On Quality Control for #Superdough. #fritz

#superdough

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In order to do quality control of our product, #superdough, it is necessary to bring a couple of doughballs home and to use them. We have to be able to trust our own cooking, our own work on some level.

The header or title picture of this blog is my own, home-made pizza, yet the dough is professional, in that we get paid to make it. It is, in effect, a very small factory and we do have some responsibility.

I had never made a pizza before in my life, and that one in the picture seemed to turn out pretty well.

Our customer uses that dough in the day-to-day operations of their restaurant, pub, grill, whatever, and pizza is a major source of their revenues.

So we’re not really a cook, we’re not really a baker. What we are, is a pizza-dough maker.

Let that sit in a warm place...

I made this fresh yesterday, brought a couple of them home and froze it in the top of the fridge. I took it out just before bed, and stuck it in the fridge to thaw overnight. Because of drive time and an errand or two, this dough had begun to rise a bit before I ever froze it. We drop doughballs off at the boss’s house as well, she makes bread and buns and pizza with it.

The customer does ‘crazy-bread’ or ‘twisty-bread’, or whatever they call it.

We’re using Red Star active dry yeast, and a fifty-fifty mix of soya and canola oil. Sugar and salt supplies are pretty generic, where you’re basically shopping either price, or perhaps the convenience of a free delivery with a minimum order. Not that exciting, but it is part of the business. Other than that, we pay rent, water, electricity—all that sort of thing.

This is a 20-oz. doughball, normally, your store-bought bread is 28-32-oz.

So we spray the bread pan with non-stick cooking spray, press our dough in there so it conforms to the shape. Spray the top of the dough, set that in a warm place for a few hours to allow it to rise. This was on top of the oven in my rather small, galley kitchen located in a three-floor walkup in the central city. It ain’t fancy by any means.

(And yet he seems to eat pretty well. – ed.)

We preheat our oven to 375 F and set our little Dollarama digital timer to 23 minutes and bring that out into the living room with us because it isn’t all that loud and sometimes our hearing isn’t too good.

As for the sandwiches, the home-made egg salad has a bit of diced onion, chopped green pepper and a dash of paprika, black pepper and a bit of salt. I don’t bother to butter the bread.

Pair that up with a simple tin of vegetable beef soup, and the bread still fresh and warm out of the oven, I guess you can call it a kind of soul food.

And the crust—

Outstanding.

 

#fritz

 

 

 

 

An Experiment With Frozen Spaghetti. #fritz

Bon appetit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rather than re-enacting yesterday’s experiment, we began with a slightly different product, a single-serving Stouffer’s spaghetti. (Not exactly as pictured, and at a price of $1.58 CDN.)

Peeling back the plastic upper film, we put in two medium-sized white mushrooms, which were sliced three or four or five times. We put that on top of the sauce, not the noodles, in this case. We laid a very small handful of shredded mozzarella on top, and then simply put the plastic down back again as best we could. Microwave the usual six minutes or according to the instructions on the package.

By the time that comes out of the oven, you can have your plate all ready to go. Garnish with dried parsley flakes and fresh-cracked black pepper.

***

The other day I wanted to make carrot sticks. I was stymied, and when I say that, I mean that #fritz was stymied, because while I can’t cook, he can. We simply didn’t have the snap-lid plastic tubs. The other thing is leftovers—why cook something if you know there will be leftovers and you don’t have the tubs.

For two or three dollars at Dollarama, we added a couple of one-litre tubs and three about half the size. Every so often, you do have to throw one out, whether from permanent staining from tomato sauce, or whether some dummy, such as myself, microwaved something in there for six minutes when it really only should have been three…in which case the food might be mostly edible but the tub is a goner and there’s nothing to do but to throw it out.

As you can see from the photos, there is nothing that can stop a determined person from making carrot sticks.

On the plate we have the last bit of the Walmart creamy coleslaw, and a slice of #superdough bread.

Pictures were taken with a Nikon S-33, which can go underwater. Next time you’re cooking underwater for some Instagram post, you might want to keep it in mind. As for whether that would be dishwasher-safe, that is a question for another day.

 

#fritz

All I wanted was a few carrot sticks.

 

 

My Life-Altering Frozen Lasagna Hack. #fritz

 

You have to admit, it's beautiful.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tired of the same old single-serving frozen lasagna from your local grocer’s freezer chest?

It’s about as exciting as your love life.

What you need is this life-altering frozen lasagna hack, oh, and it will work for the frozen spaghetti product as well. Just so you know—

I know that all too well. 

(He means about the love life. – ed.)

This isn’t even really a recipe. I got the Stouffer’s frozen entrée at Walmart for $1.58.

That isn’t very exciting. It’s true you can dress up your plate with a bit of salad, garlic bread, celery, carrot sticks, almost anything is good. And yet it is terribly convenient, and some days this sort of meal, with 320 calories and 30-mg of cholesterol, are about all we can muster the energy to actually do.

The alternative is fast food, and the prices are there on the board for all to see.

What I did, was to take perhaps an ounce of shredded mozzarella cheese, pizza cheese, and after lifting the cellophane top, sprinkle that on the frozen product. Next came four or five pieces of pepperoni. This was the Amore product, which is a little less spicy and perhaps ‘hammier’ than some other products. It’s also 300-gm, and I got it for $5.49. There were two other products on display, one at the same price, but it was only 175-gm. The other product was still $6.99 for 275-gm, so it’s a bit difficult to compare price per 100-gm, unless you’re like my mother and you have a calculator in your head.

Anyhow, reseal the plastic as best you can, assuming you haven’t shredded it, and microwave for six minutes. When we plate that, we might sprinkle on some genuine parsley flakes and fresh-ground black pepper or poivre noir...

In the photo, we have paired that up with a dill pickle, (large jar, $2.49), coleslaw, (Walmart, $2.97), and a slice of fresh-baked #superdough bread, which presumably is some sort of shameless product placement. I made the dough myself, in other words.

Also, beer.

 

#fritz