A nice lump of dough and the fires of hell

Today was a good day - it's spring and the daffodils are smiling at us. I have finally worked out a good pizza dough recipe and, regardless of an appallingly windy and rainy night I set out early to build a fire in the oven. We've had more rain and I knew that the oven would need drying out. I built up to a big fire that gradually heated the oven to well over 200 degrees celsius. I made a huge batch of dough and we ended up cooking eight pizzas followed by a very nice dessert pizza with chocolate and almonds topped with slices of pear - mmmmmmmmmmm.

I kept the fire burning into the evening to keep the structure drying. Life is good.

A winter oven meal

Last weekend I fired the oven for the first time in months. We have had shocking weather and the oven was cold and wet. I lit a slow fire early and just kept it going all afternoon while I prepared foods for the oven. I planned to do spinach pide, roasted eggplant, tandoori chicken and roasted potato wedges. The pide were filled with a fragrant mixture of spinach, onion, garlic and spices that I had prepared earlier. I made a batch of dough for them that worked perfectly, although I rolled it a little thickly. That batch of dough has now made me hunger to bake bread.

The pide cooked well but in the freezing cold evening the oven seemed to lose heat rapidly. I guess it was a combination of moisture and the cold air. It reminds me that I need to supplement the insulation. The tandoori cooked alright but not as quickly as it should have. We finished off the eggplant and roast wedges in the house oven.

Am I a bad oven person? I need to do some maintenance.

One oven and a small feast!

Eleven people, a gorgeous summer evening, one oven and a small feast!

What a pleasant evening! Victorian red wine, Tasmanian beer,Tooraweenah olives, lamb cutlets, haloumi cheese, frankfurts in dough, and (did I forget?) - PIZZA.

Oh yes, six pizzas to be precise. One pizza with garlic, chorizo, dried chilli, olives, anchovies and provelone, A cabanossi and pepperoni pizza, two vegetarians with gorgeous bocconcini, baby spinach and tomatoes, AND two calzone stuffed with goodness.

The lamb cutlets were an entree - roasted in garlic, olive oil, rosemary and thyme. The haloumi was just thrown into a cast iron skillet and roasted in the oven.

Who wouldn't have a brick oven for Christmas?

More tapas

Last night we cooked tapas again. A nice enjoyable meal enjoyed outside in the balmy evening of the first day of daylight saving. The oven had trouble holding heat last night. I guess it's reminding me that I need to finish off the additional insulation layers I have been planning.

Good pizza

Another day, more friends, more nice cooking. Yesterday we lit the oven again and prepared to cook pizza for friends. Four pizzas were planned:

• Empanadilla pizza - we used the leftover empanadilla filling of mince, chopped chorizo and olives as a base topped with sliced chorizo and tomato. This was very nice.
• Tandoori chicken.
• Vegetarian with baby spinach and bocconcini.
• Meat lovers - cabanossi, pepperoni, chopped ham.

After this delicious repast and some very nice South Australian Cabernet Sauvignon Merlot we baked an apple pie for desert.

Even with the threat of snow in the air we sat outside near the oven and had a wonderful time!

Apple pie

A few times this year we have had pizza evenings with friends. We seem to have settled into a pattern with our garlic prawns cooked in pots or ramekins using green prawns, crushed garlic and butter, followed by a nice range of pizzas with varied toppings.

We have been finishing off the evenings by cooking a large apple pie in the cooler oven. As we have munched on our pizzas we've just placed the home-made apple pie in and taken it out at our leisure. Jenni uses short crust pastry as a base and fills this with pre-cooked apple that was prepared in early summer. The apple is topped with sugared short crust pastry.

The museum at which we volunteer has a wild growing apple tree that fruits prodigously. The apples are an old variety somewhat like a Gravenstein and cook beautifully.

It is a wonderful feeling to pull a pie made with apples we have gathered from an oven we have built ourselves.

Tapas

I have been thinking about doing tapas in the oven for a long time and today was the day. We had friends over so I spent a few days planning a menu, sauces and marinating things ready for cooking. The following dishes were cooked in the oven: 

• Garlic chicken wings - These were prepared by jointing chicken wings and marinating them in olive oil, crushed garlic, chilli, paprika and onion. They were cooked in the big roaster for an hour and came out smelling and tasting wonderful.
• Smoked cod in chilli tomato sauce - A sauce was pre-cooked using red onion cut into wedges, sliced garlic, chopped red chilli and tomatoes. A fillet of smoked cod was flaked and mixed into the sauce in a cast iron pot just before cooking. A lid was placed on the pot and it was put in the oven to heat through. This was fantastic.
• Potato wedges - medium potatoes cut into wedges that were tossed in a mixture of olive oil, crushed garlic and sea salt. After about 30 minutes in the oven they came out looking and tasting perfect. 
• Empanadillas - little parcels made from rounds of dough stuffed with a mix of pre-cooked mince, chopped chorizo sausage and chopped red chilli.
• Roasted chorizo slices - slices of chorizo sausage roasted in a cast iron frying pan.
• Button mushrooms with chilli and garlic - button mushrooms placed into the oven in the pan in which the chorizo had been roasted with crushed garlic and chopped red chilli. 
• Roasted chorizo slices - slices of chorizo sausage . 

These dishes were accompanied by a simple sliced tomato and basil salad and a salad of roasted zucchini slices in chilli and basil.

After a few continuous weeks of rain the oven was a little difficult to warm up. The insulating layers and brick arch wept a lot after I lit the fire. The structure eventually dried out and heat up.

Everything cooked beautifully. We brought some new cast iron cookware that worked like a charm and the big roaster was just right for the chicken wings. It was nice just sitting around pulling batches of varied foods out of the oven and devouring them as we sat in the cool winter air.