Mike Nolan
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Here the flour shelves aren't empty, the last time I was at Hy-Vee they had lot of KAF AP but I didn't see any KAF Bread flour, and they had several other brands including two house brands.
My older son has been doing baking out of the updated 'artisan bread in 5 minutes a day' book. Yesterday he baked a boule and a loaf out on his gas grill. The boule might have been a little underdone in the center, but our granddaughter thinks both are pretty good.
The last wheat storage report said wheat supplies were fairly normal. This article is forecasting a record wheat crop this season:
wheat supplyThere may continue to be intermittent channel shortages, as this is the time of year when home flour usage is usually at a low point.
We picked up some lettuce at the farmer's market, along with some gyros for lunch, so we'll have salad and leftover gyros for supper, and left-over pizza if that's not enough.
My stuffed pan pizza came out pretty good, but I should have used the shorter skillet. The flat pizza stuck to the baking stone, I probably didn't use enough cornmeal under it. Next time I'll do it on parchment.
The pizza bread was really good, the baguettes I've been making work very well for that. The pepperoni was a bit strong, though, I need to look for a milder brand. (We used to use Oscar Meyer, but I think they changed the formula a year or so ago, adding garlic.)
I thought the virtual pizza party was a big success, I think we should plan another virtual gathering. One possibility would be a virtual brunch, another would be a virtual afternoon (low) or early evening (high) tea.
Stuffed pizza and pan pizza have one thing in common, they aren't flat, so they need a pan with sides. But a stuffed pizza has at least two layers of dough, and I've seen a few that had three. (Beyond three and it is more of a lasagna, IMHO.)
The original Nancy's claimed to be the originator of the stuffed pizza, but at least one other north-side Chicago pizzeria had a similar pizza in the late 60's. The first time I went to Nancy's was after they had moved, because of urban renovation of their original location. A lot of the old crowd (including, reportedly, some Chicago gangsters) didn't follow them to the new location.
I don't remember Giordano's being in a house, I do remember a three hour wait for a table at a place on the far South side in 1969, but all I really remember was we had to park about 4 blocks away in mid-winter. (For us North-siders, it was a really long trip, especially when you pack 6 college students in a car.)
I was always more of a fan of thin crust pizza, which was more common on the North side. There was one place near south campus that Northwestern students favored that had a cracker-like crust that tasted a bit like matzoh, but my favorite was a hole-in-the-wall place in south Evanston that would deliver to campus. I think they had just one table, and it was mainly for those who were walk-in customers waiting for their pizza to get done so they could carry it out. I've never duplicated their sauce or crust, not sure what made them unique.
Chicago Magazine had a feature story on the '5 types of Chicago Pizza' back in the early 70's, I remember reading an early draft of it and having discussions with their features editor (a chess buddy) over whether it should be 5 or 7 types! (I was in negotiations to do 'casual dining' restaurant reviews for them when we decided to move to Nebraska, the person who eventually got that position was probably a better writer than I am anyway.)
I picked up some garlic-free Hillshire Farms pepperoni yesterday, I'm hoping it is fairly mild. (Most of their sausages are.)
It may have been what everyone else calls SAF Red, I don't normally buy SAF yeast, so I'm not familiar with their packaging.
I recently learned that there is a SAF Purple yeast, intended for fast rise commercial uses. I doubt it shows up in stores.
I made some levain in preparation for making baguettes tomorrow, and I also made the pizza dough for tomorrow night's pizza party.
It's a Chicago thing, even more decadent than pan pizza.
Divide the dough into 2 parts, one of them using 2/3 of the dough.
Take a deep pan (a deep cast iron skillet works well), line it with the larger piece of dough all the way to the rim, put in sauce, cheese and other toppings, cover that with the smaller piece of dough, poke some vent holes, then put on more sauce, toppings and cheese.
I like to put ricotta cheese and spinach in the lower layer of sauce.
Bake until the top edges are well done. Let cool before slicing. One slice is usually plenty, even our sons had trouble getting through a full second slice as teenagers.
Chocolate, if it is stored properly, lasts a very long time, several years. Even if the outer surface develops a white powdery look (fat bloom), it is still edible and if melted, as would occur when you bake pain au chocolat, you won't know the blooming had occurred.
Like any fat, cocoa butter can go rancid, but it is not common. A bigger problem is bugs, they like chocolate. (So do mice, as I found out a few weeks ago.)
Cocoa butter has six states, alpha-1 through alpha-6; the higher the number, the higher the melting point.
The normal state of the cocoa butter in well-tempered chocolate is alpha-5, which is solid at room temperature but melts in the low 90's, so it melts on the tongue. The alpha-6 state can develop if chocolate sits for many months, it is a bit harder than alpha-5, so the chocolate can lose its ability to have a clean 'snap'.
We are having burgers on the grill.
Hy Vee had SAF Blue (IDY) in a 1 pound package today, they also had Red Star cake yeast in 2 ounce packages in the butter section. I bought one even though it was insanely overpriced ($2.99), just because I've got one or two recipes I'd like to try with cake yeast.
My wife has requested pizza bread in addition to a pizza on Saturday, so I've started a levain so I can make baguette dough in the morning.
I may do one thin crust pizza and one double crust stuffed pizza, something I haven't done in a long time but is REALLY good. I'd need to get some ricotta and some spinach for the bottom layer. And some good pepperoni if I can find it. (The brand we've been using for the past several years has changed its formula and now includes garlic, haven't found another one we liked yet, most are too strong.)
My wife wears one of those continuous glucose monitors, you get really interesting information from them about how your body deals with carbs, you can see her blood sugar spike up after a meal that is heavy on carbs. But a pasta meal made with my semolina egg pasta doesn't cause a big spike, it goes up, but over a longer time frame and not quite as high.
I believe the sourness also has to do with whether it has a microculture that is dominated by lactic aid producing bacteria or acetic acid producing bacteria. My starter is running a pH of about 3.5, which I believe is fairly sour for a starter, but it doesn't have a really sour smell to it. The wheat-base starter I kept in the fridge back when I was testing recipes for ABED had a vinegary smell to it, this one doesn't.
When I feed my rye starter, it start out with a color that is sort of a light grey with a hint of brown in it, but after it has aged a day or two it develops a color that definitely has some red in it.
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