Lincoln has had a flurry of pizza places open in the past few years, and another one is opening this Friday in downtown, but most of them use too much garlic in their sauce, some also use it in their crust. And since I'm now limited to one slice of a 12" pizza at a time, due to the sodium content, going to a sit-down pizza place doesn't make much sense any more. (We haven't been big restaurant patrons in quite a while due to garlic issues--it's in EVERYTHING!)
When we lived in Rogers Park and then Evanston, our favorite pizza was a hole-in-the-wall place on Main street, but Gulliver's on Howard was a close second and My Pie (down by the Loyola campus) was another we liked. A lot has happened since we moved to Nebraska in 1977. The hole-in-the-wall place closed (it's a Giordano's take-out place the last time I drove past), Gulliver's changed owners and he change the recipe to use cheaper ingredients, and My Pie moved, though I don't know if that was under the same ownership. A lot of the places on Howard depended on the fact that Evanston was dry, so the college crowd would head there to drink. But Evanston went wet and business at the Howard places suffered. (You can order beer at the student union now!)
The owner of Nancy's sold to a franchise group in 1990 and people tell me it isn't quite as good. I understand there are two Nancy's locations that aren't part of the franchise, they may be better. The last time I was in Chicago, I went to Lou Malnati's River North location, takeout was a 90 minute wait, but it was pretty good.
This being Valentine's Day week my baking has revolved around that.
Sunday my daughter had a Valentine's party so I made heart-shaped chocolate meringue cookies. It's a new recipe and I have been promising one of my boys I would make meringues so I made both kids happy.
Today, Feb 14, I made heart-shaped scones. I supposed if I'd been more creative (it was 4 AM) I might have dyed them pink and subbed out the raisins for chocolate chips. But it was 4 AM and pink is a color I have trouble seeing...
I am supposed to make some more challah but I may decide not to and wait until later in the week.
I stretch my pizza first by hand then finish by rolling it with a rolling pin. I do this on butcher block with flour. Then I put the pizza on parchment and add sauce, cheese and toppings. I take the parchment out of the oven after the crust has baked and set.
As for the cost of build vs. buy we just like what we make better. Plus last Sunday we had cheese pizzas, olive pizza, pepperoni pizza, and veggie pizza (sans olives since we used them all on the olive pizza). If we tried to order all that it would be far too expensive.
I remember going to Giordano's for the first time during the Watergate hearings so that would be 73 probably. It had recently opened its first location on Kedzie. I remember because it was my first trip out of the house after being laid up for a week with the mumps - during the Watergate Hearings when the only think on television was Sam Rayburn... 🙂
I went to Nancy's many years later on a date because the young lady wanted to go there.
There used to be a place - I cannot remember the name - I think it was on Chicago Ave just on the Evanston town line. It sold pizza by the pound but they ended up on the wrong side of someone from the city who drove them out of business. They were shutdown for their scales being off even though they were under-weighing the pizza.
For years Hyde Park had two pizza places - Nicky's and Enriquo's. Nicky's is still there or has been reopened. Then came the Medici followed by Giordano's and now there are too many places to count.
Back in its heyday, Godfather's Pizza used to advertise that their large pizza had 3 POUNDS of cheese on it.
Nancy's (originally in the western suburbs of Chicago) does a stuffed pizza that looks like a layer cake. One slice is a meal--and then some. It's still arguably the best of the Chicago-style stuffed pizza that Nancy's claims to have invented. (Giordano's also claims that honor, and possibly Lou Malnati's.)
When I was in college, there was a pizza place in Evanston called The Inferno, their specialty was what they called a dubl-dough pizza, the thing had to be at least 4 inches high, not counting the toppings. Somehow, they managed to get all the dough cooked so it wasn't just a raw mass of pizza dough in the middle, and they were very popular among Northwestern students on Sundays, when the dining halls didn't operate.
The last several times I've made pizza I used the rectangular pizza pan that I got from King Arthur (though I don't see it on their site today) and I stretched the dough out mostly by hand. (I did use a small pastry roller to help get it all the way to the corners.)
But I think the next time I'm going to use the Roman crust recipe from Peter Reinhart's book, "American Pie". It can be stretched so thin it is translucent.
It depends on what ingredients you use, a pepperoni pizza might cost $5 or so in ingredients.
The big chains use cheaper ingredients bought in bulk, I use whole milk mozzarella--they generally don't. That's how they can afford to sell a pizza for under $10. But as I recall, pizzerias have a higher food cost than most of the restaurant industry; the cost of the ingredients is usually about 40% of the price, but for most sit-down restaurants it's more like 25%.
The local pizzeria we order from most frequently charges about $20 for a 12 inch pizza with several added toppings. Pizza Hut it isn't!
Buying in bulk is the real key, a 15 ounce can of tomato sauce costs about a dollar, a #10 can (about 110 ounces) costs about $2.50. 50 pounds of pizza flour is running about $14 a bag right now. Sams sells 5 pound bags of mozzarella for about $15, but Pizza Hut probably pays about half that.
She's concerned that her garlic allergy could spread to other alliums, but at this point she can still handle onions and leeks. She's not fond of chives, though we have them in the garden, mainly for color.
As for spices and herbs, I tend to use basil, parsley, oregano, thyme and marjoram a lot, and I've been experimenting with winter savory. You have to know when to add them, basil gets really bitter if cooked a long time, so it goes in towards the end.
I've started using rosemary more frequently too--now if I could just get a rosemary plant to survive over a winter. My wife's sister has a huge rosemary plant in her living room, she's had it for decades. But that room has good sunlight, I need to find a better place to put a rosemary plant, if we put it in the guest bedroom (southern exposure) it gets forgotten about.
A beef stew just isn't complete without some bay leaf in the pot. I've been using dill weed more frequently lately with fish. (The other day I made salmon poached in butter with dill weed and powdered mustard.)
I tend to stick to ripe (not green) bell peppers and I don't use the hot ones much, as we're not really into spicy hot foods.
Today I made a cake from a mix (Arrowhead Mills) and made a maple glaze for it by using a cup of powdered sugar, a tablespoon of palm oil, 2 tablespoons of maple syrup and 1 tablespoon of milk. Not a real strong maple flavor but not bad. Then I sprinkled some chopped pecans on the glaze.
For tonight's dessert, I used the KAF recipe for Cider Doughnuts as a base, but I used 3/4 cups whole wheat pastry flour and 1/2 cup KAF AP (and no Hi-maize fiber). I added 2 tsp. ground flax meal. I deleted the cinnamon. I used buttermilk instead of regular milk. I probably should have adjusted the baking soda and baking powder (and followed my own advice above!). The doughnuts came out ok, but the Cider flavor really does not come through, as some reviewers of the recipe noted. I thought that leaving out the cinnamon might let the apple flavor come through, but it made no difference. They are somewhat blah.
I used the maple glaze recipe from another KAF recipe--100% Whole Wheat Apple Cider Baked Doughnuts with Maple Glaze. I would have made that recipe instead, except that I do not have any applesauce.
I also baked my version of a whole grain bread that uses the KAF Mixed Grains. I used the Emile Henry long baker.
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This reply was modified 8 years, 2 months ago by
BakerAunt.
Cwcdesign: Here is what Cass always said. (It is also in Shirley Corriher's book on baking.) When you add 1 cup of buttermilk, add 1/4 tsp. baking soda, but reduce the baking powder by 1 tsp., since baking soda has 4x the rising power of baking powder. For 1/2 cup buttermilk, that would be 1/8 tsp. baking soda and reduce the baking powder by 1/2 tsp.
Thanks for being sensitive to copyright issues. Lists of ingredients are often considered 'facts' and are not copyrightable, though the instructions on how to assemble the dish are clearly copyrightable. I generally stay away from even posting lists of ingredients from another source, though the usual rule of thumb is that if you change two or more ingredients, it's considered a different recipe.
I'm curious about the Romagnoli book, how many of the recipes use garlic? (As I understand it, northern Italian cooking doesn't use much garlic, though southern Italian recipes do.)
I'm headed to the kitchen with two baking projects in mind (details to follow). For those of you who may have already put in a full morning in the kitchen, here is this week's thread.
Chocomouse--When I saw your comment about having a lot of cauliflower, I remembered a cauliflower soup, which is one of my favorites. (I can't wait to find the top of the blender, once we get this place remodeled.) I have posted it in the recipe section.
I've been making this recipe since graduate school. It is adapted from No Salt, No Sugar, No Fat Cookbook. The author may have overdone it a bit on the no fat, given that we now know that some fat in milk is apparently good for you. The recipes stress not adding salt, so they do not account for sodium that exists in ingredients such as milk.
Cauliflower Soup
1 head cauliflower, cut into pieces and cleaned
1 medium onion, chopped (original recipe used two--adjust to your onion specifications)
2 cloves garlic, minced (for those avoiding garlic, leave it out)
2 cups chicken or turkey broth
3 Tbs. whole wheat flour
2 1/2 cups 1% milk or your choice of fat percentage (original recipe used nonfat)
Using a 4 1/2-quart pot with lid, cook cauliflower, onion, and garlic in broth until cauliflower is tender, 15-20 minutes.
Add flour, then milk. Stir until soup comes to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, covered, for 20 minutes.
Puree in batches in blender.
Note: This soup freezes well. Individual servings can be garnished with chives.
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This topic was modified 8 years, 2 months ago by BakerAunt.
Today I baked Christmas Crispbread (Julknackebrod) from the recipe in Beatrice Ojakangas' The Great Scandinavian Baking Book (pp. 59-60). I substitute in buttermilk (the first jar of my newly cultured batch) for the regular milk, It's the third time I have baked this recipe (first time was last Christmas Eve), which has become my husband's favorite cracker. As an experiment, I reduced the yeast by 1/4 tsp.. The recipe calls for two packets, so I used 4 1/4 tsp.; it may be that 4 tsp. would be sufficient. It was a good project for a cold afternoon with plenty of snow on the ground outside and a frozen lake.
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This reply was modified 8 years, 2 months ago by BakerAunt.
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This reply was modified 8 years, 2 months ago by BakerAunt.
