Monday, October 30, 2006

Prepping the Site

Here is the initial work that my first contractor did for the oven, digging and pouring the foundation. This picture shows the space before any of the work was done.




Here is where they were digging out what will eventually be patio and foundation.

Monday, October 16, 2006

Some pizzas from June


Here is a classic "margarita" pizza -- red sauce, mozzarella, and fresh basil.








This a white pizza (no tomato sauce) in the style of a Pizzeria Bianco "Rosa" pizza with salami. This has more of a parmesan cheese blend with pistachios. We always added the salami to the Rosa pizza at Biancos. These pizzas got us the "best pizza I've ever had" comment from our dinner guests.

Sunday, October 15, 2006

Why a Pizza Oven?

So why a backyard pizza oven? When my wife and I lived in Phoenix, we were regulars at the renowned Pizzeria Bianco. When we moved to Dallas, we tried a few pizza restaurants and just couldn't find anything as good.

Last Christmas, my mother-in-law gave me a pizza stone kit to use on my gas grill (the photo is from amazon.com). I used it on my Webber gas grill and learned technique from the book "American Pie: My Search for the Perfect Pizza", learning how to make my own dough and everything from scratch. The pizza stone works great if you let the grill pre-heat on high for a very long time (say, 60 minutes). The grill temperature goes off the thermometer scale (600+ degrees) and is much hotter than you can get in your oven inside the kitchen.

We made some great pizzas (see some pictures below):










We decided that we were enjoying making pizzas but thought we could do better with some more serious equipment. Or, at least it would be a fun challenge.

More accurately, I love making pizzas and my wife loves eating them! Actually, we both love eating them. I've been happy to learn that making your own excellent pizza at home isn't really that difficult if you're willing to work at it.

Sunday, October 1, 2006

Welcome to my Blog

I'm currently in the process of having a wood-burning pizza oven installed in my backyard, in Keller TX. This blog will serve as my journal of the project (both the good and the bad) as well as the pizzas we will cook.

It's actually not just a "pizza oven." It's more more versatile than that. But more on that in the future.

This project started a while ago, so I'm going to go back in time to recount the progress, the steps, and the mis-steps.

Ciao.
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