Sunday, October 6, 2013

survival skillz: pizza

Yesterday Deb asked if I am still interested in messing with sourdough starter and the answer is yes. It is like a pet. Rather neglected. I should have fed it already today and writing this reminds me it is starving. It is down to one tablespoon now so feeding it will double its mass. That is because yesterday the whole thing was depleted as part of regular sourdough-pet maintenance and the surplus portion was used for pizza discs.

Coated with a thin tomato paste and frozen. They are ready to go. Want one? 


They appear thin now, yes, but these sourdough discs will r-i-i-i-i-i-i-se again. 

They are small. Personal-sized. If hungry, then two. They are intended to hold anything reasonable and allow for fresh toppings, the tomato paste is too thin to interfere yet adds flavor as a sauce does without its moisture. And they are great with nothing at all, just olive oil as focaccia. In fact, doing this has made me wonder why anyone bothers with sauce for a pizza, it is sort of odd, and wet. These discs have proven unbelievably utile. I thought they might be wasted and end up freezer burned but I was wrong about that. I can hardly keep up with them and they staved starvation several times already. My pizza stone sees way more activitah then ever. I broke two of them. (One with steam. Oops.) I'm on my 3rd pizza stone, keeping a good one away for now, and baking on a broken stone.

This is the message I want to tell the whole world, how simple this is.

I make a lot of them. I was thinking today, this would be brilliant for a party, every one put on their own toppings and go back to it as often as they like. Good for football.  Mine generally end up looking like this.


And man, are they good. No brag here now, honestly, best I've had. Even if sourdough is too big a pain in the beutox, regular dough made in advance by a few days will come very close to this and add significant character to the dough. Being small, fashioning the discs to freeze and then use later is a project suitable for children. The best thing is you can use one right now. 

Now!

I can eat one right now. 

Is that amazing or what? Yesterday I saw pizza discs in the grocery store ready to be topped and baked and I thought in that moment, "Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha," that sinister cartoon laughter inside my head again. 

I want to spread the word on how fantastic this is. It makes one mindful while shopping, "Do I have sufficient toppings for my pizza discs? Should I get fresh spinach this time? Do I need cheese? What was that kind I liked?" Have you ever had a pizza straight out of the oven and then topped it with fresh diced tomato instead of sauce? 

This is cross posted here where the ease of handling dough is shown more closely through confident photography and little tricks with light, things so clever as turning on a light and moving a lamp.



10 comments:

bagoh20 said...

Hey Chip, Wadda you say you get a sex change, and I buy you a drink?

rhhardin said...

Ballons in the ablative case.

deborah said...

I'm glad hear you're mindfully shopping :)

I started low carb, and those look delish. Still gonna start a sourdough batch, though. My mom loves sourdough And once I get going well, I'm going to take Sundays off, and look out.

Thanks for posting this, Chip.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

That does look good.

deborah said...

I'm surprised you are satisfied with tomato paste. I'm a person who used to ask for extra sauce if I knew the place tended to use too little. The sauce is at least half the pizza, to me.

Chip Ahoy said...

Deflative case, I thought.

Chip Ahoy said...

Yeah, I was worried about that. I don't want wetness on top. It doesn't make sense. Whatever goes into the sauce, for wetness, can go on top in its dry form. And they still come out wet. From cheese piled on. And I drizzle olive oil on the single mushroom. Even if it was another type of sauce, like a white sauce for oysters or whatever. I'd be tempted to do that separately and thicker if baked, almost a spread so it toasts on and doesn't soak the bread. I don't know really.

One of my favorite things is fresh bread like this dipped in olive oil with herbs sprinkled in. I could sit there and eat that all day.

And I've been baking all these ham sandwiches too, like croque-monsieur (mister crunchy ), and no matter what I do with it, the result reminds me of pizza. Except very wet. Cheese extended with sauce. Eaten with knife and fork.

Trooper York said...

You are killing me dude!

No pizza for me.

Now I can only eat a Portobello pizza which is a mushroom cap broiled with fresh mozzarella, sliced cherry tomato and oregano to satisfy my pizza jones.

Chip Ahoy said...

That sounds really good, though.

Synova said...

The Portobello pizza does sound really good. Could probably do that with an eggplant, too, like an eggplant parmesan without the breading on it.

I've been trying to talk myself into the theory that sourdough doesn't count as wheat any more because the microscopic beasties pre-digest it for you just a little bit... but I'm not quite there yet.