Pizza, mixed grill & bread

[Ted Rosenberg]

Last might I had 10 people over. First I grilled peppers in my oven as well as eggplant, zuccini & portobellos marinated them in some EVO & fresh basil garlic etc. Then I made some pizzas; a margarita pie; then marinara with hot italian sausage; quatro formagio, and grilled veggie pie. Next I made shrimp scampi in a cast iron pan. I then roasted some potatoes with fresh sage olive oil & salt. While that was cooking I grilled two huge thick porterhouse steaks au poivre, & two racks of lamb which I had marinated with rosemary, garlic, lemon zest & some other goodies. After I removed the meat to rest I seared some tuna steaks I had marinated in a soy ginger mixture. After dinner (and 7 bottles of wine) we had my wife's home baked biscotti & carrot cake. By this time the oven had cooled enough so I could bake bread. All my quests went home with a warm loaf of my levain french bread. As Dudley Moore said in the movie Arthur, "It didn't suck." I am lovin my oven.

[james]

Wow. What a great range of tastes and dishes. I am trying to picture all this great food coming and going from the oven.

You definitely did a lot of prep work for this party. Can I ask how you staged the courses and dishes? Were you eating as it came out (there is a lot of fun in chaos), or did you prepare courses, where you and your guests ate in a set order?

How did you keep everything warm after it came out?

Timing is a real challenge -- can you tell us more?
James

[Ted Rosenberg]

As you know the key is preparation. The grilled veggies were the only thing I cooked before the guests arrived. When company arrived I baked & served the Pizzas. This phase lasted about 1 1/2 hours. The steak, lamb & tuna was all prepped ahead so all I had to do was cook them. After I took the meat off the grill I let it rest about 10-15 minutes. During this time I grilled the tuna (everything was rare) and finished the potatoes. Dinner was sitdown and eveything was done and served at once family style. The only complaint I recieved was from a friend who called today & said that he has not weighed so much in years.

[Ted Rosenberg]

I forgot to mention the bread. I had shaped the loaves earlier in the day & had them refridgerated to retard the rise. I removed them during dinner and let them rise for about 2 hours before baking them around 10:30pm. So they were still a little warm when the party broke up around midnight.

[Bacterium]

nice work Ted.....thats something I aspire to....

[DrakeRemoray]

Sounds great. It really shows the flexibility of these ovens. I am reluctant to call them "pizza" ovens!

I do have a question about the steaks...how did you cook them? Did you rake coals forward under a tuscan grill in the oven? Did you have any trouble with flames/flareups?

Drake

[Ted Rosenberg]

I did rake the coals under a Tuscan grill. And yes it did flare up. I then moved them aside so they could finish cooking . The steaks were about 2 1/2 inches thick so they had to finish cooking off the flame otherwise they would have been too charred. Likewise for the racks of lamb. Once the fat starts rendering the flames get out off control. I never was one for spraying the flame with water, just move the meat aside for a few minutes.