Short Update

This has to be short, simply because the title says so.

When I pop-off with the title fist, the focus becomes clear.

I had to spend some time recovering, which really meant escape.

I also spent millions in virtual currency. No buyer's remorse yet. It's only a game.

Nobody even noticed. If they did, they said nothing.

I've finally come up with the seed theme and title for the new blog. You get to return for that.

I am doing all that I can so that I can finally go on vacation. That means more work.

Have to feed the daily, and the workload is advancing. Blog on the run? Maybe.

Was considering going frequent for my vacation. Got a new camera. Must make shareables.

Not here now? Come back again. New stuff regularly.

Hardcore Spin-Off

I like my new camera more than I like this pizza.

Chunked chicken does not belong on a pizza, so, I had to make another.

Any chicken here? Sure is. Plenty. I took a breast, grilled and shredded it. Mixed it with some Thai rub and a bit of BBQ sauce just to make it smokey and sweet. I used the shredded chicken-and-rub-BBQ as the sauce. Spoon it on and spread it around. The cheese here is a hard-to-melt English Coastal Cheddar, and some quality Mozzarella.

Olives were cut with a new sushi knife. Rings are forever gone. These things work much better.


Cooking is going nicely and the shape is going bowl-o. I had not expected this, but I have repeated the result many times. Here is a cooked and detailed ultra-thin dough. I've taken 1/8 of a recipe and made a 12" pizza. My neighbor loved it. I got one slice.

This was declared a paper-plate crust. Want one?

I don't deliver pizza anymore, but I will make a deal with you.

I've got enough pizza stuff to make a whole new blog, and there are some that have pestered me to purchase dough balls so that they can make their own gluten-free pizza. This tells me that I really need to make a blog just for the pizza thing. Therefore, I will do so.

Once the pizza blog is ready to go on-line, the first post will be the recipe for the classic gluten-free pizza crust that you see above. It works like a pastry and has a bit of forgiveness. Do me the honor and come back to this blog and check the "Links" section to find the haphazard, semi-live pizza blog.

Cheers!

Another Kind of Free Pizza

Some may recall that I was under orders to eliminate wheat from my diet, and in particular, gluten. I have not been diagnosed with any particular disease or gluten intolerance, but I was put to the challenge at one time. I quickly discovered that Gluten Free was not cheap, and was more than difficult to obtain. This makes for a good challenge. Over time, gluten free options have improved, and it was hard not to notice Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free Flour at my local Costco. Here was a 5lb bag of flour, with not a trace of wheat in it.

I scanned the recipes on the back of the bag, and was quickly overtaken by the Xanthan Gum chart. Depending on the kind of recipe, cookies, cakes, yeasted breads and pizza crust, there were different concentrations of Xanthan Gum required. Now I know a little about this wonderful substance. It's used in most every commercial salad dressing as a thickening agent and in drilling mud to prevent blowouts when oil wells are drilled. It's a moisture absorber and gets sticky like glue.

Looking to duplicate what I learned about pizza dough making from another short stint at a different pizza delivery job, I was browsing the flour isle at the local Vons. That's when I discovered the expensive, but available, Xanthan Gum, in powder form. It was in a different section, but had the Bob's Red Mill label on it. I then returned the wheat flour, bought two small packages of the Gluten Free flour and headed to the checkout line with a basket full of supplies for a Gluten-Free Pizza Crust.

I got worked. Not only from the $2 per ounce price for the Xanthan Gum, but from the process of making a yeasted dough and kneading it on a plywood cutting board that I had yanked from the kitchen cabinets of my 40 year old apartment. I ended up a mess, but the rapid-rise yeast did it's job, and I had a success at a basic pizza. I also had another dough-ball to use for the next meal. It took 10 minutes to scrub the dough from my hands and fingers. The more water I added, the slipperier it got. Xanthan Gum. Wonderful stuff.

By the end of the weekend, I had added a 5lb flour container, a Roul'Pat silicone mat, silicone scraper and a Zojirushi BBCC-X20 bread machine to my list of tools. On Monday I acquired a set of nested measuring cups to properly feed my bread machine. Between the Xanthan Gum and the Yeast, I had no choice but to be precise like a chemistry experiment.

Experimenting with the bread machine and tweaking the recipe for dough during the week lead up to a six pizza extravaganza over the Superbowl weekend. Saturday, my first pizza stone cracked while cooking the first pizza. I used it for the rest of the day, making three pizzas total. Sunday required an endurance test at the store for more toppings, and a new pizza peel to go with the backup stone that I had on hand. Three more pizzas got grilled on Sunday.

On President's Day, I got adventurous, and tried a beer-dough. I use a different size measure for each ingredient, so my recipe is a little bizarre, but it makes it easier since I do not have to wash and dry a cup or spoon to measure a different ingredient. Here's what I loaded the bread machine with:

3 Tablespoons Light Olive Oil

Pour about 1 teaspoon over each shaft before installing the kneaders. Make the kneaders face each other when installing and pre-align them with a test install in the bread machine. This will prevent the collapse of your mountain in the bucket when you install the loaded bucket. Always add ingredients to the bucket with the bucket removed from the bread machine. Pour the remainder of the oil over the installed kneaders.

4 Tablespoons Agave Sweetener

You can re-use the same tablespoon measure that you just used for the olive oil. The oil coating will help the syrup leave the measure cleanly and completely. The oil on the shaft will allow you to remove the kneaders easily before the rise begins.

20 Oz. Double Bastard Ale (2 1/4 cups)

You want this to be flat. Warm the beer to 120 deg-F to stimulate the yeast you will add later. The easy way to do this is to measure out 2 ounces of beer (1/4 cup) and dispose of it. The remaining 20 ounces of beer will fit in a 2 cup Pyrex liquid measure. 1125 Watts for 145 seconds.

1 Teaspoon Salt

I add this as two 1/2 teaspoon measures, since it fits better in my salt jar. I also use Sea Salt. Sprinkle this over the beer.

4 Cups Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free Flour

I add this as Eight (8) 1/2 cup level measures. The 1/2 cup measure stays in the flour bin. I think my Mom did this too. This was the inspiration for tooling the recipe the way I did.

1-1/4 cups Cold Milled Golden Flax

If you don't add this, add 1/2 cup more flour and be prepared to make a white pizza with all of the extra flour that you'll need to finish the crust. Otherwise, do this as Five (5) 1/4 cup level measures. When you add this, you want to make a nice plateau for the Xanthan Gum.

8 Teaspoons Xanthan Gum

If you are going to timer-start the bread machine (ill advised) you know that you have to put the yeast on top. Since Xanthan Gum absorbs moisture, and should not be in contact with the water right away, it forms a layer between the flour and the yeast. Add it in a plateau. The small scoop size lets you control this very well.

5-1/4 Teaspoons Active Dry Yeast

This gets added as Seven (7) 3/4 teaspoon measures. If you're doing a timer start (ill advised) then you will spread this over the plateau of Xanthan Gum you just added. The Xanthan Gum will keep the yeast very dry. Maybe too dry. I add alternating measures to the warm liquid on each side of the flour mound, and split the odd measure. I'll then spatula the yeast into the liquid to get it going.

Now you run the machine. I use a 5 minute preheat and 20 minute knead cycle. Use a longer preheat if you use a timer start (ill advised). 1 hour of rise time is suggested. A spatula should be applied to the walls of the bucket during the initial low-speed mixing cycle. After Kneading, remove the kneaders and form the dough into a loaf. Cover with plastic wrap to keep the dough very moist while rising.

Punch down the risen dough, divide and form into balls. Add small amounts of Flax to your hands and the working surface if the dough is too sticky. Refrigerate dough balls, covered, for up to 72 hours before using. Let dough double in size before final punch-down and forming into a pizza skin.

Enjoy!

A Slice of Perspective with Guile and Cheese

Take a close look. I told you I was not done with Pizza.

That's yummy melted cheese and a slice of Pepperoni. It's even crispy from the heat.

Melted cheese of different kinds, an Italian blend and Fontinella.

Look close, and you can see that it's Turkey Pepperoni. The sauce can be just about anything, but if you're near a Trader Joe's, get a jar of their Pizza Sauce.

Yea, did you look below the Pepperoni? Did you think this was just going to be any normal pizza? No, I had a single tri-lobe Manzano Pepper, that I took the top and bottom off of, and knocked the seeds out of the middle. Then I sliced it like a bell pepper, and divided it along the septa to make rings of heavenly capsicum goodness. The center is the hottest part. The top and bottom can be sliced and passed out to your guests to build confidence.

While you're using the back of a spoon to spread sauce across your crust, which is a Boboli Round in this case, gently smile as you chew on one of the top or bottom pieces. Note that it will be a gentle warm if the center of the pepper is extremely hot. If your sample is more like a bell pepper, then you've got a dud. I like to put the cheese in the middle and push it out. On large pizzas, however, a ring of cheese is much better.

Yes, this is a small Boboli. I bought a two-pack, and this was the second one. The first was identical to this in construction, except that used I pesto sauce instead of pizza sauce. Some people I know cringe at the idea of a green pizza. It's all in the degree of sauce you put on. You have to understand the power of your layers. Pesto is very strong. Go light. Note that there are no peppers in the center of the pizza. This is very important.

If there is any one piece of advice I can give to any pizza maker, it is to keep the toppings away from the center. This is pizza will fit on a 10" dinner plate when done, so I'm already crowding the center with cheese alone.

Now a thin layer of low-fat cheddar cheese. Try to keep the sheen down if you can. Less oil is better. It's not a car.

That's too much Pepperoni for a normal pizza. This is the decepticon layer. I particularly like the endless layering of the inner ring. It will make it easier to cut this pizza. Turkey Pepperoni is more forgiving of overpopulation because it has 70% less fat than regular Pepperoni. The bag says so.

The oil level in full-flavor Pepperoni is so high that you must reduce the population level. I am sure that Domino's knew this, because their 'roni was very dry. It was the Salami that was the real greaseball on the makeline.

Here I've upped the ante' with Parmesan and other fine cheeses as a topping to further entice my guests.

Perched atop the center of a blistering hot Pizza Stone, the crumbled bits of Fontinella are melting as the convection of the closed BBQ cooks the pizza from the top down. The heat from the stone is working to crisp the crust, and the crust does it's thing. Sometimes it bubbles and needs to be popped. You just don't want to make carbon out of it.


If everything goes well, and you keep your items out of the center of the pizza like a good itemizer, then you can cut your finished pizza into nice small thin slices with distinct fine points.

Yes, this Attack Formation is ready to commit sensory assault on your guests. If you've been lucky enough to get to the pepperoni stage before they visit the assembly line, then there is a good chance that they will never even see the peppers until its far too late. Take a look at the first three shots and see if any kind of dangerous hot pepper is visible.

I can report that I safely consumed this pizza with no ill effects or losses of friendship. As point of fact, the experiments have continued on the searing hot pizza stone of goodness that often warms the evening air on the rooftop deck. Several of my neighbors have been enticed by the aroma for freshly baked and risen dough, melted cheese and a variety of sauces. Not all of the pizzas have Monzano Peppers, but the majority do, and I like these the best.

And now, so do my Neighbors.

The Free Pizza Perk

Learning to pound pizza dough is as close to a fast-food job as I got. Of course, there are those that will debate me on pizza as fast-food, but considering the quantity of it that I consumed while working for Domino's, there is a pretty good chance that it is one of the reasons that a Doctor suggested that I steer clear of gluten, wheat and dairy. Let's just say that with a request like that, it's pretty easy to see why I had high blood-pressure until I changed Doctors.

Don't get me wrong, I still like pizza. It should be a mandatory food group all it's own. Required Eating as far as I am concerned. Yet, as much as I may not have liked my former Doctor's advice, it's actually pretty good advice. When I did make an effort to cut down on wheat consumption, I noticed a difference. I switched from regular pasta to rice noodles, and learned to make all sorts of interesting dishes. All of them were fantastic, provided that I took the time to make the effort. But none of them were pizza. I was trained to make pizza. I love pizza.

Now, is Domino's Pizza, Fast Food? Well, it all depends on what you order. Get a pizza with lite sauce and lite cheese, and every vegetable on the menu, and you've got a pretty healthy pizza. Switch it over to a cholesterol fest that needs 3 paper plates just to keep your jeans clean (as if you care) as the oils from the cheese and sausages drip through the cuts, soak the crust, and make you wonder if there is a spill containment kit handy. Seriously, we're talking about a pizza so oily that it completely soaks through the box and makes a red pepperoni oil-slick on the counter. You order it, we'll make it. For the 2C3P2L (*), I suggest the thick crust, but if you want regular or thin, well, you're the customer. We don't deliver napkins.

I also got to sample a number of different pizzas. There was a ritual pizza that was known as the "Crew Pie." On a busy night, there would be an lull when there were no phones ringing, and all of the drivers were out of the store. Just the crew and the manager. Since I was working inside detail, and got to anchor the makeline once in a while, I got a chance to make a crew pie. The manager gave me a few guidelines, but basically, you could make a free pizza. The food costs were going to support a little good will. Besides, I was a college student. I was hungry.

As I whipped out a masterpiece of pizza perfection, the phone rang. One of the girls grabbed it on the start of the second ring, and took the order. I put the pizza on the slow-moving belt of the CTX oven for it's 4 minute and 54 second trip to golden crispy goodness. Then another phone rang and a returning driver pounced on it as I lumbered over to the dough station to grab the tag that was just about done being written.

By the end of the next wave of the rush, two or three drivers were still in the back. One munching on a piece of crust, and the other folding a stack of boxes. I glanced at the end of the sink where we always put the crew pie, looking for the box. No Box. In the trash, a box without a label, and cut marks. Empty. I was a college student, and I was still hungry. I managed a polite chat with the manager, and he looked up with a sheepish grin which broke into a smile.

"Do like Anchovies?"

I shook my head. I could barely handle touching those slimy things when they were fresh from the can, and if they had been in a half-gallon container for a week, forget it. You just tossed then entire container, since it was useless for anything, including a new can of 'chovies. Eat Them? No.

"Well, then you'd better learn to like Jalapenos then."

Great. Sliced Pickled Jalapenos with the seeds, and the middle. I had a choice. Stinky Fish or Hot Peppers. Not something safe and sane like an Italian Pepperoncini, no, it had to be Jalapenos. Curse the Spanish for having been here first. Jalapenos. So, in my frustration, I walked over to the makeline, and selected a pristine wheel of Jalapeno. It looked so nice, and it started out so tangy that I thought it might be a joke.

I chewed. I coughed. I chewed and swallowed. I burned. I had a pizza to make. My eyes watered. I almost ripped the dough-skin. The sauce nearly hit the edge of the pizza. I was shaking so hard that the cheese left my hands effortlessly and fell correctly, and I hardly noticed from the pain in my mouth and throat.

The anguish started to subside. I managed to finish making the pizza and snag a slice of Salami in the process. Perhaps I would be able to taste it. All I could hope was that the manager was not looking at the time. From his desk, through one-way glass, he could look straight down the makeline and watch the pizzas move toward his window, make a right turn, and go into the oven. He was also on the lookout for hand-to-mouth moves.

The next day, I made it a point to discretely interview and recall what toppings people hated the most, and my manager was correct. Anchivies and Japaneno were at the top of the list, as was Pineappple. As one of the most expensive items on the makeline, it was discouraged on crew pies, but could appear, sparingly, on half. Essentially, it was a 1/4 portion. In my case, it was a necessity.

Gathering intelligence as I had, I discovered that the big eater in driver pool had no problem with hot food, but just choked on pineapple. This meant that I had to use pineapple on crew pies, just to keep this guy limited to half of the pizza. My trick was to cross, half the pizza with Jalapenos. This way, there was a quarter of the pie that was both Pineapple and Jalapeno. To keep the drivers from picking off the toppings, I put half of the cheese on top of the toppings.

The top cheese was interesting for a few reasons. First, it was not standard practice, so the pizza was not sellable. It did not meet the standard for construction. It was a deviation. Second, the cheese browned in the presence of Pineapple. Normally, if you slop the Pineapple onto a pizza using the standard technique of middle-out building (and clearing out the middle), you get white cheese. Always. The pineapple juice prevents the cheese from bubbling and browning. It is for this reason that Pineapple was not a corporate item, but was optional at the franchise locations.

There are no rules for the crew pie. Not when I make it. This time, everything went just like before. The lul, the pie, the phone, the mini rush, and the drivers in the back room, one folding boxes, the other pissed. There's one slice left on the open pizza box at the end of the counter. Yellow and green under melted cheese, with other good stuff too. Like pepperoni and black olives, with a smattering of mushrooms. Sometimes it's good to break the rules.



* Double Cheese, Triple Pepperoni and Double Salami

Two Minutes to Pepperoni

I would prefer not to list the reasons for taking a job working for Domino's Pizza at the age of Eighteen. Suffice to say, you do what you have to do, and I met the requirements for a driving position. At the time I had a car that was seat belt exempt, which meant that I could beat my fellow drivers to the door in the hustle. Yes, this was back in the 30 minute days of Domino's, but it was just $3.00 off, not a free pizza.

While I was hanging out in the small waiting area, waiting for a chance to chat with the manager. Frankly, I needed to pick up a second job at the time so I could save up the cash I needed to pay for my first semester in College. You see, I was going to have to enroll, and the Pizza gig might work well, since there was flexibility in the schedule. That, and the fact that getting up at false dawn every morning for my other job was just not going to work.

So I kept myself occupied, and learned the ordering code. I watched the slips move from the order sheet to the make-line and onto the boxes. An organization that is going to deliver pizza in under 30 minutes has to be exactly that: Organized. Expecting them to use all the help they could get, I was surprised to see that each dough skin was prepared by hand. It was final-kneaded and toss-stretched to size by a human dough handler, put on a screen, sauced per the order and passed to the cheese station.

I was there to drive, not make pizza, but, there was the secret desire. I had seen it on Television. I might have even seen a real pizza maker toss dough in the air and catch it. It looks fun, and one day, if things went well, I might even get to learn how to toss a dough. Someday. First, I had to get the delivery job, and be a good employee.

Turned out, all you had to do was have a valid license, insurance, a car, and be Eighteen. Stop next door at the copy shop, slap the items on a xerox, and you're hired. Here's your uniform shirt and hat and name tag. Blue slacks, no blue jeans and tennis shoes. Shower before work and wash your hands if you're in doubt.

It was my home town, and I had learned to drive there. With a big tank of a car, three on the tree and a 216 cu.in. engine, there was not much trouble I was going to get in to. That is, if the breaks work. The beast needed some pumping to get it to a stop, but other than that, pizza delivery wrapped in good old American Iron was a welcome sight. Just don't tap a British Convertible. Even though they were convicted of Insurance Fraud, it meant that I was going to be an inside employee if they would have me. And I knew they would.

During my first six months at Domino's, I had passed my phone test, and was expected to answer phones, take accurate orders, write neatly and post the tags to the make-line and get the other part affixed to the box. I would work later than other drivers, and got taught how to itemize pizzas. I even closed the store with the manager a number of times. I just wanted one thing: A shot at my two-minute pepperoni.

Once a quarter, Dave, the owner, would time people on making Pepperoni Pizzas. If you managed to make a saleable large pepperoni pizza in 120 seconds or less, you got a raise. It meant that you had what it takes to knock out a pizza. There were other factors too, of course. Just to give you the specifics, you had to start with a dough ball, kneed, shape and screen the dough. Put on the correct portion of sauce, and not go over the edges. Apply the correct amount of cheese, no time to use a scale, and then position 49-53 slices of pepperoni symmetrically on the pizza, such that it could be cut properly after cooking.

If you failed, you had to put the pepperoni back and save the skin for the next customer. You also had to wait until the next pay period before you would be eligible to try again, and even then, Dave had to be in a good mood. I had to take apart my first attempt. I was over the 2-minute mark by far. Two weeks later, I turned in a 93 second pizza, and we cooked it. That was, and always will be, the best pepperoni pizza I've ever had.