, I cooked a peppercorn marinated pork tenderloin. I also sauteed a mix of vegetables: corn, peas, broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots. I was a little worried about the mozzarella cheese. But I shouldn’t have been. Oddly enough, cheese was an ingredient in the curry mix.

Mmmm, all nice and cooked. It was not bad even. I would certainly make it again. Hrm, I wonder what to make next. Perhaps pancetta ham, asparagus, Béchamel sauce and Gruyére cheese? I’m telling you, the possibilities are endless! However, I will run out of prefixes for my Pizza -dux entries…

Another great Mexican pizza just came out. This time, I slowly rotated it so that the rotisserie burner could brown the crust evenly.

Whoever says form does not follow function, meet Mr. Sour-Shark…

This is my best pizza yet. For toppings, I went South of the border: taco seasoned ground beef, H.E.B. roasted salsa, black beans, roasted poblano peppers, roasted jalapeño peppers, cooked onions, Monterey cheese, and topped with Crema Mexicana Agria.

The next time, I am going to try Japanese curry sauce, pork roast, and vegetables…

Today I made a loaf of sourdough bead with the leftovers from feeding the culture. You get a awful lot of spent batter when you feed a culture for a number of cycles. Usually, these go down the drain. But I pored off a cup of the active culture and used it in a rather simple recipe to make bread.

I used the wet kneading process where you 1) only add 75% of the flour and the other ingredients 2) autolyze for 20 minutes 3) knead for 6 minutes 4) add the rest of the flour while still kneading. It proofed for 5 hours. And it didn’t rise all that much (maybe doubled in size).

Pictures and more after the cut…

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During the now weekly feeding ritual, my forgetful mistake became a fortuitous surprise. I use a wide-mouth quart-sized canning jar to hold my Camaldoli sourdough culture. Usually, I pour out enough culture to leave 1 cup left in the jar. I then add a cup of flour and 3/4 cup of water, stir it up, and put it back into the warm oven. Today, I made some bread. So I didn’t pour anything out before adding flour and water. I took a cup of the culture for my bread but still had a lot left. Mistakenly, I poured out the refreshed mixture down to one cup. Sigh. Oh well, I thought, I’ll just let the culture do its thing with less than normal. Two cups is overkill anyways.

I check back and was surprised to find out that the culture had more than doubled in volume! It went from 1 11/16″ to 4 1/2″ for a 2.769 times increase. The lowest line is the starting level. You can see the beginnings of a hooch forming. The second line is the level of the foam. And the top line was the maximum height that was reached.

If I would have left it at its normal level, it would have surely overflowed all over the oven again.