Healthy Pizza is easy!

Fresh Avocado and Spinach Salad Pizza.

Dress fresh spinach and sun gold tomatoes with Olive oil and Balsamic, and put on the pizza right out of the oven so the spinach wilts on the hot pizza. The fresh avocado it cooked with the pizza.

Everything is better with Bacon !

Whole Wheat adds a rustic ( and healthy addition) to your pizza .

This pizza is 50% Caputo 40% AP, and 10% Whole Wheat . 68% hydration

Toppings - Dry cured apple wood bacon diced with onion and fennel, Fresh garden tomatoes and garden basil.

cook time - 3 min

temp  ~ 700

Something for everyone

Some of my Faves, made for a potluck party

Boule : Organic Honey Orange with Polenta , semolina, Sourdough  starter with overnight cold ferment

Front : Fresh Onion and organic brown rice - overnight cold ferment - 

Skinnies : Ficelles with 24 hour cold ferment straight dough 

Last but not least,  Challah, Ala Peter Reinhart formula with double rise.

I came home from the party with my knife and a few remnants - otherwise all was consumed !

Lots of other good food was had from NW fresh salmon prepared three ways, Brazilian Couscous, and salads galore. Washed down with local wines, beer, and good conversation. 

Before and After

#Poblano Pepper and Onion

First , fire roast a Poblano pepper , and caramelize some onion. Top your pizza , and add the fresh tomatoes, and Basil right after you remove it from the oven. ( This pizza was 50% caputo and 50% AP at 60% Hydration)
I experimented a bit and let the fire burn out so it took longer for this pizza to cook ( ~ 4-5 min) but the result was a crispier crust.

Local Grains: Taking Back Our Wheat

A nice article on grains

http://www.goodfoodworld.com/2012/12/local-grains-taking-back-our-wheat/

McQuade kevin

kjmcquade@gmail.com

My big Fat Greek pizza !

Feta with fresh onion and tomato makes a tasty pizza. 

This one was made with 50-50 Caputo and AP flour at 65% hydration  and cooked in 90 sec at 750 deg

WoodFired Orange Honey Polenta Bread

#Orange Honey Polenta Bread

I modified this recipe from one I got from George De Pasquale of Essential Bakery in Seattle. They sell an Orange Honey Rosette #Bread.  My version uses 100 % hydration Levain, much less Semolina, and some Spelt flour, Fresh squeezed orange juice instead of concentrate, and it is baked in a #Woodfired pizza oven
The semolina and polenta gives it a nice chew . The orange flavor is distinct. Awesome Toast

Using the BBGA template the basic formula is here but some of the amounts are only estimates. I am sure the final hydration was more like 70%.

			Total Fermented	13.77%	Total hydration%	68.87
Total Dough Weight		1.272 kg
	TOTAL FORMULA		LEVAIN		FINAL DOUGH
Ingredients	%	kilograms	%	kilograms	%	kilograms
Total Flour	100.00	0.726	100.00	0.100	100.00	0.626
Bread Flour*	55.10	0.400	100.00	0.100	47.92	0.300
Semolina	4.96	0.036			5.75	0.036
Polenta	12.40	0.090			14.38	0.090
Spelt	27.55	0.200			31.95	0.200
Water	39.45	0.286	100.00	0.100	29.78	0.186
Orange juice	15.65	0.114			18.15	0.114
Salt‡	1.65	0.012			1.92	0.012
Yeast	0.83	0.006			0.96	0.006
Honey	15.69	0.114			18.19	0.114
Vanilla					0.00	0.000
Levain					31.95	0.200
Totals	173.26	1.258	200.00	0.200	200.94	1.258

How Long Can you keep your Pizza Dough in the Fridge?

The answer is : It depends 

Here is a test of some dough I thought would be getting a bit funky. I made  4 dough balls on a friday night . Cooked 3 pizzas on Sat then left one in the fridge until the following WED ! That is 5 days !  I made a prosciutto Pizza on day 5. Dough was Caputo 00 flour , 60% hydration. I took it out of the fridge 2 hours before and stretch and folded it once , and shaped it into a ball about 1 hr before. 

The result : more chew than a fresher dough - but not in a bad way,  quite tasty and still had a good rise around the rim and toasted up in 2 min.

NY Style #SourDough #Pizza in two hours

I had an old batch of dough that was in the fridge for 5days, usually the max time limit of usable dough, so i was not sure it would be any good. I wanted a back up.  In a flash with out any measurement, I  mixed up some all-purpose flour (KA) and a small palm pinch of yeast, and salt,  and to spike the dough with some flavor, I grabbed my sourdough starter from the fridge and dumbed some in. I just mixed everything by hand until I got a reasonable consistency - to me it felt like it was at about 70%. I had about 2hrs to show time. It was a warm day so I put the dough in a bowl and set it in the Sun at about 80 deg, for 1hr - did a stretch and fold then another 45 min. then brought it in the house , shaped it into a ball and let it rest some more on the counter. It did not have the best gluten development, but I did my best at stretching it out into a large Pizza one of the largest I have made ( the peel it is sitting on is a large 16 inch peel) .  I went for a plane cheese and used a combo of cheeses,  more than my usual Neapolitan style to get closer to a NY cheese slice that I remember from living in NY.

Surprisingly it worked : The crust puffed well and had an nice chew.  Took an extra minute of 2 to cook. If i had some pepperoni, that would have been just right :)


So it is possible to crank out a pizza from scratch on short notice .