More DIY....food

[kirkpoore1]

Steve M was waxing rapsodic about a five year old pudding yesterday, and I thought that maybe you'd appreciate another food thread. In this particular case, my first attempt at Chicago style deep dish pizza.

I've mostly been making pizza at home for about a year and a half, ever since my son was diagnosed with end-stage kidney disease and had to go on a low salt diet. [Note: He's only 24, we don't know the cause, and he had a transplant in July and is doing marvelously.] Well, here in the St Louis Missouri region the standard pizza is a thin crust variant. This is OK, but not my favorite. I have been unable to find anyplace selling real deep dish pizza. I determined to adapt the pizza crust recipe I've been using and try it out in a deep ceramic stoneware dish that I have.
This was it, assembled and ready to go in the oven:


The dish is about 12" across and 1-1/2" deep, and the crust is dough is spread up the sides to the edge. Then a layer of mozzarella cheese, a layer of freshly cooked sausage, a layer of diced fresh tomatoes, a layer of diced onions and orange sweet pepper, a small can of tomato sauce mixed with Italian seasoning, a layer of pepperoni, and finally another layer of mozzarella. Meanwhile the oven was preheated to 450F/230C. When it was up to temp, I slid pan in:


It took 45 minutes to bake, but it was hot and done all the way through when I pulled it out:


We gave it a few minutes to cool, then sliced it open:


It came out perfect. The crust had risen well, and it was crunchy but not burned. There was juice but it wasn't soggy. The steam rolled out nicely. And it was a full 2-1/2" thick. My GF had come over for dinner and had helped, and she proclaimed our effort to be magnificent after her first bite. We each had two pieces and were full. She took one home for lunch and said it was great cold, while I had two more pieces reheated tonight for dinner.

Tomorrow I'll make a loaf of sourdough.

So, what's cooking?

Kirk

 

[Steve Maskery]

LOL! Glad to be of inspiration.

There is no way on earth that that is a Pizza! But as an Italian Pie it looks fantastic, I'd have a slice any day. Mmmmnnn. In fact, I might have a go this weekend, I have a friend coming over. I'll
have to make it vegetarian, but I don't mind. I'm not veggie but for pizza I usually choose the veggie option anyway.
S

 

[Mike G]

Pizza? It looks delicious, but if that's a pizza, a cornish pasty is calzone!

 

[AJB Temple]

Pie.

 

[9fingers]

I’m amazed you managed to avoid a soggy bottom Kirk
Maybe the layer of mozzarella directly on the base gave it a waterproof coat?

I might try that cheese layer on my efforts as despite straining the tomatoes for several hours in a sieve I still tend to get a soggy base.
My current construction is
Naan bread as base, strained chopped tomatoes, oregano, mushrooms, minced beef, pepperoni, grated mozzarella

With the quantity of topping we like it is definitely a knife a fork job. No way rigid enough to pick up to eat with fingers.
Bob

 

[Lurker]

I can’t be bothered with pizza unless I am in Italy, but I would certainly have a slice of that!

Her majesty and I were talking last night about how to fully utilise the oven, ie once it’s on cook several meals at a time. We were also talking about cheap meals we really like but had not made for a while.
Ages since we had cheese pie.

 

[Lurker]

The past month we have had a glut of tomatoes.
Tomato tart has been on the menu at least once a week.
Shop bought flakey pastry, very generous layer of Dijon mustard, lots of tomatoes plus a bit of sea salt.
Eat hot or cold.

 

[AJB Temple]

Thats a good idea Lurker.

We've had a LOT of tomatoes as well. Home grown plus a few trays from my wife's work. Hence I have made several jars of chutney, frozen a cooked down batch enough to maybe 50 portions of ragu, made a lot of pizza topping and frozen it. My wife is very weird - she will not eat fresh tomatoes. It's the combination of skin and glibber*

*glibber - wife word for anything slimy and jellyish. Eg inside of tomatoes but can be applied to other stuff too.

 

[Tiresias]

I think you’re being a bit unkind to Kirk. I’ve had something very similar to that in the south of Italy, called a pizza rusticana. Not really my kind of thing, and I don’t think I could eat more than a sliver of it. But still…

Mind you I’ve also had a similar thing called a torta pasqualina. My Italian is poor (actually, mostly based on Latin) but pizza and torta seem, on menus, at least, seem to be a bit interchangeable.

Oh, and check out a full blown casatiello (sp.?).

But I think Scotland holds the record for deep fried pizzas. Utterly inedible.

 

[Cabinetman]

Dean Martin sang Amore, Pizza Pie is in the lyrics so maybe not so unusual, looks delicious, but perhaps not so good for your son, there’s a lot of salt in cheese.

 

[Woodbloke]

*glibber - wife word for anything slimy and jellyish. Eg inside of tomatoes but can be applied to other stuff too.

I like that; it has a certain je ne sais quoi One of SWIMBOS's favourite words is 'goop', meaning anything dollopy; say a portion of spag bol sauce from the bottom of the pan that could be dolloped on top of the last of her pasta - Rob

 

[9fingers]

Thats a good idea Lurker.

We've had a LOT of tomatoes as well. Home grown plus a few trays from my wife's work. Hence I have made several jars of chutney, frozen a cooked down batch enough to maybe 50 portions of ragu, made a lot of pizza topping and frozen it. My wife is very weird - she will not eat fresh tomatoes. It's the combination of skin and glibber*

*glibber - wife word for anything slimy and jellyish. Eg inside of tomatoes but can be applied to other stuff too.

My understanding of glibber is smooth or slimy but applying to speech or manner of a person not a physical substance descriptor. Maybe your wife’s usage comes from the German language?

Bob

 

[AJB Temple]

No idea Bob. I've got no clue what she's on about half the time.

 

[kirkpoore1]

Thanks for the kind comments, guys.

Pizza? It looks delicious, but if that's a pizza, a cornish pasty is calzone!

Mike, you underestimate the ubiquity of pizza in the US. My town, a bedroom community for St Louis and Scott Air Force Base, has 9 pizza restaurants for about 25,000 people, plus at least two more Italian restaurants that have pizza on the menu. There are many regional varieties of pizza that have different crust types (thin, regular, thick, and deep dish--plus variations of whole wheat, gluten free, and I don't know what else) and scores if not hundreds of different topping combinations. Even the cheese can vary--St Louis style pizza usually has provel cheese (a mix of provolone & cheddar) instead of mozzarella, for example. The deep dish style is the Chicago native version, and you usually have to use a knife and fork to eat it. (I'm told that New Yorkers shudder in horror at this, thinking that all pizza has to be held in one hand and folded to eat it. But NY pizza is greasy and floppy as far as I'm concerned.)

You know the joke about English chasing other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary? Well, that's America and food. And once we take it, we mix them all up. You want pineapple and ham on your pizza? Done--that's Hawaiian pizza. How about chicken, onions, and barbecue sauce? No problem!

Meanwhile, here's today's sourdough loaf starting it's journey to becoming food:


It should be ready to bake in 8 or 9 hours.

Kirk

 

[AJB Temple]

I am seriously struggling with sourdough right now. My ferments are just hopeless. I used to do two loaves a week. Then stopped due to health issues and now I can't get going again. Show us a picture of the finished article.

 

[kirkpoore1]

I am seriously struggling with sourdough right now. My ferments are just hopeless. I used to do two loaves a week. Then stopped due to health issues and now I can't get going again. Show us a picture of the finished article.

I will.
Is your starter not producing bubbles when you feed it? Or some other problem? To get a good rise I find that I have to keep my dough between 80 and 90F (26-32C). Too cold and it just sits there. I have an electric proofing box I bought to make sure it rises enough. Using the oven was too hit & miss and my house is too cold in the winter.

Kirk

 

[AJB Temple]

The initial ferment bubbles fine when I start it. They always do. I am using stoneground organic rye flour. Stir new ferment daily. Feed when activity has died down - always fine up to here. I need 300g to make two loaves, and I aim for 100g of ferment left. I feed and back this off in the fridge.

Ferment for use then mixed with strong white bread flour (I buy by the sack) in the normal way. It just doesn't rise.

It's not cold enough yet (+ we are too poor) to have the heating on, so indoor temp is about 18C. This should just slow it down though, not stop the yeast. Normally I would allow to rise, stretch a few times, then retard in the fridge overnight before making. Right now there is not air in the dough. Abject failure.

We do have a steam oven that also has a proving feature (Miele - its fully programmed). Might have to try that. Used to make to notch sourdough, now I am a complete dolt at it.

 

[kirkpoore1]

Rats. Maybe the yeast in the starter evolved to favor a higher temperature.

My proofing box is a plastic box that has a heated bottom and a thermostat. It all folds flat and goes on a shelf in the broom closet when I'm not using it. I think it would be an extravagance for somebody who didn't make bread regularly, but it really helps me get reliable results.

Kirk

 

[kirkpoore1]

Show us a picture of the finished article.

Here you go. Rise time was 10 hours.

The white box in the back is the proofing box.


Ready to eat!

Kirk

 

[Phil]

Kirk, really looks good, the pie and bread (hungry, have not yet eaten breakfast)

Your son should avoid all salt. I am CKD-3b, no salt, no red meat, no processed meat, lots of veg. Chicken, fish and pork are ok.
Mozzarella is salty but low in fat, so that is what wife buys.
Small tomato is ok, and spuds once a month. Crazy about chips, so it is a treat when we eat out. "do not add salt to the chips!"
Drink lots of fluids.

Over the last 3.5 years the GFR has slowly climbed from 30 to 45 which is good. Only see the Nef once a year and blood test every 6 months (was every 3 months).

I joined Davita for their menus on healthy eating.

https://www.davita.com

Kidney friendly meals are not boring, have a look at their cook books

https://www.davita.com/diet-nutrition/k ... -cookbooks

{Edit - added the URL}

 

[AJB Temple]

Very good loaf. Jealous.

 

[GarF]

I thought I'd spoiled my starter somehow recently but in reality I'd picked up flour with insufficient strength. Total disaster which was apparent in the texture of the dough from the moment it was mixed. There followed a meagre level of puff, then the gluten began disintegrating in about two thirds of the normal fermentation time. I managed to gather one half of the batch together sufficiently to pop in a banneton overnight, and chucked the remainder straight in a tin instead. I was rewarded with a tasty but solid loaf and the following day a stone baked discus.

So much for French stoneground organic flour. Normal service resumed once I'd stocked up on allinsons very strong Canadian.

 

[Steve Maskery]

Smashing loaf, Kirk. :eusa-clap:

 

[Steve Maskery]

This has been my afternoon's baking. Mary Berry's apple cake. It's supposed to have a lemon filling, but I don't have the cream. I'll probably serve it with honey instead. The Chef's Perk bits that fell of taste great, even though it is not quite as domed as I would have liked.

 

[Steve Maskery]

My Kirk-style Pizza is in the oven right now.
Mozz, sausage, peppers, mushroom, tomatoes, aubergine and cheddar. I hope it comes out looking as good as Kirk's.

 

[9fingers]

My Kirk-style Pizza is in the oven right now.
Mozz, sausage, peppers, mushroom, tomatoes, aubergine and cheddar. I hope it comes out looking as good as Kirk's.

Sounds good!
I'd be interested if you put a layer of cheese on the bottom and if that prevents a soggy bottom Steve

Bob

 

[Steve Maskery]

Sounds good!
I'd be interested if you put a layer of cheese on the bottom and if that prevents a soggy bottom Steve

No it didn't, though to be fair it was a sparse layer. The whole thing was a bit wet, TBH, but did taste like pizza. It would probably have been better to use a reduced tomato sauce rather than a couple of tablespons of chopped tomatoes. Dough a bit overdone at the edges, but the sides were fine.
It's firmer now that it has cooled down properly.

 

[Woodbloke]

My Kirk-style Pizza is in the oven right now.

In an effort to cut down on the 'leccy, we haven't used the oven for about two weeks; cooking done now on the hob, air fryer, slow cooker (crockpot) soupmaker and microwave. I bought a 'steam chest' from Lakeland the other day which will enable a small, whole chicken to be cooked in 20 minutes which I'm going to try out tonight.
SWIMBO crunched some numbers yesterday and it appears that the 'leccy usage is down - Rob

 

[Cabinetman]

My Kirk-style Pizza is in the oven right now.

In an effort to cut down on the 'leccy, we haven't used the oven for about two weeks; cooking done now on the hob, air fryer, slow cooker (crockpot) soupmaker and microwave. I bought a 'steam chest' from Lakeland the other day which will enable a small, whole chicken to be cooked in 20 minutes which I'm going to try out tonight.
SWIMBO crunched some numbers yesterday and it appears that the 'leccy usage is down - Rob

I think you might be surprised at how little electricity an oven uses, particularly when it’s up to temp. An electric ring uses a lot more power I think. Away from home so can’t see the labels on mine, sorry.

 

[kirkpoore1]

Sounds good!
I'd be interested if you put a layer of cheese on the bottom and if that prevents a soggy bottom Steve

No it didn't, though to be fair it was a sparse layer. The whole thing was a bit wet, TBH, but did taste like pizza. It would probably have been better to use a reduced tomato sauce rather than a couple of tablespons of chopped tomatoes. Dough a bit overdone at the edges, but the sides were fine.
It's firmer now that it has cooled down properly.

Sounds like a success!

A pizza is kind of like a taco, you can put anything on it that sounds good.

Kirk

 

[Woodbloke]

I think you might be surprised at how little electricity an oven uses, particularly when it’s up to temp. An electric ring uses a lot more power I think. Away from home so can’t see the labels on mine, sorry.

Not sure on that one but putting on the oven for an hour or two to do a couple of jacket spuds (as I used to) is going to use a lot more 'leccy juice that a microwave for 10mins. Tonight's chicken btw took 20 minutes in the microwave and was delumptious!

With the induction rings, I only now use the bare minimum of water and there's always a lid on the saucepans which means that the ring can usually be turned down to simmer mode. Seems to work - Rob

Edit - having just watched Sir Dave and the final very sobering episode of FP2, it seems that saving whatever energy we can has to be a 'good thing'

 

[spb]

I think you might be surprised at how little electricity an oven uses, particularly when it’s up to temp. An electric ring uses a lot more power I think. Away from home so can’t see the labels on mine, sorry.

An oven maintaining temperature may draw less power than an electric ring on the hob, but generally does so for a much longer time. The fact that it's on for so long drives up the energy cost of cooking in it in a way that's not really shown by just the power consumption numbers.

 

[kirkpoore1]

I think you might be surprised at how little electricity an oven uses, particularly when it’s up to temp. An electric ring uses a lot more power I think. Away from home so can’t see the labels on mine, sorry.

An oven maintaining temperature may draw less power than an electric ring on the hob, but generally does so for a much longer time. The fact that it's on for so long drives up the energy cost of cooking in it in a way that's not really shown by just the power consumption numbers.

Of course, at this time of year, the waste heat also warms up the home and may reduce the energy expenditure in other areas.

Kirk

 

[Lurker]

Of course, at this time of year, the waste heat also warms up the home and may reduce the energy expenditure in other areas.

Kirk

This is something many people overlook.
Her majesty is talking about an air fryer to reduce oven usage, I argue the cost would pay for many oven cycles and that the heat the oven generates stays in the house and thus reduces the need for heating.

 

[Woodbloke]

Her majesty is talking about an air fryer to reduce oven usage, I argue the cost would pay for many oven cycles and that the heat the oven generates stays in the house and thus reduces the need for heating.

The excess heat thingie is a point of view, but an air fryer is just so damned convenient that for a lot of stuff it makes a conventional oven superfluous and it's cheaper to run. We like the frozen strudels from Waitrose with lashings of custard and SWIMBO said that we'd have to fire up the oven to cook them. 'Nope' I said, 'chop them into quarters, defrost and lob them into the air fryer'
Once you've got one and used it, you'll wonder how you ever managed without - Rob

 

[9fingers]

A similar argument applies to the now outlawed filament lamps as they made a contribution to heating the house. Now we are expected to shell out for expensive LED lamps arguably with not much longer life than incandescent filament lamps.

Bob

 

[John Brown]

A similar argument applies to the now outlawed filament lamps as they made a contribution to heating the house. Now we are expected to shell out for expensive LED lamps arguably with not much longer life than incandescent filament lamps.

Bob

But traditionally electricity has been 3 to 4 times more expensive per kWH or equivalent. If you want to try heating your house with light bulbs, go ahead. I'll stick with the gas boiler for now!

 

[Phil]

A similar argument applies to the now outlawed filament lamps as they made a contribution to heating the house. Now we are expected to shell out for expensive LED lamps arguably with not much longer life than incandescent filament lamps.

Bob

My experience with LED same, 24,000 hours rated
That is 1,000 days of 24 hours
No way!

 

[9fingers]

A similar argument applies to the now outlawed filament lamps as they made a contribution to heating the house. Now we are expected to shell out for expensive LED lamps arguably with not much longer life than incandescent filament lamps.

Bob

My experience with LED same, 24,000 hours rated
That is 1,000 days of 24 hours
No way!

Trouble is that leds themselves have a very very long life. However they are fundamentally a low voltage dc device. all sort of different schemes are used to make them operate on high voltage ac most of which are the source of unreliability.

Bob

 

[Phil]

A similar argument applies to the now outlawed filament lamps as they made a contribution to heating the house. Now we are expected to shell out for expensive LED lamps arguably with not much longer life than incandescent filament lamps.

Bob

My experience with LED same, 24,000 hours rated
That is 1,000 days of 24 hours
No way!

Trouble is that leds themselves have a very very long life. However they are fundamentally a low voltage dc device. all sort of different schemes are used to make them operate on high voltage ac most of which are the source of unreliability.

Bob

Very true