Pizza from Mario party

We hit Mario's place yerstaday and had fun with father of all ovens. I
made a few pizzas and this is the one my son liked most for some
reason. I call it Japanese flag- negative;-) it just pesto and tomato
souce some mozarela and shrooms: may be two flavour combination makes
it a hit or may be it is Yamaika like reggy color- you may call it
Reggey pizza or no wooman no cry pizza : be my guest!;-)

Mozarela and green olives pizza

This is a small diversion from all time classic: gives a nice pizasss
to pizza. Costco is short on muzarela buffala and this is just regular
fresh muzarela that is not melting as nice, but works too.

Fire and wine

Today we have a small pizza party for my family: we are back hungry
from lake and some French wine from 2000 is good starter: oven need
time to warm up.

Temporary chimney construction

After I melted aluminum cap, I made this temporary rain proof
contraption, that is still in place after all these weeks. I should
get fire bricks and build a nicer one: it is on my ta-da list:-)

Basilicum plantation

My wife say that Basilicum is like a weed... Well, may be it is, but
last year we forgot to get it for most of our parties. This year I
will plant one full square in my herbal garden. I planted seeds with
kids and we got these nice green sprouts: will put it out as soon as
they will be big enough;-) I will plant tomatos as well: I have two
plants now. Having your own spice garden is a great thing!

How to build a wood burning pizza oven

This guy did amazing job and produced a very cool oven using just a fire bricks. He made a very nice time-lapse video with commentaries about process.



See how talented he is: such a great result on the first try. You can do it , we will help!

The only thing I would change is a frozen dough :-). While it is convenient and we did it a few times too, I think it is much better prepare fresh batch few hours before party. I like all fresh and in terms of pizza dough it is ready when it is ready.

Video of starting fire in my oven

To start the fire you should put a scrambled paper and build kind of piramid or iglu out of smaller peaces. If you lazy you can sprinkle it with fire starter :) It may help if wood is very wet. Start fire and watch it till burning good. Watching is very important: it may stop.

Some times I even play bagpipe to my fire. I will post video of this soon:-)

I was considering to have a Live Pizza Oven Web Cam and even got h/w, but instead I will invest more time and make clips, with some stories. It should be more fun for visitors: condensed story and may be some tips or jokes :-)

Come back and see soon.

Oven burns

See what a quick touch to oven outside corner ( oven mouth) does: I was throwing wood in and wooops:-) be careful or wear protection...

Btw, it is safe to touch my oven almost anywhere: it has a very good insulation, like a space shuttle- it is actuality cold outside, unlike Russian Home Oven - Pechka, for example, even so mine looks very much like it :-), but there are few hot spaces where hit escapes and you should not touch these...

1) Chimney - very hot ( fire may got up and heat it)
2) Oven mouth - obviously, a lot of heat goes out of it and you have to interact with it, so execute care
4) Oven metal door : because it is metal it will get hot and will burn you, but it will also loose heat quick if you put it aside. But do wear some protection, will ya ?

Mario on Italian Grilling

Watch Mario making Grilled Zukini... Italian style

Mario do zukini

See what is a key in art of Italian grilling.

Hint: Italians love to taset food itself ( not corn syrup in American BBQ source) and they LOVE Virgin Olive Oil :-)

Here is a book, if video is not enough for you:



And of course ... do not forget to add your LOVE to food you cook :-)

Enjoy!