@QMS daytime temp projected in low 40's so no shoveling today.

Would not mind sitting next to a heated brick pizza oven right now, enjoying a crisp pesto pizza.

Stay warm playing in the snow.

'farmers' pizza -- pesto based on thin crust with lots of veggies scattered about and feta

winter wonderland here today, about 4" fresh snow overnight
sun is breaking thru making the world bright
just above freezing, so the shoveling won't be bad

Thanks for the OT SOE!

Enjoy your Saturday all!

@Lookout Parmesan cheese. I will need to try this recipe and add a few toppings.

Joy of Cooking an essential on my shelf. Yeast dough is so adaptable. Ground flour is the compost, seed with yeast add moisture. let grow. Use the other ingredients and temperature to alter speed of growth and texture. A good pounding simply helps it rise a little higher.

for keto peoples...cauliflower crust pizza. Sounds weird, but tastes great.

Buy cauliflower rice or grate two cups of cauliflower.
Steam or microwave till soft.
I put it in a colander lined with a clean dish towel.
Use towel to press and squeeze out water.
Add cooked cauliflower to one cup of Parmesan cheese.
Add a good shake of crushed red pepper.
Mix with a well beaten egg.
Spoon out on a parchment paper lined pan.
Shape your crust how you like....round, square?...to about 1/4 inch thick with a spoon

Pop in a 400 F oven for about 20 minutes till a least the edges brown.

Top with your favorite ingredients, and reheat till done to your liking.

I used to make a wheat flour crust (using yeast), and modified that recipe from the old "Joy of Cooking" pizza dough. It was good too.

As to sides...we like a fresh salad with our pizza...typically with an olive oil and quality vinegar dressing. And of course a glass of wine!

Happy cooking and dining everyone!

@mimi Locally the increasing population and pollution impacted opportunities of wild foraging. Really miss the summers of staying on the fishing boat, dropping a crab pot off the stern while tied to the dock and cooking fresh dungeness crab for dinner.

Frozen cheese pizza livened up with fresh herbs and onions from the garden always a treat.

lesson from your essay is just this:

do not allow yourself to become financially trapped in a job.

Yes, yes, yes. This is in the mail to my son. It needs courage to quit, but without quitting there is no new beginning. So...

Wish you all luck and lots of pizza. For me getting a pizza into the oven, means I am tired and have no fun to do from the scratch cooking. Never made a pizza from scratch. Always just the lazy, boring pizzas you can buy here out of the freezers in the stores. Can't eat them anymore.

I miss the fish market and the MD blue crabs in Washington DC. I always cooked them my way from scratch. Times bygone. I stop here otherwise I start to cry.

Have a good weekend all.

@Azazello Spice mixture came in a foil bag to mix with 5 pounds of flour to coat the 1/4 inch thick potato slices and brined chicken before cooking together in a broaster. A commercial cooking unit which fries food in oil under pressure.

Benefit of the COVID pandemic a Japanese Shakey's released the recipe (go here for the recipe). Various brands of bullion taste different I am going to experiment with the spices, a little buttermilk powder added to the flour. Will try adding chicken flavor with rendered chicken fat saved from the last roasted chicken.

But this is no ordinary Shakey's-style mojo food hack: this recipe is actually shared by Shakey's Japan last March 15, 2020 via their Twitter account (in Japanese).

Did you learn to make those mojo potatoes ?

@Jen @Jen as a base is my favorite. Sometimes a brushing of garlic infused olive oil, roasted garlic paste or pesto.

As a successful, experienced cook when a recipe fails to meet expectations I blame quality of ingredients available or cooking equipment first. It may take a long time before I realize "opps" maybe forgetting the yeast was the problem. My first kitchen was small with a low ceiling. The space above the refrigerator was the perfect temperature to rise dough. Never had such a sweet spot again and have shifted to a bread machine. Using the oven is an option, but if easily distracted the dough becomes too hot, killing or inhibiting the yeast.

Type of flour makes a big difference in the texture, flavor and ease of handling raw dough. Best to start experimenting with flours readily available. The only type I do not like to use is bleached.

Keep your memory target in mind and good luck. The perfect pizza is one you enjoy and are comfortable sharing with others.

edited - spelling

I love pizza, I really do. I just do not like more than a slight taste of sauce though. Just enough to say it's on there. I do not know of any good local pizza places, I usually just get dominos or pizza hut. Since pizza hut closed in my town last year, I've just been stuck with dominos. I always order with light sauce and sometimes they listen and sometimes they don't.

I remember when I was little, my parents got pizza from a place called, "pizza place" or maybe it was "pizza box". They had a rectangle pizza cut into squares and I always had to have to middle piece because no crust.

In high school, there was a place in the mall (where I went every Friday and Saturday) called "italian village". I loved that pizza. I still think it's the best pizza I've ever had even though it's been years since I've had any.

I've tried making pizza myself but it's never turned out right. Barely edible sometimes. Maybe if I had a bread machine and learned to make the crust...

@enhydra lutris going and try this dough. It has been years since tried an oil crust. The market carried one choice for olive oil, the crust was not outstanding. Should be a difference between the Wesson oil and olive oil when making pizza dough. Understanding of various grades of olive oil and local choice is much better.

In the '80 family owned Papandreas Pizza came to the area. Adult children moved up from California opening a new location. Not been able to recreate their crust, maybe this is close. Favorite spot for calzones. San Diego introduced me to fish tacos and margarita on the rocks.

staple here at casa lutris. I learned to appreciate fina pizza in, of all places, San Diego.

San Diego seems to have always had a vibrant Italian community, as back into wild west days even. It has its own "Little Italy" on the landward side of Harbor Drive (now probably something else) which is really Hwy 101, nestled between downtown and Old Town. Since 1946 they've had a ristorante/pizzeria named Pernicano's. When I was growing up they had another location along the coast where Pacific Beach met La Jolla. Eventually other places started making pizza, but Pernicanos was "THE" place to get pizza, especially pepperoni and mushroom (if you grew up in San Diego, margherita was a bit too bland for your taste buds).

My crust is 1 cup well fed sourdough starter + 1.25 cups all purpose flour and 2 teaspoons of extra virgin olive oil. You mix this into a dough by hand (I use a Danish style pastry whisk) and it really doesn't want to absorb all the flour, but it will, and then dump it onto a lightly floured counter and knewd the hell out of it, adding more flour as needed to get a smooth elastic dough. Make this as early in the day as you can. Put it in a lightly greased bowl and cover. (I use a bowl that comes with a tight fitting lid.) Maybe an hour before dinner you dump in onto a floured peel, deflate and lightly coat with flour and then press, roll and or toss to more or less fit the peel and transfer top a non-stick pizza pan dusted with cornmeal. Add sauce and toppings. I bake at 425 or 450, sometimes on convection, for 10 to 15 minutes and even 20, depending upon how much sauce and goodies are on it.

Our sauce is a modified version of the one in Lidia's Italian-American Kitchen by Lidia Bastianich.

Toppings are whatever you feel like. Usually good for 2 meals if we exercise a little restraint.

Serve with: Sangiovese, Barbera, Montepulciano, Lagrein, Chainti Classico Riserva, or other dry acidic red wine. (The Italian Reds are pretty much all acidic, which stand up to acidic tomato based dishes and also cut through heavy cream sauces.)

Weather permitting, I'll make this on a special pan on top of a stone on a Weber Kettle, or, optionally on a Weber Q - 2200 portable gas grill (crank the Q up to 500 or so).

be well and have a good one