Sunday, February 27, 2011

Homemade Pizza on a Pizza Stone

Homemade Pizza

We’ve been making homemade pizza at least once a week for a long time. One of the things we finally added to our plans recently is using a baking stone also called a pizza stone. It has given us a better crust that is sitting on a better and more even cooking surface.

The pizza has always been good and we’ve enjoyed the tradition of pizza made at home but this new addition of the pizza stone really has made an improvement. We chose a 16” pizza stone so that it wasn’t too small for making a big pizza. If you add a baking stone, then you need to remember a number of things. You cannot bake cookies on them, because the butter and oils will soak into the stone and cause it to be ineffective. You also have to be careful when cleaning it – no chemicals, especially harsh chemicals.

pizza on pizza stone

Try 2

We also have tried using 2 pizza stones at the same time in the oven and so far the results are good. The pizza cooks evenly and the crust has been just as good as if there was only one in the oven.

TOPPINGS

Remember to enjoy the toppings to. Put on what you enjoy. But one of the most basic mistakes that most home cooks make is putting too many topping in the middle and very center of the pizza. Place your toppings in equal intervals around the entire pizza, and go within about an inch of the edge.

CHEESE: A winning pizza naturally has a ton of cheese on it. The more the merrier! I like to put a little bit of cheese on before the other toppings, after the sauce and then really put it on when the toppings are done.

cheese pizza, homemade pizza

 

 

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Saturday, February 5, 2011

Restaurant Impossible with Chef Robert Irvine

Here is an excerpt from www.foodnetwork.com about their new show called Restaurant Impossible:

About the Host

Robert Irvine chef on foodnetwork.com

As host of Dinner: Impossible, Robert Irvine serves stunningly creative dishes both for intimate gatherings and for huge crowds, all without warning and at a moment's notice.

Read Full Bio

About the Show

After combating countless "impossible dinners," Chef Robert Irvine faces a daunting new challenge: save America’s most desperate restaurants from impending failure in just two days with only $10,000. In his new prime-time Food Network series, Restaurant: Impossible, Robert uses creativity and resourcefulness along with a lot of muscle in his fight to rescue these restaurants and give hope to the owners and their employees. Day one of the extreme mission begins with a thorough business assessment as Robert launches the restaurant into full service, closely observes the staff and kitchen, and determines their weakest spots. Then, he springs into action by updating the menu, retraining the staff and implementing aesthetic changes with the help of his design team. To ensure a packed house for the grand re-opening at the end of day two, Robert hits the streets to tell the community about the improved restaurant. Will the ruthless schedule, tight budget and ambitious task overcome Robert’s lofty goals, or will this tall order result in restaurant triumph?

 

Our Comments about the show:

The show is really quite interesting as well as inspiring. Taking on restaurants that are about to fail and rescuing them from certain demise is fun to experience. I love to watch any time someone is taking something that isn’t working, and rather than junking it or throwing it out, they take the time to learn about it and develop a method to restore and renovate it. Robert has a very direct approach that can seem kind of gruff, but it is well intentioned and has a great outcome in mind. It is interesting to see the different mistakes people have made and how making a few important changes can revolutionize a restaurant.

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

How to have fun with food – Chocolate Fountain

chocolate_fountainA real fun way to have an enjoyable family evening while eating some good food is to break out a chocolate fountain – maybe it should just be called a chocolate funtain :). The chocolate fountain has flowing cascading chocolate that is pumped to circulate through the machine up to the top where it falls down and that’s where the fun starts. You can dip anything under the flowing curtain carwash of velvety chocolate and enjoy the tasty treat you just created. Some of the fun things to dip are strawberries and other fruit slices. That’s like creating chocolate covered strawberries in your own kitchen.

You can use a million other items to dip in the chocolate fountain. Pretzels, cookies, Nilla Wafers and so much more. A quick trip down the cookie aisle at your grocery store will land you at least a dozen different varieties of things to dip. The fruit section will give you ideas from kiwi to apple and orange slices. Those have the most common categories covered, but that doesn’t have to stop you, does it? No way. You can get way more creative that that and find a bunch new things to have covered in chocolate.

chocolate_fountain_strawberry 

Clean up

Cleaning up a chocolate fountain can look like a daunting task, as almost everything is covered in chocolate and it starts to dry on everything. Don’t despair, this can be fun too. First of all, if you haven’t quite gotten enough chocolate while it was running, then you can sneak some more and most likely no one will be watching since they likely abandoned you to do all the hard work. It may be easiest to plug it back in and heat it up again. That will enable you to melt off more chocolate and pour it off into a Tupperware container to be used next time. When you get down to the cleaning use really hot water (be careful not to burn yourself) and the hot water will melt the chocolate very nicely. Many of the parts of a chocolate fountain can go in the dishwasher, but not all of them. Some of the components needs to be hand washed.

 

Chocolate Fountain Troubleshooting

Here are some of the most common troubles with chocolate fountains.

1. Chocolate is too thick and won’t cascade
It’s quite disappointing when you plug in your chocolate fountain and the chocolate just won’t flow at all. This is the most common problem and it doesn’t appear to have a simple solution, but it really is an easy fix. You need to add more vegetable oil. I know it looks like you’ve already added a ton but that really is the most simple and easy solution. Slowly add more oil until it begins to flow. The chocolate must be fluid enough to actually cascade down and create the tremendous look

2. Chocolate is too runny
If the chocolate is too runny, it’s likely that there is too much oil. The only solution to that is to add more chocolate or almond bark to melt down. If it is extremely runny, it may be simpler to start over, but normally adding extra chocolate will solve your problem fast. Take the chocolate (chips or bar) or almond bark and microwave it until it’s soft enough to be added to the chocolate fountain. Also check if the heater is running too hot and switch that to ‘fountain only’ for a few minutes.

3. Chocolate won’t stay liquid
If you started off OK and the chocolate starts to clog up and the fountain begins to churn harder and harder, then it’s very possible that you don’t have the heater turned on. There are usually 2 settings, one for heat and churn, and another for churn only. If the heat is off, turn it on, wait for a bit and then try again.

Enjoy the chocolate fountain – that’s Fun Eating!