Written Recipes

I recently saw a post about pickling asparagus and, wow, that looked good!  After a couple of weeks the idea was still buzzing in my mind, so  I found a few recipes for a spicy pickled asparagus and made a couple of jars.  Both versions came out great, but this one (linked below) was my favorite using jalapeños rather than red pepper flakes to add the spice.  Plus, you end…Read More…

It’s been raining here in Los Angeles a bit lately.  Being hunkered down, I kept thinking about what I could make to eat.  Rain usually means make a stew!  I love stew in the rain.  It tastes better knowing it’s raining and cold outside and you are inside warming your body up as you enjoy a bowl of homemade stew. But, my inner yearning this time kept bringing me to…Read More…

I was talking to Peter the other day and, since I was going to make some pizzas, I asked if he had any ingredient ideas he might throw out for me to play with.  He said “Cauliflower”!  I really do like cauliflower, but to be honest, it’s one of those things that still has my childhood memories of flavorless, steamed cauliflower ingrained in how I perceive it.  It’s an ever-present…Read More…

I was in the mood for a sausage pizza with milky fresh mozzarella. It would be too easy to just fire up the sausage in the oven and plop it down on the pizza and call it a day. This is Pizza Quest after all! I wanted to do something different – not just a pizza with sausage but a really good pizza that was about sausage. As you hopefully have seen on…Read More…

Deviled eggs were always a big deal in my family. Well, most things food related were. The unfortunate thing is that we tended to only see them show up during the holidays. It’s definitely a great party food – easy to pick one up and pop it in your mouth and swing back later and pop another in there. Repeat as often as necessary and warranted by how good they…Read More…

Note from Peter: I’ve been receiving a lot of requests for a proper VPN Napoletana dough. I’ve posted this previously on the Forno Bravo site, but wanted to be sure I also made it available here on PizzaQuest — especially in light of Brad’s recent post on making Margherita pizzas in two different ovens. Enjoy!! A true Naples dough uses only flour, water, salt, and yeast. Some versions substitute sourdough…Read More…

In my house it’s only my son, Owen, and I who love seafood. When making pizzas for the family I usually make one for us – something that is “our” pizza. One of my favorites to make is just starting with a nice simple marinara with great tomatoes, thinly sliced garlic and some oregano and olive oil as the base and add whatever seafood I’ve picked up. The marinara is…Read More…

I make a lot of pizza. In an attempt to keep things interesting, I do a fair bit of experimenting. I’m often inspired by an ingredient I got my hands on at Whole Foods, or another local market. I was lucky enough to bring home some beautiful Prosciutto and Nduja provided by La Quercia for the Forno Bravo Wood Fired Expo back in September. With a product like this in…Read More…

It’s funny how ideas come together.  About a year ago, I came up with the idea to cook up a burger patty and wrap it in a pizza dough and throw it in the oven. I love burgers and I love pizza. Why not? I’d have a fresh baked bun literally wrapped around my burger. It turned out to be more of a puff ball of dough that blew up…Read More…

What do you do when life gives you lemons? Well, of course, we all know you make lemonade! Recently, life delivered a volunteer jalapeño plant in a section of my yard that shouldn’t have been growing anything because my sprinklers are on the fritz and we’re in the middle of a drought here on the West Coast. A few weeks later, while the fire in my Primavera wood-fired oven was…Read More…