Hi folks!
It's been a long long time, but now here's the new post of The Web for Home!
Today's post is about the not so secret recipe for the pizza dough. I cook pizza every saturday and it's always delicious (this is an opinion of my guests :P )
Ingredients for 4 people
500 g of 00 flour (the most highly refined and is talcum-powder soft)
25 g of yeast (I use the baker's cube yeast, that must be kept inside the fridge)
4 spoons of extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 spoon of sugar
1/2 spoon of table salt
1 glass of warm water (20 cl)
First of all, loose and mix the cube yeast inside the glass of warm water, then add the 1/2 spoon of sugar and make it uniform. Let it rest until you notice some froth on the top (generally 5 minutes are enough).
While you are waiting, mix the 00 flour with the table salt inside a bowl and put the extra-virgin olive oil on top of it.
Pour the water with yeast and sugar in the bowl and incorporate it with the mixture using a wooden spoon. When it will be too hard to turn the spoon, sprinkle flour on the counter or a wooden board and empty the bowl on it. Then put some flour on your hands and start to knead the dough. If the dough is too hard, put a little of warm water on it and continue to knead. Don't worry if it's sticky: just put a little more flour on your hands and knead the dough until it is uniform. Otherwise, if the dough is too sticky and it can't keep its shape, sprinkle a little more flour on the dough and on the counter until it will be elastic and homogenous.
Finally mould the dough into a sphere, take it and throw it on the counter (or board) with all your strength. Then, with a knife, make a cross cut (1 cm deep) on the top of the sphere.
Sprinkle flour on a quite large and deep recipient (preferably wooden) and put the sphere in it.
Cover the recipient with a humid cloth and let the dough rest for at least 2 hours in a warm and not windy place.
The only thing left is to stretch the dough with a rolling pin (preferably wooden with flour on it) and give it a shape (round or rectangular, depending on your baking pan) until it's 4 mm thick (or more if you want a deep-dish pizza).
Cover with a veil of extra-virgin olive oil the baking pan and put the shaped dough inside it. Make several holes in it using a fork and then dress it as you wish (with tomato sauce (NOT KETCHUP!!!), ham, mozzarella, black olives and so on). Finally put some extra-virgin olive oil and table salt on it and put into a pre-heated oven at 200°C for 15 minutes, or until you'll notice that the crust is golden.
Buon appetito!
16/09/09
15/03/09
The kitchen!
Today I will explain my point of view about the queen of rooms, aka the kitchen.
There's an italian female singer, Irene Grandi, that sings "In my castle I am the queen and my kingdom is the kitchen" (translated by me, the original song is "La cucina" from the album "Irene Grandi", 1994).
Well, she has splendidly summed up my thoughts!
My perfect kitchen must be built around me (quite small since I'm only 1,63 tall :P). It must be separated from the dining room by a short wall (about 1,30 m, 4,26 feet), on which there's a panel of concrete-glass tiles (blue of green) up to the ceiling: I really love concrete-glass because it makes a room bright and stained. I need a medium work surface because I have to knead the dough for pizza, spaghetti and gnocchi (do you know what a "gnocco" is?). But in my kitchen there will be no place for a dishwasher, because I don't like it. Yes, it's useful when there are a lot of dishes to wash (cooking contests with friends or the celebrated italian Christmas' Eve dinner) but it's also not really cheap.
I really love kitchen furniture by Snaidero (an italian furniture factory), but they are expensive. Very expensive. And when I'll finally have my sweet home, I won't have enough money to buy Snaidero's furniture. ^^'''
But, for the record, my favourite model is the one called Ola.
Now I have to work (for me it's never sunday!): next time I'll give you the not so secret recipe for pizza dough!
There's an italian female singer, Irene Grandi, that sings "In my castle I am the queen and my kingdom is the kitchen" (translated by me, the original song is "La cucina" from the album "Irene Grandi", 1994).
Well, she has splendidly summed up my thoughts!
My perfect kitchen must be built around me (quite small since I'm only 1,63 tall :P). It must be separated from the dining room by a short wall (about 1,30 m, 4,26 feet), on which there's a panel of concrete-glass tiles (blue of green) up to the ceiling: I really love concrete-glass because it makes a room bright and stained. I need a medium work surface because I have to knead the dough for pizza, spaghetti and gnocchi (do you know what a "gnocco" is?). But in my kitchen there will be no place for a dishwasher, because I don't like it. Yes, it's useful when there are a lot of dishes to wash (cooking contests with friends or the celebrated italian Christmas' Eve dinner) but it's also not really cheap.
I really love kitchen furniture by Snaidero (an italian furniture factory), but they are expensive. Very expensive. And when I'll finally have my sweet home, I won't have enough money to buy Snaidero's furniture. ^^'''
But, for the record, my favourite model is the one called Ola.
Now I have to work (for me it's never sunday!): next time I'll give you the not so secret recipe for pizza dough!
14/03/09
A shared dream
Well, here I am.
It was not easy for me to make this blog and not because it has needed a lot of effort in programming.
It was difficult because I have recognized that I am not enough, that my powers aren't sufficiently to fulfil my dream.
Yes, I've got a dream.
Like thousands of young people in this tiny yet big World, every day I wake up early, I go to work, I work until there's no more light outside, I return home, I eat and I return to work.
Every day I only thought that all my efforts would take me to my home sweet home.
But the finish line is very very far away, because I have to fight with many expenses, taxes, loans to my needy old parents and the economic crisis.
I have a temporary employment as an analyst programmer and I can make an housing loan only for a small amount of money. When I talk about my dream of having an house, many people tell me "Hey, if you want a home, just get married!". Oh yes, I'm a single woman, I believe in love and I don't want to find a man because I want to steal his house -___-
Therefore, I need the help of the Web.
Damn, I feel like a beggar asking for your kindness, but what is impossible for me is nothing for the Web!
I'll start to write here about my dream, but also about advices in house keeping, bricolage, do-it-yourself, gardening and common and uncommon knowledge about houses. Thus because this blog must cover the relationship between a person and his/her house.
I have added adSense advertising and a small button for free donations with Paypal (even 1 $ is enough). It will be my duty to inform you about every possible development in this situation.
Help me reaching my dream. My home sweet home.
It was not easy for me to make this blog and not because it has needed a lot of effort in programming.
It was difficult because I have recognized that I am not enough, that my powers aren't sufficiently to fulfil my dream.
Yes, I've got a dream.
Like thousands of young people in this tiny yet big World, every day I wake up early, I go to work, I work until there's no more light outside, I return home, I eat and I return to work.
Every day I only thought that all my efforts would take me to my home sweet home.
But the finish line is very very far away, because I have to fight with many expenses, taxes, loans to my needy old parents and the economic crisis.
I have a temporary employment as an analyst programmer and I can make an housing loan only for a small amount of money. When I talk about my dream of having an house, many people tell me "Hey, if you want a home, just get married!". Oh yes, I'm a single woman, I believe in love and I don't want to find a man because I want to steal his house -___-
Therefore, I need the help of the Web.
Damn, I feel like a beggar asking for your kindness, but what is impossible for me is nothing for the Web!
I'll start to write here about my dream, but also about advices in house keeping, bricolage, do-it-yourself, gardening and common and uncommon knowledge about houses. Thus because this blog must cover the relationship between a person and his/her house.
I have added adSense advertising and a small button for free donations with Paypal (even 1 $ is enough). It will be my duty to inform you about every possible development in this situation.
Help me reaching my dream. My home sweet home.
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