Backyard Pizza Oven

Every Friday night we have pizza for dinner.  Usually home made, sometimes take out, or take and bake.  But the very best is when my 17 year-old son fires up the out door pizza oven he made and cooks home made pizza.  

This is the brick lined pizza oven.

 

 

 

 

He heats up the oven, then using a pizza peal with the pizza on parchment so it slides easily, loads a thin crust pizza into the oven.

 

 

 

 

 The oven is really hot so it cooks quickly.

 

 

 

 

 

We cook several pizzas and then enjoy!!

 

 

We don't do this type of cooking very often but it is a lot of fun and makes a special pizza!

 

 

 

Bread: the staff of life!

We eat a lot of bread.  Without it my children might have starved, or at least been malnourished, since their other favorite food group is sweets.  Since it is a staple at our house I often make it, that way I know just what goes into it.  After several years of doing this they have learned to eat wheat bread and even like it! 

 

 

This is how it looked a little while after coming out of the oven, and a short while later the loaf was almost gone.  

Here is the recipe I use.  It might look like a long process but when you make it regularly you get the process down and it is not difficult at all.

Whole Wheat Bread 

7 cups wheat flour     (* see note at the bottom about wheat flour)
2/3 cup wheat gluten
2 1/2 Tablespoons yeast,  I use saf-instant

mix that all together in your mixing bowl.  

Then add 5 cups very warm water  (110-115 degrees)
Mix well  for a minute and then let it sit for 15 minutes or until it starts to rise up in the bowl.

Then add the rest of the ingredients:

1 1/2 Tablespoon salt
1/3 cup oil
1/3 cup honey or sugar if you are out of honey
2 1/2  Tablespoons dough enhancer
2 or 3 cups wheat flour

Mix it all up until it is thoroughly combined and then add white flour (about 2 to 3 cups) until you get it to a good bread consistency.  If you are using a bread mixer the dough starts to pull away from the sides and bottom of the bowl.  Keep mixing it in the mixer, or kneading it,  for 6 to 8 minutes.

Dump it out on a lightly floured countertop and form into loaves.

 

Put in greased pans, cover and let rise until it's over the top of the pan. This batch made 4 regular loaves and one smaller loaf.
Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes.  

* I have a wheat grinder and for this batch I used hard white wheat.  The white wheat doesn't look as "wheaty" so my kids like it better.  I grind a lot and keep it in the freezer because I don't like the grinding and the less often I have to do it, the easier it is to make bread.  You can use all wheat flour instead of combining wheat and white flours.

Ethan's night to cook

Each of my boys fixes dinner once a week.  I let them choose what to fix and they usually only make the main course so it is always good if the main course is a complete meal.  Coffee cake does not qualify as a complete meal so I added some fruit and a salad to go with it.  Here is the recipe he used:

Breakfast Cake

    cake: 

                                                             1/2 cup shortening or butter
                                                             2 1/2 cups flour
                                                             3/4 cup sugar
                                                             2 Tbsp. baking powder
                                                             pinch of salt
                                                             1 1/3 cups milk
                                                             2 eggs
Cut shortening into flour.  Add remaining dry ingredients and mix.  Add wet ingredients and mix by hand.  Pour into a greased 9x13" pan. 

topping:

                                                               1/2 cup flour
                                                               3/4 cup sugar 
                                                               4 1/2 Tbsp. butter, softened
                                                               1 teaspoon cinnamon

Sprinkle with topping.  Bake at 400 degrees for 20-25 minutes.

I think next time I would recommend using brown sugar in the topping and then layering half the batter, half the topping, rest of batter, and remaining topping.