Pizza-Making ?

[Mike Nolan]

We've got 2 iPhones, an iPad and a Macbook computer in the house (plus numerous PCs running Windows or Linux) and we can't figure out an easy way to get pictures off the iPhones, either, which is why I email them to my gmail account. When you email photos you get to pick from several resolution choices.

[RiversideLen]

When I take a pic with my iphone, I email it to myself, open it on my laptop and save the pic in my picture library. Then I can edit it (if I didn't already do so on the phone) and post it here. Once you do it a couple of times you will have the hang of it, it's really not hard to do.

[Italiancook]

I started this thread in 2018. Now, two years later, I have inspired a new pizza baker. After seeing a cell phone picture of my artichoke and bacon pizza, a friend in another state asked for my recipe. I sent her my adaptation of KAF's Now or Later Pizza recipe and jennycancook.com's 20-minute Pizza recipe with 2 typos corrected so she'll have success with it.

We prefer the KAF recipe, but it requires semolina and is more involved. By the time she orders what she needs, she might be out of the mood, so I included the quick recipe to keep her motivated with a quick success. She has a Pampered Chef pizza pan that's billed to make crispy pizza bottom, so I think she'll be okay with Jenny Jones' recipe as a starter.

[Italiancook]

I don't recall which cooking show it was, but the chef said to use low-moisture mozzarella for pizza. Anyone have an opinion on that?

My guess is that what I use is a higher moisture, because it's pre-sliced, as for caprese salad. Even though it's pre-sliced, I grate it. I tried cutting the slices into sixths, but I didn't like the way they melted on the pizza.

[Italiancook]

BTW, I think I may have goofed and not put today's post on the last page of this thread. If so, I hope that doesn't cause any confusion.

[Mike Nolan]

Looks like it got posted correctly.

Some people think part-skim mozzarella melts better. We prefer whole milk mozzarella, but it is hard to find. Sams sells it in 5 pound bags, shredded, but doesn't always have it in stock. I rebag it into 8 ounce portions and freeze most of them.

In the last year or two Sams has discontinued a number of products we buy there, and it looks like another of them just got disco'd At this rate, the next time our renewal comes up later this year, it may not be worth renewing. (I emailed them about it, and I got a very canned response.)

[Italiancook]

Please tell me Sam's hasn't discontinued the jar of artichokes, Mike. My favorite pizza is artichoke and bacon. I don't like the artichokes in the grocery and have really enjoyed the ones from Sam's.

I'm glad you mentioned the discontinuation. They've been out of Ghiradelli bittersweet chocolate chips for ages, even though I can find them at the grocery stores. It never occurred to me that Sam's has discontinued them or I would have sent a communique to the company.

I've read that Sam's offered an $8.00 membership during the Super Bowl. It's only for a few days. That has me disgruntled. I don't think it's fair to their full-price customers.

[Mike Nolan]

Well, a few weeks ago the artichokes were on a pallet at the end of an aisle and I haven't seen them on the shelf since then, so I think there's a good chance they've been dropped. I did buy several jars then, that will keep me going for a while, we haven't been using them much lately. Just not in the menu rotation, other things have sounded better, I guess. (Once you open a jar you have to use it up quickly, but it has a fairly long shelf life before that.) Costco also has big jars of artichoke hearts, but they're marinated in oil and IMHO that messes them up. The little jars are really expensive by comparison and the canned ones always taste tinny to me.

Last year Sams dropped the 4 shredded cheeses blend we've been using for several years, there's a shaved cheese blend and I won't buy a second bag of it, not the same cheeses and the shavings don't melt the same way. Also gone for several months is the black diamond cheddar cheese spread. The latest to disappear seems to be the large (3000 foot) 18" wide plastic wrap, I only saw the 12" wide boxes last time.

Sams changed what brand of instant dry yeast they're carrying, I haven't run out of the Fleischmann's yet, so I haven't tried it yet. (My yeast usage is way down, in large part because I'm just not making much yeasted bread.) I can get SAF Red IDY at Costco, so when the time comes to buy yeast I've got options.

Some stuff comes and goes, that's always been the case. For a while they had 12 packs of the size/type of Kleenex my wife likes, but I haven't seen it there lately. (It's been hard to find anywhere lately.)

And speaking of things hard to find, Pepperidge Farms Bordeaux cookies have disappeared everywhere again. BakeWise has a recipe that uses 28 of them for a pie crust (that may be more than is in one bag), at about $4 a bag that would make a cream cheese pie crust cheap by comparison!

[BakerAunt]

Italian Cook: I buy low-fat mozzarella balls, cut them into 4 oz. sections, then wrap and freeze the section s I'm not using. For a half-sheet pan pizza, I cut a 4 oz. chunk into small, diced pieces, then sprinkle it over the pizza after I have spread on the sauce and placed the Canadian bacon on the sauce. I then add the other toppings (mushrooms, chopped red bell pepper, green onions, black olives on my side, then the whole pizza gets topped with grated Parmesan before going into a 450F oven for 15 minutes. The cheese melts well.

[Mike Nolan]

I've been buying several type of the smaller tubs of Belgioso shredded cheese at the grocery store, they're pretty good, but quite a bit more expensive.

[Italiancook]

BakerAunt, thanks for your suggestion on the mozzarella.

Mike, I checked, and my Sam's also no longer sells the 5 lb. shredded mozzarella. Maybe they discontinued it nationwide. Previously, I had though items were discontinued on a region-by-region basis.

[Mike Nolan]

I haven't looked for it at Sams recently, but I'll look for it the next time I'm there, probably not for another 2-3 weeks since I was just there in the past week. Costco only has part-skim.

I haven't found anyone else locally that has whole milk mozzarella, though I haven't checked Whole Foods. Leprino Foods, which supplies many of the national pizza chains and is one of the largest producers of cheese nobody's heard of, probably makes it (most of the major chains have a Leprino cheese made specifically for them), but they sell in big boxes, probably 25 or 50 pounds, and not to end consumers.

[Mike Nolan]

The Sams Club member website still shows the 5 pound bag of whole milk mozzarella as being available, it does not show the jars of artichoke hearts.

[Italiancook]

Don't you think that's a good sign for the mozzarella? As long as it's on their website, I think it means they anticipate having it back in stock sometime. The missing artichoke hearts may be a bad omen, though.

[Mike Nolan]

I haven't been to either of the Sams Clubs in town to see if they have the whole-milk mozzarella in stock, the website sort of implies they do, because I can order it for pickup.

[Author]

Posts