Never launch into baking while you’re preoccupied.
So I start out. Cannister of wheat, white, and wheat bran—which puts back into flour what the Romans had and what’s censored out of our white flour.
Cup of each. Dash of olive oil. Pinch of salt. And I got too much water in. Add more flour; and more flour. Damn, I forgot the sugar. Can’t find the honey. Out of sugar. Well, —blackstrap molasses will do. But the dough is already made. I add too much. It’s everywhere. Well—fingers were made before spoons, or mixers. I squish it in and it’s kind of a yellowish brown. I go on squishing. I have to add more flour until I can handle it: good mix should NOT adhere to the mixing surface, or to your hands.
Ok, I knead this awful mess for about 3 minutes. More can make it tough. But by now it looks like dough again.
I plop it in a bowl. Look for a warm spot. None to be had. Damn. I take it to the bathroom and turn the heater on for 30 minutes.
Now I stretch it out by flattening it and ‘hanging’ it in midair and letting it stretch—not risking trying to throw it: it’s too heavy; I lay it on a pizza peel [don’t do that!] heat up the oven to 425 and add the pizza stone. [Another mistake] compose the filling. Mmm. Layer of pizza sauce, check. Layer of spinach, check.
Then—I find Taste of Thai Peanut Bake, comes in a flat packet in the Oriental Foods section. Great stuff, a little sweet, a little spicy. I toss frozen chicken bits in a pan, add this, add a little olive oil, until the mix coats the chicken. Using wooden spatula, rake it onto the bed of spinach, add cheese and raw mushrooms.
I didn’t have any cornmeal; I’d used wheat bran to try to create a sliding surface. But it’s absorbed the bran and I can’t get this heavy thing off the peel and onto the stone. An attempt dumps inertially-determined cheese onto the sizzling hot stone, which will take me forever to clean, and right now I have a time-critical mess—our supper— on my hands. What to do?
I extract the stone with a heavy glove, and think of the iron skillet.
It becomes Chicago style. I set the peel on the counter, set the skillet on the stone, which is on a burner because of its heat—and I start trying to transfer the pizza to the skillet. Here is where elastic dough is my only help. I fold it up toward the center, then get my hands under it (without glove) and manage to center and plop the whole mess into the skillet. I put the skillet in the oven, then take the stone to the sink and try to get the cheese off it. This takes me maybe five minutes, in retrospect, before I remember to set the timer for 20 minutes.
Well, it bakes. It makes a deepdish green pizza. I got the stone clean. And 3 minutes before ‘done’ I look in, find it all baked and brown, and haul it out. Now, I am still distracted [plotting does this to me], and I did forget to use the glove when bracing the 425 degree skillet for the cutting of the pizza. That hurt. Fortunately it only seared two fingertips before the message got to the brain. I put on the glove, held it firm, and cut it down the middle, then lifted it onto plates to let us handle it with knives and forks.
The result, after all this—I think it was pretty good. The crust was great whole-wheat bread, and if only I’d heated the skillet bottom on the burner before putting it in, it would have been thoroughly crispy instead of a bit soggy (the mushrooms and spinach) on the center bottom, but the flavors were great. Next time I think I’ll try it with only the sauce, chicken, peanut mix, and cheese. Sort of Thai pizza that’s very low-fat, pretty low cal, pretty low carb, high fiber, and quite filling.
The fingers got the cold water treatment and are fine. Jane says it’s a do-again.
Master of improv, that’s me.
Glad it was tasty — think you really earned your supper this time!
Do you have an aloe vera for burns and wasp stings? I wouldn’t be without it.
There is something we call ‘blue goo’ — aloe gel + lidocaine to make the owie shut up long enough for the healing to commence. When they start bringing out the suntan products, look for it on the same shelf. Banana Boat and Ocean Potion both make variants, and they are good on all burns.
Oh, yes, thanks! If it had really done a number I’d have been down there taping raw aloe to the injuries.
Oh, you had quite an adventure! I’ll feel better when I try my hand at pizza dough making.
I divided my aloe vera plant last year. This was advanced gardening practice for me then. It went surprisingly well. All but two survived, and the parent plant is thriving.
Emboldened by the pizza dough and Roman legionary discussion, plus in need of more supplies for the great tomato gardening experiment, I ran by Lowe’s this morning, grabbed more potting soil, seed packets for a couple of other veggies, and pots; and then went by the store for whatever pizza making supplies I didn’t have on hand. (I think I have what I need now, we’ll see.)
Got back around 12:30, played in the dirt, and will be hoping to see things sprouting in a few days. I’m brand new at this. I therefore bought extra seed packets, to hold in reserve, in case I screw up, which seems quite possible. If all goes well, there will be tomatoes, bell peppers (varied colors), green onions, and (not yet planted) radishes. The main purpose is to offset my decreasing budget. But I’m gaining gardening experience, and that’s…I’ve discovered I like it. Came back in at about 2:00 or 2:30, changed, and plugged in my laptop.
Some time this evening, or else tomorrow, I will head into the kitchen and attempt pizza dough. I did get a Boboli’s pizza crust as a backup. When I got home, I realized, I wonder if I have any artichoke hearts on hand, marinated and canned. Even if not, I should have enough goodies to make a very tasty pizza. Doubt my spinach is still good, but maybe.
I’ll report back with my results. 🙂
Costco or Sam’s is the place to get tons of artichoke hearts. Cheap.
Reminds me of one year when my sister & I decided to make cut-out Christmas cookies. It was such a fiasco it became known to us as “Gump Cookie Factory.” The dough was too sticky and kept getting stuck to the table (even with flour dusted on the surface!) so we had to keep peeling them off. It was also rather stretchy. We had used a cat-shaped cutter – every time we picked up one of the raw cookies, the kitty’s legs would start to streeeetttccchhh and droop. We had some darn goofy-looking cookies that year!
If I remember my high school Latin – the Aeneid – When they finally got to Italy they ate on round breads – but my teacher said that it was NOT pizza.
It was the ANCESTOR of pizza. 😉 Pizza is an invention of American Italians, who put cheese and sausage onto regular round bread as it was ready to bake and stirred it sort of in with a knife, a little like the Chicago deep-dish pizza: add tomato sauce for flavor, a little basil and oregano, and there you are. To this day, I believe, since I have not been there in 40 years, if you order pizza in Italy, you will get something like the original, more bread than topping, rather than the thickly-loaded American pizza.
In my James Beard On Bread cook book I have a recipe for Pizza Caccia Nanza. The translation of ‘caccia nanza’ is ‘taken out before’. When bead was made in traditional Italian houses a bit was reserved to be cooked quickly and ‘taken out before’ the main baking was done. If you look it’s easy to find some sort of flat bread in every culture.
One version I have heard of the origin of modern pizza is that it was ‘invented’ when Italian royalty visited the USA. The flat bread used tomato sauce, white cheese and green peppers because those are the colors of Italy’s flag. Stranger origins have happened.
Apparently the story is that in 1889 Queen Margherita of Savoy visited Naples, and in honor of the occasion the Neapolitan chef Raffaele Esposito created a ‘Pizza Margherita’, using ingredients with the colors of the Italian flag – tomatoes, mozzarella cheese, and basil.
It caught on, and was later taken to the USA by immigrants from Naples.
That’s funny. 😉 I always rather thought it might be because American workers often travel further in the daily job, and can’t get home for lunch as they might well in Italy: pizza would be the most transportable means of sending a traditional set of tastes in a lunchbox. [Italian pizza is not gooey.]
But the royalty origin is perfectly possible!
A fast lookup confirms the royalty statement; and also says that it was not actually invented in America—but that it was ‘street’ food sold by vendors from way back in the 1700’s and possibly before.
The tomato did not get to Italy until the 1500-1600’s—it’s an American plant. Pizza started with white sauce.
Interesting!
I’m curious what Europeans used before they had American foods like tomatoes, coffee, cocoa, and others.
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Drat, just noted I still haven’t checked if I have any artichoke hearts, but I’ll be out tomorrow; can swing by the store.
We’ll see tomorrow how my first pizza dough attempt went. Got it made and flattened to the pan, but didn’t get the ingredients on. The dough, on the pan, (hey, pun, there) is in ther fridge, plastic wrap on top. — Thought I had whole wheat flour, didn’t. Got too little, then a bit too much water in the dough; thought it was OK until I went to punch and flatten it. Added a bit of flour, and now think I learned right from that. Also learned I need a bigger board to roll or flatten and shape the dough. Ended up pressing it by hand like a pie crumb crust, directly into the pan…which was oiled and floured, but I forgot the bit of cornmeal. Pressing may make it stick; we’ll see. I plan to get a peel and stone and maybe a rack. — Am very curious how much it may rise in the fridge overnight. This was really fun, seemed easy.
I feel confident on the layering of ingredients, for making the pizza tomorrow. I’m the kind who likes a “supreme/deluxe,” all the veggies, extra black olives, no anchovies, no jalapeños, so I’ll find out how to go lightly, not overload it. — Diced chicken plus a bit of pepperoni, Canadian bacon, maybe sausage or burger, with what I have for meats. May cheat with Prègo or Ragù, or may stay from scratch (dried basil and oregano, though). Tomato paste, mozzarella and parmegiano, bell peppers if mine are still good, onion, minced garlic, mushrooms, other veggies on hand.
Bought garlic spread from the Kroger’s deli.
Orange spice tea to drink.
Might even get a picture.
The dough has given me confidence for doughs and breads, but that’ll be a treat, not a constant. OTOH, if I finf making bread is chwaper and I have time, it might be a regular. Will want to be cautious on carbs, though.
Once I’m satisfied, I’ll show off by treating my grandmother and a friend or two to homemade pizza. (I’m not hip enough to call it ‘za.) — Atevi green pizza can’t be far behind!
Try flattening the center of the ball, then grabbing the edge and letting its own weight stretch it a bit, then proceeding round and round and round, letting gravity do the work. Proper pizza dough is very stretchy and won’t tear easily, so this ends you up with a crust.
Also, if you have to maneuver a fully stretched dough, just flip it double on itself and lift it as a half moon. It’s pretty tolerant of those things.
Adding flour to even out the moisture is not an uncommon predicament: it usually works well.
As to the European diet pre-America, a lot of oats, barley, turnips and cabbages, apples—all of these store very well through the winter in a root cellar. The tactic is—eat the ones that are about to go bad. This is the duty of the children. The seniors of the household get the good ones.
There’s a family story about the apple barrel in mum’s day, back in the 20’s: the mother of my mom’s best friend actually told the kids to eat the good apples—it was spring, already, more food was going to be in the garden—and they would have pies with the remainder.
Kids today don’t know how good they have it!
When I first skimmed this, I (mis)interpreted “green pizza” as green *sauce* pizza a la Bansu, figuring he had shared the recipe with you…and was disappointed when the actual phrasing connected with my brain on re-read. But the question remains, did he actually share his recipe with you — or with anyone?
Bansu’s Pizza Thread is on Shijidan in The Bujavid….lots of recipes there…..you will have to go down a bit to find the thread. 😉