Recipes

When I make pizza, it’s always an event.  Baking in a home oven, I can’t make an extra large pizza for the family, or friends and call it a day.  I’m limited by not having one of those large pizza ovens!  Frankly, I don’t think I’d like to do that anyway.  Half of the fun in making pizza is trying a few different recipes, or letting the kids or guests…Read More…

This is Part II of my recipe pictorial of Jay Buonchristiani’s Lamb with Fennel Sausage and Mushroom Pizza recipe.  You saw the making of the the first pizza in the original pictorial.  I continued on, making 2 more pizzas since you can never just make one pizza anyway, right?!  But, the reason I split this pictorial up was because I sort of stumbled on something interesting.  I have had great…Read More…

  Scott Thorsen was my wing man at the Fire Within Conference in Boulder last October. Together, we mixed and shaped enough dough to crank out over 200 pizzas during the weekend, and we managed to save a few Country Doughs for this video demo. Scott, who has his own wood-fired rig in Sacramento, California, and a pizza and catering business that he runs out of the rig called Bella…Read More…

Lamb Fennel-Sausage and Mushroom Pizza paired with a wonderful BUONCHRISTIANI 2006 Artistico Syrah! Not long after we started the website for Pizza Quest, we received an email from a pizza enthusiast named Jay Buonchristiani who happens to be one of 4 brothers who own a Napa Winery of the same name (http://www.buonwine.com/).  He grew up in Napa and has fond memories of cooking large meals and making wine in the…Read More…

In some of the recipes that we’ve posted I refer to stretching and folding the dough, so I want to more fully explain it here, as I will continue to provide recipes that utilize this technique. The stretch and fold method (S&F from here on), is a remarkable way to maximize gluten development in a dough with minimum mixing time. It is sometimes referred to as “intermittent kneading” and also…Read More…

  As we add to our continuing collection of fundamental pizza pantry recipes, I thought it would be important to include one for a New York style pizza dough similar to the ones you get at the many Ray’s pizzerias (none of which seem to be related to each other–Famous Ray’s, Original Ray’s, Ray Ray’s, Not Ray’s–they just keep rolling out), as well as at so many college and family…Read More…

  I was making some cheese pizzas for the site to showcase Peter’s Herb Oil Recipe a few weeks ago.  When I was finished a light bulb went off. I had a special condiment that would go great with those herby-cheesey pizzas!  Mom’s Soy Pickled Jalapenos.

{youtube}W2-qC7TBau8{/youtube} It’s hard to believe, if you love cheese the way I do, that this cheese-free classic is every bit as satisfying as the best cheeser-cheeser. Kelly Whitaker, who we’ve featured here before at his wonderful Boulder restaurant, Pizzeria Basta, show us how it’s done. Make note of the beautiful bright red tomato sauce — it makes you crave it as soon as you see him spread it on. But,…Read More…

I’m becoming quite fond of those bright red pickled peppers you find in the pack your own condiment bar of supermarkets next to the olive bar–you know, the ones that look like tiny mini-me’s of red bell peppers but have a lot more zing and are sweet and vinegary and just explode in your mouth with flavor. They’re called peppadew peppers and are from South Africa originally. A few years…Read More…

I’m not going to get into the history of how this dressing came into existence–you can read all about it on a bottle of Cardini’s, since Caesar Cardini owns those bragging rights (though I’ve heard it disputed by others who claim the dressing may have other origins–if you know these stories please tell us about them in the comments section). What I do want to say is that a good…Read More…