A Change of Pace: Making Pizza(s) From Scratch

Greetings and Salutations!
A wee bit off onto an off-topic non-political/war poast, but what the hell. We’re going to hit up a a favorite topic of mine tonight, Cooking. There have been far too many black pills going around as of late, and all the talk about the food and whatnot, I figured we could use a change of pace. That being said, I’ve been waiting to discuss this for little while, to whit:

I got a package a couple of days ago that was unexpected but very cool and welcome. One of my regular readers/supporters of Ye Olde Blegg sent me a gift in the mail… in this case that lil Pizza Oven that’s been on TV lately, the “Piezano”

A very sincere and Public Thank You for that gift!

The two of us had been chatting about cooking as it’s a mutual ‘thing’ if you will, and in passing we got to discussing home-made Pizza. He mentioned that he’s got a really high end pizza-specific oven, and I lamented the lack of one here. I told him about the “Piezano” and that it appeared to be a fairly low priced entry for such a thing. The discussion was the initiator of my Apocalypse Pizza discussion for that matter… anyway… we kept talking for a bit, and then went on our merry ways.

The next thing you/I know, “Mr. Piezano” showed up unexpectedly in the mail 2 days ago. So again, my most ‘umble thanks for the gift Good Sir! As you will see, it’s already getting a workout…

Tonight is ‘test night’.

Previously the same benefactor sent me a Bread Machine when we were fighting the ‘good fight’ in Tennessee when he found out that locally, there was no ‘good’ bread to be had. The only shytte available was your basic Goyslop Wonderbread(s) and whatnot. He decided to help out, and got Gretchen and I a nice bread machine that we’ve used near continuously for the past year or so or leastways since we got it… Anyway…. It’s been a wonder (pardon the pun) and tonight I utilized it for making the bread dough as it was well past 9pm when I decided to mess around with it. And as a heads up for tomorrow night’s poast: We have to go up to Gretchen’s parents place after work tomorrow as I have an appointment early the next morning, so spending the night is just a ‘needs-be’. I’ll update y’all on that shytteshow after it’s done.

Now, “Mr. Piezano’s” instructions say to put the uncooked pie on the stone for a total of six minutes OR “…depending on how it looks through the window.” The directions were pretty specific on keeping an eye on the bake, lest something ‘untoward’ happen… After I got done throwing the dough down and prepping it, I threw it onto the oven, closed it, and went to set the timer on the microwave. I then put the bread pan that now needs to be washed after mixing up the doughball into the sink. When I turned back. Total elapsed time I -think- was about a minute 45, maybe two minutes had past, and when I looked in, I saw this:

DAMN. That was unexpectedly quick!

That was after two minutes+/- mind you…
I didn’t move from that spot after of course… new device, new parameters, no idea ‘how’ it’s going to come out, so a close watch on it was needed.

Literally 45 seconds later I was like “Better safe than sorry” and pulled that sucker. 800 degrees cooks mighty fast. As you can see in the above pic, the temp dropped to about 700 degrees when I opened it and struggled to put the pizza on the cooking surface for the first time… I mean I got it done, but I used an overabundance of caution as this thing is hot-hot and I didn’t want any more burn-scars than I already have. It didn’t even have time to ‘recover’ the lost heat and that pie was already almost done.

Seeing that it was damned near if not completely ready, I pulled it, and this is what came out:

2 Minutes, 25 seconds of cook time.
I’m really glad I kept an eye on it.

A wee bit of the cheese got a wee bit crisp, but don’t let the look fool you. This thing was oh so damned good it’s crazy. Gretchen said she’s reminded of the pizza from Anthony’s Coal Fired Pizza. It’s that good. The bottom was done perfectly. No ‘sag’ like you get when it’s either too thin, or underdone. The crust on the edges had a nice crispness to it, but the center of the ‘bones’ if you will, had that perfect ‘chewiness’ that one wants, and I concur with her assessment there… it’s a LOT like Anthony’s, except without the $30 price tag. Or the wait. The dough recibee I used was as simple as you can get, and the dough from the machine came out perfectly. Like WOWSERS!

I’m of two minds here…

On the plus side, this’s a great and easy-to-make thing. It also was really quick to make. And another on the plus side is that even IF we have assorted “SPORKYness” habbening, I can run that bread maker and the pizza oven off of my alternative Power Sourcing. Since I also have ALL the ingredients needed that allow me to keep making this if needed, I’d say that’s a “W” all around.

The biggest drawback however is part of the same issue. This thing is great. The pizza is great. It’s almost too easy to whip this together. Total time from prep-to-table was just a shade over 30 minutes. Less than 5 minutes to put the ingredients into the bread maker, 23 minutes exactly to get the dough made, 3 minutes to ‘make’ the pizza itself (cut/roll the dough, add sauce/cheese) and 2:45 to bake it to finish. Total time is like 33 minutes, 45 seconds from ‘start’ to ‘feast’.

THAT is the double edge sword right there.

Something THAT easy to make, and is that delicious? It means diet wise, I’ma gonna have to make sure I don’t get into making this habitually like I do other comfort foods. I’ve lost a lot of weight over the past few months, and I sure don’t want to fuck that up… Gretchen herself is down over 40 pounds too. The majority of my home-made comfort chow however -is- nominally healthy. Grilled Beef Teriyaki Skewers for one… Italian Style Ground Beef in a wee bit of rice… heavy on the proteins, low on the carbs… stuff like that…

The pizza however?
THIS Pizza!?!
Oh yeah… this’s a diet-killer for sure.

It’s just that damned tasty. And what’s even worse is this was a first attempt! I haven’t even begun to fuck around and tweak the recibee, never mind add ‘things’ like pepperoni, hamburger, onions and the like… I didn’t even try to get a full on ‘proper’ shape for the dough… It got to the proper thickness for the center and crust area, and I was like “Good enough for DotGov Specs!” added a layer of marinara, some Moz, and threw it on the stone. As you saw, it was sort of a square…

And that BTW is the thing about the “Piezano”… the heating elements are on the top and the bottom, and the cooking surface appears to be a 3/8 inch thick pizza stone. It takes about 7-8 minutes to get it’s full heat up. I actually set a timer by calculating -when- the dough would be coming out of the machine, and when the alarm went off, I -then- started the Pizza Oven so as the dough came out, Mr. Piezano was ready to receive the pizza. Like I said… 30+ minutes from start to finish.

A Dangerous New Toy in many respects Aye?

This could be a setback in Gretchen and My personal “Battle of the Bulge” if we’re not careful right?

If you want to get one or see it, it’s HERE on the ‘Zon and yes I get a kickback if you get one. The price right now is $106 w/Prime Free Shipping… the TV ad I saw a ways back had it on “Special” for $129, so I don’t know… what I do know is that the first pizza was spectacular. I’ll follow up as we go along and see how it’s longevity is, and any ‘new flavors/recibeez’ I can come up with.

So More Later
Big Country