Cooking a Good Everything Else

You can also go to most bakeries that make sourdough and buy starter as well. Obviously you can also pull your own from thin air - but it takes more time and effort than buying it from a bakery. My GF bought some while I made my own, and her results were were better and more consistent.

It takes at least a month of really nurturing a sourdough starter before it's ready for prime time if you're starting from scratch. Maybe even longer.

I did the whole sourdough starter during covid like a lot of people. It eventually got old.

Same - but honestly - I really miss it. It took a while - and I never got to a point where it was perfect every time - but more often than not - it was absolutely amazing. I really miss warm peanut butter and jelly on fresh sourdough.

If it wasn't such an everyday pain in the butt effort, I'd do it again but man - it was so much hands on work.

Nice! (Snipe--the creator of this great thread--is back!!)

Long time no see

First time, long time in this thread. Had never made homemade pizza before but couldn't resist the Kenji recipe. Fantastic crust and super easy. I also made a garlic, chicken and bacon pizza at the same time but forgot to take a picture. I was too excited to eat. This probably becomes a staple dish for our family. Thanks for the recipe link!

Black olives are an underrated topping especially when you don't drown them out with other veggies.

Would smash.

Agree entirely on both.

I've made many, many more pizzas since my last post, and have come to a few conclusions:

Whole Foods mozzerella and peperoni are my favorites thus far. Pre grated doesn't have the same flavor, nor does Galbani.

While Dough Guy likes Margarita brand pep from WalMart because it cups nicely - it's very much lacking in flavor. Nice looking - but just not as tasty as wholefoods (which does not cup).

Cooked sauce is currently my preference. I tried a few different variations, and really like the extra punch that reducing the sauce provides.

A layer of peccorino adds a very nice depth of flavor.

I prefer regular flour on the peel rather than cornmeal. It seems like cornmeal reduces the char a bit.

I'm not a massive pizza guy, is uncooked sauce a thing? Just blended up raw tomatoes?

that pie looks great

+1 nice job, Battle

That pizza is a yes from me

Yes, it is a thing. The simplest pizza sauce is open a can of crushed tomatoes and add salt. Or you can crush them yourself if you want to buy whole.

have not felt much compelled to chef it up recently,
so instead my offering is a new free monthly installment of weekend RED burger variance

90/10 beef+bacon, woosty, garlic, paprika, all the c's, s&p; as always topped with a highly classified spousal triangle cheese slice technique; this time also added some sauteed red ommyyumyum, sambal, driz of heinz, french dijon, and two big 'ol fat dill pickle slices between toasted franz bakery classic burger buns
reads like quite the geographical map of influence, yet all ingredients were somehow purchased from the same location

Spoiler

Show

So good

Thank god! I was afraid there was an egg & cheese famine in the RED part of the country.

*drool*

Yeah. Proponents usually say things like "the sauce cooks with the pizza - no need to cook before hand" which is fair.

Kenji's Chicago Tavern Style recipe uses uncooked sauce - and is great. However, that pie uses Giardinerra, which is kinda all you end up tasting (at least if you use the hot stuff).

His NYC style uses cooked, reduced sauce.

The Ceres guys use uncooked San Marzano passsata (Gustarosso), and whole (Casa Marrrazzo milled in a food mill). Apparently the passata has water removed, and is thick / rich flavor - which they cut a bit with the whole tomatoes (they only show adding salt - but they don't go that deep in the Bon Appetit YT vid)

550F, the max my oven bakes, and the temperature Kenji recommends.

I also had some grated Pecorino ready for the pizza after removing from the oven as Snipe suggests, but forgot to put it on with two teenagers harrassing me to eat. I followed the recipe exactly including the brands of flour, sauce, etc.

More to the point, though, my mom always cooked her (amazing) pizza sauce. Be like my mom. 😃

I adore beets. So gloriously ruby red, earthy, and sweet...
beets in the raw:

sauteed beet greens (with sweet potato oven hash and tofu egg salad):

roasted and ready for salads and pickles:

as always wonderfully presented VR

Thank you, I think?

I feel a bit as if I've been damned with faint praise. 😀

They are beets...