Utterly ridiculous

I found a way  handy way of making pizza under a grill , gas is great if you have it ,very hard to beat the heat output, but a good electric grill can do almost as well .
What I do is heat and flour a metal baking tray  , now roll out the base and slap it on the hot tray , straight in under the grill , cook until the topside is how you like your base , then out of the grill , flip the base over ,add the sauce and toppings to what was the underside , back in under the grill until its bubbling . If you have a gas grill the whole opperation takes only minutes , a little longer with the electric . The main benefit is effeciency even if the Pizza aficionados turn their hooked noses up at the technique 

My dear mother, god rest her soul , planted loads of potatoes in planter bags last year , they store perfectly well in the bags for months even after the foliage has died back . When I harvest them ,as needed, I simply left the very small ones in and refilled the bags , low and behold now Ive got another crop on the way , of course I will add my own vegetable waste based compost once they get going . I know many might argue its not worth the time or effort involved ,but its more than just the money , its about the self satisfaction of doing it yourself and the taste of good home grown produce beats the ass off store bought stuff anyday . 20 planter bags worth did me for 9 months and I still have a few bags unharvested .

Last years crop was hit by a hose pipe ban for around 8 weeks mid summer , so maybe not as bountiful as it could have been , this year I have two IBC's stacked as a rainwater harvesting system (2000 liters) so even if we have a blistering dry summer Im good .

I'm not sure precisely what Pucho was refering to with the opening post , one things for sure when theres good home grown food on the table mouths are too busy gobbling it down to bother argueing , get stuffed the lot of ye  ;D

Wife and children have demanded pizza tonight. I use a Sicilian focaccia recipe for the base (it has riced potato added) or a sourdough base, if I happen to making sourdough. Unfortunately I only have a conventional oven at my disposal. It is early autumn here and I have a lot of basil around the place at the moment (I let some go to seed every season and then just collect the seeds and throw them everywhere), which is ideal on pizza, at least in this house.

Bocconcini, basil, slices of proscuitto with a simple homemade tomato sauce is pretty good. We quite like boiling potatoes whole, slicing them thinly and putting them on the base. A little finely grated reggiano or grana padano added is also a preferred choice.

I just turn the oven on high and typically use the grill setting. As alluded to by others you are always fighting losing heat when cooking pizza in conventional ovens.

I use metal trays. When the top is done I put the tray over a gas element and crisp it up. Works well if you keep an eye on it and you don't mind working with the heat. Actually, and keeping in mind what Tubetec said, I could probably do this base crisping as the first step. Might try that tonight.

pucho812 said:

So looks like gardens are a partisan thing now.  Really? Do we have nothing more important to discus?  It’s very demoralizing when people are that petty.

Click to expand...

The left in the US is what is now being called Neo-Marxism, basically what you are saying, a part of that ideology, an example is the recent news that Beethoven's 5th symphony is elitist, the most recent is that they should ban the movie "Grease" because it is oppresive against women and the product of the patriarchy or something like that, the concept "White priviledge" also comes to mind, being offended on behalf of others, etc. On the other hand, here, south of your border, we don't have Neo-Marxism, our left and therefore our goverment is just plain old Marxism, you know, the message being delivered is that the mid and upper classes are the root of all problems and the enemies of the empoverished class (have we ever heard that before? rings a bell?), and of top of that we also have our good share of Woke, SJWs, and all that to spice things up.

Last year, our president demanded an apology from the Spanish monarchy AND the Vatican, for their role 500 years ago during the Spanish conquest against the mexican indigenous natives, the response was what you would expect "f**k off", but if that doesn't sound ridiculous enough, as of today, the goverment is taking down statues and changing the name of streets that have anything to do or are associated with that era.... Which is ironic if you consider that our president's grand father was a Spanish immigrant, our president is deepley catholic, and of course, can't speak any of the native dialects of the current indigenous communities, not exactly what I would call native Mexican attributes... I am sure that in no time, Christopher Columbus will no longer be mentioned in elementary education. And again, like Pucho mentioned, don't they have anything better to do? Is taking down statues a state priority?


Perhaps in 80 years we'll catch up with you and our left will become Neo-Marxists  ;D ;D ;D

P.S. I just noticed that the thread became about beer and pizza, count me in..

user 37518 said:

The left in the US is what is now being called Neo-Marxism, basically what you are saying, a part of that ideology, an example is the recent news that Beethoven's 5th symphony is elitist, the most recent is that they should ban the movie "Grease" because it is oppresive against women and the product of the patriarchy or something like that, the concept "White priviledge" also comes to mind, being offended on behalf of others, etc. On the other hand, here, south of your border, we don't have Neo-Marxism, our left and therefore our goverment is just plain old Marxism, you know, the message being delivered is that the mid and upper classes are the root of all problems and the enemies of the empoverished class (have we ever heard that before? rings a bell?), and of top of that we also have our good share of Woke, SJWs, and all that to spice things up.

Last year, our president demanded an apology from the Spanish monarchy AND the Vatican, for their role 500 years ago during the Spanish conquest against the mexican indigenous natives, the response was what you would expect "f**k off", but if that doesn't sound ridiculous enough, as of today, the goverment is taking down statues and changing the name of streets that have anything to do or are associated with that era.... Which is ironic if you consider that our president's grand father was a Spanish immigrant, our president is deepley catholic, and of course, can't speak any of the native dialects of the current indigenous communities, not exactly what I would call native Mexican attributes... I am sure that in no time, Christopher Columbus will no longer be mentioned in elementary education. And again, like Pucho mentioned, don't they have anything better to do? Is taking down statues a state priority?


Perhaps in 80 years we'll catch up with you and our left will become Neo-Marxists  ;D ;D ;D

P.S. I just noticed that the thread became about beer and pizza, count me in..

Click to expand...

well the original thread, had a reference to  a then issue. The First Lady of the U.S. at the time, was changing up the landscaping at the White House and everyone was throwing a fit because how dare they change up the garden at the White House.  but that was then. Then it turned into beer and pizza which is o.k. by me while having a stop to talk about our own gardens.

I have yet to have anyone complain about beer or pizza here. I like it when we all can just get along.

On a side note for when we started to discuss gardening, I am working an avocado tree. it does take work to a degree and I am hoping it pays off soon. takes a few years before they bare any fruit.  I hope this is the year. Avocados are awesome and healthy for you.

MY fave avocado is you half it and remove the pit. Then you crack an egg and put as much as you can of the egg into where the pit was. Then you bake for 15-20 minutes and eat. can salt and pepper to taste or add any other spice/seasoning. good stuff.

This year I started ordering Avocados direkt from the farmer in Spain. About 4kg (about 22 in a box) every three weeks.
Purchase is through an online initiative called crowd farming. Value is better than market or store bought.  Excellent food. But I have never baked them, they taste so good when perfectly ripe.

Thanks all for the pizza tips. I used to look after a 3 phase double pizza oven / 500 deg. C.
These days I get exasperated with the gas oven at home, but still get compliments.
No. 1, after many variations, is tomato, mozzarella, capers and anchovies.

pucho812 said:

well the original thread, had a reference to  a then issue. The First Lady of the U.S. at the time, was changing up the landscaping at the White House and everyone was throwing a fit because how dare they change up the garden at the White House.  but that was then. Then it turned into beer and pizza which is o.k. by me while having a stop to talk about our own gardens.

I have yet to have anyone complain about beer or pizza here. I like it when we all can just get along.

Click to expand...

I prefer to talk about pizza. It is perhaps interesting to see how much common ground we share about food and cooking, while so much disagreement when it comes to government. I suspect it is a political strategy to keep us yelling at each other, so we don't talk with each other, and realize who the real enemy is.

On a side note for when we started to discuss gardening, I am working an avocado tree. it does take work to a degree and I am hoping it pays off soon. takes a few years before they bare any fruit.  I hope this is the year. Avocados are awesome and healthy for you.

Click to expand...

healthy fat, but still fat... I've used avocado in a healthy muffin recipe.

MY fave avocado is you half it and remove the pit. Then you crack an egg and put as much as you can of the egg into where the pit was. Then you bake for 15-20 minutes and eat. can salt and pepper to taste or add any other spice/seasoning. good stuff.

Click to expand...

I was just  out in my yard. I don't think I have the climate for avocado. I lost my first fig tree to a late frost, but the replacement I planted is more hardy. A number of my fruit trees are already pushing out blossoms (peach, plum). Spring is coming.

JR

PS; Several have complained about not enough heat output from their conventional ovens for making pizza. I do not experience that problem, but I suspect the relatively large thermal mass of my pizza stones and modest mass of small (4x6") pizzas per batch, has something to do with that. My oven is only a few years old so modern design with good insulation, but nothing special. It does take some time to heat up the stones to temp for the first batch.

Avocado oil is very strange fat. In fact, people who eat lots of avocado, don't get obese. Rather the opposite.

A big pharma company in the UK spent over a million £ to find out what was in avocado oil that caused that effect. They did find out, only to also find out the compound didn't work outside of avocado. The research was abandoned at that point.

If this thread was a partisan mudslinging match then I wouldn't chime in (whether or not that is a good thing is another matter). I would say, without exception, that I find politicians on the nose. Maybe I was too strongly influenced by Plato's Gorgias, not to mention Orwell's writings.

Please don't take this as meaning I don't care, I do care (well except for politicians).

However, growing food and eating are two very important things to me.

When I can (when they are cheap and available), I eat avocados pretty much every day for breakfast on toast and/or with poached eggs.

The neighbour had a fig tree and some of the branches grew over the fence (along with the figs). The figs were exceptional (deep-red centered kind, quite large). One day he was trimming the tree and a big branch came over the fence (he never said anything which was a bit un-neighbourly). A few weeks later he actually cut the whole tree down.

I took a few of the tips off the branch that came over and stuck then in the ground. One of them took. I think that was only a bit over a year ago and can you believe that that (what was a) little stick is already trying to ripen a fig? You can't give away figs around here at the moment and the fejoias will be the same. Yesterday I harvested my habanero plant and made a hot sauce, my word. I love autumn.

We have a local labour shortage (you-know-what related) and so a lot of apples will probably not get picked. I have secured about 1.2 tonne of apples for my first cider (hard cider) upscaling attempt. It is going to be an interesting experience.

A while ago I found this wild peach tree (there are a lot of wild fruit trees around where I live), it is a white peach. The peaches are really really good, even my wife who doesn't very much like peaches likes these.

I recently had neighbours over (different ones) and I marinated some kid (baby goat - in yogurt, lemon juice and herbs) and wild venison (in pomegranate molasses, roasted and ground cinnamon and some other stuff), I also marinated chicken and beef, and flame grilled them all on metal kebab skewers with this 44 gallon drum cut in half that I made into a type of BBQ a couple of years ago for a New Years suckling pig feast. I also made some tabouleh, hummus and tzatziki as accompaniments. And to the point, I also made a peach crumble with the wild peaches. That was a good (and fun) meal. 

Enjoy the advent of Spring all ye Northerners while I enjoy the fruits of Autumn!

On a micro level, being on this forum we have more in common (audio) than we have differences in other stuff. 

That's also true in the wide world and, as John said, I think that arguing about some of stuff we do argue about keeps us from identifying the real enemy.

Peace, love, pizza, and beer sounds good to me.

I was thinking since D.T. is no longer world news , and lets face it one of the most divisory leaders in modern history , we might start finding more common ground here than before on political matters at least .
If intollerance is being seeded from the top , it seeps into every crack and crevice and expands.
In electronic terms , yeah theres a gulf between the various ideologies at times ,but thats not to say we have nothing to learn from each others perspectives .
Theres an eb(o)ulliance in youth at times , its a bit like 'new lamps for old' not because there better but because of fashion , like alluded to earlier in this topic .
We might debate which toppings make the perfect pizza , but in the end a handfull of simple high quality ingredients and a little compromise is hard to beat . At least half the joy in food comes from the sharing of it . Pizza for one just isnt the same .

JohnRoberts said:

500 degrees Celsius would be utterly ridiculous (900+ degrees F).

Click to expand...

It might sound like that, but that heat (not quite 500 but rather close to it) is sine qua non for a neopolitan style pizza. Gets the right roasting flavours outside and a fluffy inside. Best pizza, with the right dough, IMHO.

The world affairs are quite fascinating to watch from a distance as long as you don't get involved.

I rather enjoy my pizzastone in my ceramic BBQ egg.

Tasty 


(edit)
If yo have an oven wich has a cleaning mode, try that, it will run at max heat

Squeaky said:

If this thread was a partisan mudslinging match then I wouldn't chime in (whether or not that is a good thing is another matter). I would say, without exception, that I find politicians on the nose. Maybe I was too strongly influenced by Plato's Gorgias, not to mention Orwell's writings.

Please don't take this as meaning I don't care, I do care (well except for politicians).

However, growing food and eating are two very important things to me.

When I can (when they are cheap and available), I eat avocados pretty much every day for breakfast on toast and/or with poached eggs.

The neighbour had a fig tree and some of the branches grew over the fence (along with the figs). The figs were exceptional (deep-red centered kind, quite large). One day he was trimming the tree and a big branch came over the fence (he never said anything which was a bit un-neighbourly). A few weeks later he actually cut the whole tree down.

Click to expand...

fig trees are supposed to be easy to propagate from cuttings while I have had zero luck making new trees from trimmed upshoots. Now I just let the upshoots grow and enjoy the extra figs. 

I took a few of the tips off the branch that came over and stuck then in the ground. One of them took. I think that was only a bit over a year ago and can you believe that that (what was a) little stick is already trying to ripen a fig? You can't give away figs around here at the moment and the fejoias will be the same.

Click to expand...

I have to put up bird netting to keep them from eating my figs.

Yesterday I harvested my habanero plant and made a hot sauce, my word. I love autumn.

Click to expand...

I grew a habanera from seed two years ago,,, as I recall it wasn't very hot... last years habanera planting didn't prosper... my faster growing tomatoes stole all the sunlight challenging the pepper plants to survive. They started making peppers after the tomato plants peaked and retreated.

We have a local labour shortage (you-know-what related) and so a lot of apples will probably not get picked. I have secured about 1.2 tonne of apples for my first cider (hard cider) upscaling attempt. It is going to be an interesting experience.

Click to expand...

I make hard cider every christmas... I have to source apple cider without preservatives (that will kill the yeast). I pitch the raw cider into the dregs of a beer batch so a huge amount of yeast... it ferments quickly and tastes good... I still have a few bottles left over from last season. Its a little early but I may just have to open one right now.

A while ago I found this wild peach tree (there are a lot of wild fruit trees around where I live), it is a white peach. The peaches are really really good, even my wife who doesn't very much like peaches likes these.

Click to expand...

my one peach tree is still borderline too young to make fruit. Last season it made one tiny peach, then dropped it early. I expect a better result this year bit still not mature. Same with a couple young apple trees

I recently had neighbours over (different ones) and I marinated some kid (baby goat - in yogurt, lemon juice and herbs) and wild venison (in pomegranate molasses, roasted and ground cinnamon and some other stuff), I also marinated chicken and beef, and flame grilled them all on metal kebab skewers with this 44 gallon drum cut in half that I made into a type of BBQ a couple of years ago for a New Years suckling pig feast. I also made some tabouleh, hummus and tzatziki as accompaniments. And to the point, I also made a peach crumble with the wild peaches. That was a good (and fun) meal. 

Enjoy the advent of Spring all ye Northerners while I enjoy the fruits of Autumn!

Click to expand...

Yes, spring is surely coming...

JR

PS: Yes I am aware that commercial pizza ovens get much hotter than residential kitchen ovens... I am comfortable with my 500'F upper limit, for cooking my JR style pizza.

JohnRoberts said:

fig trees are supposed to be easy to propagate from cuttings while I have had zero luck making new trees from trimmed upshoots. Now I just let the upshoots grow and enjoy the extra figs.  I have to put up bird netting to keep them from eating my figs.

Click to expand...

I suspected that a fig tree would be easy to make cuttings from, the shoots reminded me of frangipani shoots, which I had success with previously. Still, I was pretty happy when one of the shoots took. The tree lives on.