Tag: cat pic

Six Minute Pizza

by A.J. Coltrane

Historically I’ve baked pizza for sixteen minutes at 500F. The process would be to bake the dough and toppings except cheese for ten minutes, then add the cheese and bake for another six. For years I had an ancient oven to work with that only went to 500F. These days all the cool kids are using short baking times, so…

This is the first attempt at a six minute pizza. That’s total cooking time. It’s not revolutionary, but it’s different from what I’ve been doing, so it may rate a few posts as I figure out what I think I’m doing.

012313pizza

This pizza uses my “normal” (Smitten Kitchen) recipe. After kneading the dough spent two hours on the counter, then overnight in the refrigerator, then two more hours on the counter to come up to room temperature. The toppings are simply red sauce, low-moisture mozzarella, and sauteed red onion.

I preheated the oven to 550F. While the oven was preheating I stretched out the dough by hand, placed it on a perforated pizza pan, then topped it.

Basil was added after it came out of the oven.

012313pizza dressed

Overall the color was ok, the bottom turned fairly brown.

012313 pizza underside

Things to try going forward will include using a pizza stone, with or without the pan. The broiler may factor into things as well.

Bonus cat pic:

012313 cat-girl

GNOIF, Trains, And Automobiles — The Recap

by A.J. Coltrane

GNOIF #5 Recap — GNOIF, Trains, and Automobiles. (Transportation theme.)

Games That Got Played:  Star Fluxx, Forbidden Island, Lost Cities, Poo, Rocketville, Ticket To Ride Card Game

Games That Didn’t Get Played:  Starship Catan, Robo Rally, Ticket To Ride – Europe

Rocketville was the big surprise hit of the evening — we hadn’t played it before a quick cram session earlier in the day, and the boardgamegeek reviews are Not Good. We had a lot of fun with it though. In brief, it’s a fairly simple card based bid/auction game where you’re trying to campaign to become the mayor of Rocketville. The premise really doesn’t have much to do with anything though…  I think these two reviews line up with my take on it pretty well. The reviews are titled “Blame Avalon Hill (defending Rocketville)”, and, “Not Nearly As Bad As They Say”. Rocketville is recommended for 3-5 players. As one of the reviewers states: It’s probably a better game with three players rather than five, which would decrease the impact of luck on the outcome. It’s also a game that you don’t want to pay full price for — $10-$15 is about right; there’s not enough in the box to justify thirty-five bucks. None of that sounds too encouraging, but I’ll say it again, we *did* have a lot of fun with it!

The other surprise hit was a game that was purchased fairly recently —  Poo:  The Card Game. The premise is that you play as a monkey, and you throw poo at the other monkeys until you’re the only reasonably clean monkey left. There are Poo cards and Clean Cards. And cards like “Buddy’s Face”, which allows you to to interpose your buddy between you and the primate flinging poo at you. It’s a fun game with cute and silly graphics and tiny card text.

I’ve gotta quit scaring people away from Robo Rally if I ever want to play it again…

The boy cat was *very* excited with Rocketville. (He really thinks he fits in that box?)

 

Leftover Calzone Ingredients? More Pizza!

by A.J. Coltrane

I just liked the way this one looked… It reminded me of the pizza that I loved when I was small.

Baked on a screen.

It’s the leftover calzone ingredients from the other night:  sausage, bacon, sauteed onion, sauteed red pepper, “pizza sauce” with additional oregano and roasted tomato flakes, and mozz.

Up close and personal.

And a bonus picture of the princess.

Two Links About Pizza

by A.J. Coltrane

Two links to Serious Eats —

The very cool Del Popolo food truck serves wood-fired pizza out of a 5,000 lb oven — the oven is inside the truck! Includes a slide show and an interview.

This is an older post that I just ran across today:  Donna Currie has a 12-part post discussing many different baking surfaces for home oven pizza. Includes a slideshow overview highlighting the pros and cons of each surface. There’s a lot of useful information both in the posts and in the comments. Well worth the reads.

…and a bonus animal pic!

Late Afternoon Sun On The Kitchen Table

 

Unorthodox Egg Rolls

by A.J. Coltrane

These were inspired by this Simply Ming recipe:  Spring rolls filled with turkey, carrots, and carmelized onions. The carmelized onions in an egg roll sounded really good to me.

I began by shredding one red pepper, 1/2 a red onion, and three large button mushrooms. These went into a skillet with two cloves of minced garlic, two tablespoons of hoisin sauce, and a splash of soy. Everything was sauteed over medium heat until it was all a big, sticky, red mess. When cool it was combined a bowl with minced cooked chicken (about one large breast), and the green parts of a bunch of scallions.

The egg rolls were sealed with an egg wash.

And deep fried in canola oil until golden brown.

I used this recipe for sweet and sour sauce, minus the cornstarch and the boiling. (1/3 cup rice vinegar, 4 TBP brown sugar, 1 TBP ketchup, 1 tsp soy.) It came out vaguely too sour, though that could have been because I ran out of ketchup. A little fiddling and it was fine… if anyone has an easy sweet and sour recipe they like I’d be happy to try it.

*Somebody* has a drinking problem.

Don’t worry, no beer was wasted on the cat.