Yesterday I decided to finally try my natural raisin yeast bread out as a pizza crust and it turned out pretty good. Though I still have yet to master the art of tossing the dough, especially when talking about whole wheat as it is a much more fragile and tears easier than white flour dough, I still keep trying!
My wheat flour is home ground from presoaked organic white wheat berries to make it more gut friendly. Which reminds me, I have an update to come out eventually on a mod Mr. Rain made to my Country Living Grain Mill, but you will have to wait on that one! ;)
I started by making my sauce on the rocket stove using my own garden tomatoes and herbs, plus a few store bought things I have trouble growing myself like rosemary and of course, salt. I do not have my own salt mine after all! haha
The toppings included home canned beef seasoned with Italian herbs, foraged Chicken of the Woods mushrooms, mozzarella cheese, black olives. The rest of the toppings all came from my garden and were purple basil, zucchini, garlic, tomatoes, calendula, and young grape leaves. Since the Chicken of the Woods had been previously dehydrated and grape leaves can be a bit tough, I soaked the mushrooms for awhile in hot filtered rain water, then lightly sauteed both the leaves and the mushrooms in avocado oil and my own raisin vinegar before putting them on the pizza.
On a side note, I stopped buying sausage and pepperoni from the store years ago for two reasons, they are loaded with garbage and I try to avoid pork, I just do not believe it to be a very healthy meat. I have not tried yet making my own pepperoni though I plan to some day, in the mean time, I have found a couple of creative ways to duplicate the flavor using grass fed ground beef or, as in this case, home canned beef roast by simply preparing it first with good Italian herbs such as rosemary, basil, oregano, Redmond Real Salt and lots of garlic.
The pizza as a whole turned out amazing and there is something truly satisfying about how much self sufficiency and frugality went into the process of making this.
I hope you are all having a lovely week and pray you are safe from the fires and hurricanes! ~Heidi
Wow! When you make something from scratch, you REALLY make something from scratch. The pizza looks delicious.
You are making your own yeast???
I'm half tempted to teasingly ask why you didn't make your own mozarella. :-)
Haha! Well, I tried making mozzarella once and it was a failure, not to say I am giving up, but still trying to use up some I have had in the freezer first :)
I haven't done so hot with mozarella either. I haven't given up either, but so far I've had some distinct failures. And it uses so much milk!!!! Some learning curves are just a little easier than others...
This looks absolutely delicious. And healthy too. I need to try this.
Way to make a food that's usually known as a junk food into a healthy food. I noted that you use a rocket stove. Are they as good as they advertise. I have also been looking at those solar ovens. Have you used them. Good job on the pizza.
I really like the rocket stove and use it all through the dry months along with our Solavore Solar Oven that I have been using for better than 5 years now
I went to that link and that look similar to the solar oven. I'm just a little taken aback with the costs. But I guess it's worth it if it does what they say. Thanks for your opinions.
There are many whom have built their own, sometimes just using a cardboard box. So that is something to look into as well. I believe there are a lot of how to videos on youtube about it
Actually, I went this route and tried making one. It's pretty inefficient but is works. I took a cardboard box (as you mentioned) and covered it with foil. I used a piece of plastic for the door. I'm thinking to replace the plastic with a lens. But if I find a oven that's pretty reasonably priced, I'd be interested. Thanks for the response. Have a good day.
I have been making sourdough pizza crust for a few years now! I've never had great success with tossing it (for the reasons you've mentioned) and have opted for the "taxi driver" approach (my term, because I have no idea what to call it). After flattening out the dough into a small round, I let it hang from my hands (thanks, gravity!), rotating it like a steering wheel, and pinching it flat as I go (the part that is above where I pinch becomes a nice thick outer crust. I find this works really well for the delicate whole-wheat dough, and it has come out WONDERFULLY in our wood fired oven.
Thanks for the suggestion, I will give that a try next time! :D
This looks so good! I love that you loaded it up with toppings and now I have to go find your raisin yeast bread post because I'm intrigued! Can't wait to hear about the grain mill too!!