Pizza and cheesecake (II)

More or less the same as yesterday, though with more experience :-) I still had half the dough I made yesterday to use. (I shared the second pizza with house-mates).

Today I used mozzarella and a creamy goats cheese. Yesterday's goats cheese was subtley diffrent, it was much better melted, but then it had no real texture.

The combination of the cheeses today was much better than yesterday, coupled with the fact I was using the pizza stone for the second time, rather than the first, the pizza was much better. (It had 3 types of italian salami/ham on and tomatoes [with fresh basil]).

The cheesecake, after time to harded and mature in the fridge for the day, was sublime. Best yet.
I'm gonna take some in for the people at work (otherwise I'll finish it).

Sunday cookathon - pizza and cheesecake

As regular readers will know I just came back from Rome, where I'd been snacking on pizzas daily :-) I was inspired to make my own today, after purchasing a pizza stone yesterday (Saturday).

Using the Italian type "OO" flour I made up the dough using salt, yeast, milk, olive oil, water and a sprinkling of oregano.

When I opened the box with my new toy the instructions were missing, so after a consult with google I was pretty sure what needed to be done. I warmed the oven and stone together from cold, and after the mixing and proving of the dough were over I made my first attempt.

The first try was just extra virgin olive oil and sea salt.

Second was milanese salami, a good local goats cheese, tomato and onion/garlic passata for the base. Topped with basil.

The first came out gorgeous. The second was pretty edible too ;-)

I think next time I'll allow the stone to warm up again before I put the next pizza on. Plus, I'll need to come up with a better method of putting the pizza on the stone... it wasn't the most elegant of operations :-)

Cheesecake. A variation on my previous recipes, though still New York style. Here's the full recipe. My previous attempts did not use cocoa powder and chocolate (72%) in the base.

The soured cream was new (I'll try the mascarpone next time, I not sure how different they are). The recipe called for vanilla essence, I though it would be nice to use the real (expensive) version. The little black dots effect is cool :-)

The cooking strategy was different too, a high initial heat and a lower heat to follow to set it, along with leaving it in the oven without the heat on was supposed to prevent it from cracking the top. It didn't work, but at least it now has character... and bags full of taste!

Steak and... bread?

If you're a regular reader (all two of you?!) you'll know I like my farmer's market. I bought a sirloin from one of the farmers today, hung for 20 days on the bone. The marbling was great. Fat is what makes the world turn round! Where do you think the taste comes from?!

With that I had English mustard (the man's mustard :-D) on the side with sun-dried tomato batard (french bread) diced and friend in olive oil with fried red onions.

Delish again. I amze myself sometimes ;-)

Now for the truffle oil

The next night I mixed sun dried tomatoes, (dried) porcini mushrooms, red onions with olive oil, the juice from the soaked mushrooms and garlic to form the sauce for the (thin and thick [in the other dimension]) fettucini. Topped with parmeggiano reggiano and it's fit for a Mark... sorry king.

:-D

Porcini with fettucini

Does what is says on the box. On my recent trip to Rome I had this wonderful pasta dish, so I decided to mimic it back home. I soaked my dried porcini (then squeezed them dry) and lightly warmed them through in olive oil with garlic. The dried pasta I brought back with me was nearly see-through, it cooked in no time at all. Then it was all about combining them. It was delish. I thought about adding truffle oil (again I picked it up in Rome), but thought I'd leave that to tonight :-)

Squid rings

Yummy and quick, my kinda dish.

I sliced the squid into rings and tenticle bits, covered them in flour, paprika and salt 'n pepper. Fried quickly in olive oil, gorgeous. Chopitos anyone?

Yummy salad

Celery, baby plum tomatoes, goats cheese, boiled egg, sun dried tomatoes, celery leaves (the yellow ones from the heart). Chopped, and mixed with paprika and olive oil.

French stick and red wine, wolfblass yellow.

Yummy