Dad Isn't Afraid of Yeast: Making Pizza

In my last post I conquered my fear of separating eggs and whipping egg whites. I still haven't started making food requiring yeast. My dad on the other hand uses yeast enough to have a brand preference so strong that he'll make a separate visit to a different supermarket just to get some of the right brand. But hey, that's okay with me if buying yeast means he will make one of my favourite foods. . . PIZZA!!!!

I think I request pizza pretty much every time I'm at home now, but really who doesn't want pizza? He made extremely loaded pizza for Christmas Eve. That was pretty traditional pizza with tomato sauce and mozzarella cheese. But this time, he was up for an experiment in the form of an attempt to recreate a Murrieta's flatbread he had once in Canmore at home. Needless to say he was impressed by the restaurant's creation. I believe it must have been the "Chorizo" with sun dried tomatoes, roasted mushrooms, black olives, and goat cheese. Incidentally, he must have forgotten about the mushrooms since he didn't suggest including any. But, what do you expect from a guy who persists in calling chorizo "chorozo"? Anyways, mushrooms or none, my dad makes a mean pizza and the experiment was a success.

I was semi-involved in the process so I'll tell you more or less how it went down:

My dad prepared a sauce of fresh Roma tomatoes, garlic, salt and pepper. He put it in the fridge until we were ready for the pizza making. He also cooked up some Spolumbo's chorizo sausages and sliced them and let them brown nicely. I think these were also chilled until the main event.

Next, came the magic I know not as he made a whole wheat pizza dough crust. This was actually the first time I had his pizza in it's new whole wheat form and it was a winner with more flavour than a white crust. I also know that the crust utilized the fine buckwheat honey we bought at the Canadian National Exhibition in Toronto in place of sugar. The honey flavour was too subtle for me to notice despite using the "Guinness of honeys," buckwheat honey.

The oven was preheated to 450 F with a ceramic pizza stone inside while the pizzas were prepared. The tomato sauce was spread over the dough, which was shaped by hand. Next the topping were arranged on top including sausage slices, strips of sun dried tomato, and pieces of kalamata olive. Finally, large crumbles of soft goat cheese were added. We to reconstitute the sun dried tomatoes in boiling water for 2 minutes and pit the olives. To pit the olives my dad smashed them with the side of a knife like you would with garlic. It really makes the pits easier to remove.

This is the pizza before baking on a sheet metal pizza paddle with cornmeal for easy transfer to the stone in the oven:
And this is the delectable pizza after baking. . . a little longer than my dad wanted to 'cause I like a crisp crust:
It was really good and different from the usual pizza. There was much less cheese but the cheese that was on the pizza was creamy, tangy, perfect goat cheese. The crust was crisp and tasty with it's light smearing of fresh tomato sauce. The toppings: olives, sun dried tomatoes, and chorizo were all very flavourful. Needless to say, I did my part in eating the pizza. My dad was disappointed with the minimal leftovers with me home and eating pizza.

For the record, my mom also makes great food. I couldn't get enough of her Caesar salad the night before we returned to Edmonton.

Pizza!!! From a Wood Burning Oven

I'm a fan of pizza, and last Satuday I hadn't eaten it for a while. My parents suggested that we go to Rocky Mountain Flatbread Company for pizza. I was psyched, even more so when I saw the big woodburning oven in the corner of the restaurant. It was a crowded place and I figured the wait would be worth it. I'd say we waited half an hour or 45 minutes for a table with me staring at the oven hungrily. The restaurant is pretty casual, as you'd expect a pizza place to be. There is a big emphasis on organic food and revealing the source of ingredients. Although, the special pizza that night featured Atlantic salmon, which to my knowledge is almost exclusively farmed and contains an order of magnitude more contaminants than wild Pacific salmon. Anyways, it was a pretty cool place.

I should get to the food. I was with just my mom and dad since my sister foolishly opted out of this meal and ate Quizno's instead. For the 3 of us we ordered 2 regular pizzas, the Nemo and the Naturally Meaty (I think, it's not listed on the website). I started out drinking just water, but my dad said his beer--a local pilsner--was really good and "European" in style. So, I ordered a half pint, because I'm a lightweight, and enjoyed it with my pizza. It was not sweet and not heavy; it's too late to describe it now but it's worth a try if you like beer. The Nemo came first, you might guess that it featured seafood, and you'd be right. The website describes it as "Brushed with pesto and tomato sauce and topped with king prawns, artichokes, red onion, cilantro and asiago cheese." This is not quite right as the shrimp weren't that big, there were crayfish (or something like that), and I don't think there was cilantro or asiago. Anyways, it was as described on the menu in the restaurant. The crayfish things were especially tasty as was the very strongly tomatoey sauce. I also quite like artichoke. Anyways, it was freaking tasty. The crust was thin as expected, but less crisp and more limp than I might have guessed coming from that oven. I ate some pizza with a knife and fork, which is a sacrilege for me. But I repeat it tasted really good.

Next up was the "Naturally Meaty" featuring the same crust and delicious sauce. It also had green peppers, fresh tomato, ground beef, and sweet Italian sausage. It was also really tasty, with a particular emphasis on that spectacular pizza sauce. That sauce was really important to me as a big tomato fan.

As a final comment, the pizza is not inexpensive at up to $20 for a regular. But it is really tasty and the larges might be more economical. All I can say about the pizza is that it's tasty because there was so much good flavour going on. And it goes with beer. My mom almost didn't want to wait for this pizza experience, but I insisted and it was sooooo worth it!