Tag Archives: pizza

The great idea

Well , it seemed great. If I do away with oil or sprinkled flour on the baking trays whilst cooking pizza, I reasoned, I could do away with washing the trays, cycle the equipment faster between groups and, by writing initials on the paper, could identify the pizzas more easily.

Great in theory.

In practice I did avoid any washing up, so that was a plus.

But the green marker pen I originally used (because you never really use the green one do you?) proved unequal to the job. I’m tempted to say it faded badly, but that would be unfair because it actually faded really well. In most cases it disappeared or left a faint green shimmer.*

The black was far better. Not sure whether to try the blue or the red next time, or stick to black.

Not that it really mattered because we had a 100% identification rate for the pizzas anyway. No arguing, no tears and no tantrums (from me or the kids). It’s all going too well.

Meanwhile, back at the photos, I can’t get titles on them. It shows pizzas, black writing, green writing and a pizza in the shape of Italy. That would have been really imaginative wouldn’t it. Then he spoilt it all by telling me it was a football sock.

Ah well!

 

*This is similar to the rhetorical question I often heard asked on campsites in the days I fought with the Sealed Knot. Some broken wreck, usually male, would shamble past groaning “Do you know what’s good for a hangover?” to which I would perkily reply, “Fifteen pints of bitter and a kebab usually does the job for me.”

It didn’t go down well.

What the poor addlepated coxcomb meant, of course, was “Do you know what’s good for getting rid of a hangover?”

Sometimes we can be very unclear in our meanings.

Two swallows and an Amazon

We had a visit from a small group today, which is nice because we have more time to spend with them, plenty of equipment and (the best bit for me) less washing up. We did the normal pizzas and salad, and as you can see, the novelty of eating weeds didn’t seem to put them off. We also had a cabbage, apple and spring onion coleslaw because I absent-mindedly allowed them to feed the carrots to the pigs.

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Empty plate

In wildlife news we had a lot of pollinators out again. We also caught quite a few grasshoppers and crickets out in the fields, though most of them were a bit too jumpy to photograph properly. I think this one is a Meadow Grasshopper.

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During the afternoon we had a young blackbird wander into the building (to add to the jackdaw that managed to squeeze into the hen coop yesterday). Finally, at 5 pm, as we were holding an exciting but Top Secret meeting which may have Considerable Repercussions for the Ecocentre, two swallows flew in through the back door. One came all the way through and smacked into the front window, the other managed to turn round and fly back out. They had been flying close to the building all afternoon, sometimes flying  along the verandah under the roof and occasionally perching on the ledge under the roof as if nesting but I’m not sure why they did this. It’s never happened before.

My wife is a lot better than me in a crisis and leapt into action, scooping the stunned bird up and returning it to the air (where it flew away as if nothing had happened) before I could even think of reaching for my camera.

I bet it had a headache though.

 

The Sourdough Session

The sun was shining, the temperature has once more returned to sanity and the venerable yogis in the centre were saying “om”. I don’t think they would object to the word venerable for although it contains overtones of age it is also a mark of respect. Anyway, some of them are quite old (one is over 90) and a number of them do have to sit down to do the exercises. That’s actually quite a worry for me as some of them, though 20 years my senior, are a great deal fitter and more supple.

In the distance goats bleat, birds sing and the the chirruping of the guinea fowl can, like the song of the biblical mourning dove, be heard throughout the land. At the kitchen a group of people have gathered to bake sourdough bread and eat pizza for lunch. To this end the outdoor oven is smoking gently and salads are in preparation.

This is the sort of day that you rarely experience, the sort of day that calls for the sound of leather on willow and John Betjeman talking of muffins on the Light Programme.

It’s a pleasure to come to work on a day like this and a temptation to post a “this is the view from my office window” picture on Twitter.

The group is baking sourdough today, and in the lull where they wait for it to rise they are going to make pizza and cook it in the outdoor oven. The Bread Lady is in charge today; so many people call her that now in recognition of her great bread-making knowledge that I have decided to go with the flow. In passing, I shall mention that I am known as the Fat Man these days, though in truth I have no special knowledge of lard or polyunsaturates.

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Bread Lady and sidekick

That, at least, was the plan. The bread-making, as you can see from the pictures, was a success.

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Air kneading

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Cutting the dough

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The finished article

So was the salad selection, including foraged green salad (though it may be slightly immodest of me to say so) and the salad dressings seemed to go down well too, particularly the blackcurrant vinegar. Expect more recipes to appear soon, and and a bit more in the Wild Food section.

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Mallow, Fat Hen and Nasturtium with borage, flowers, chive blossom and daisy and marigold petals.

The pizza oven fell victim to the farm’s command structure and parsimonious attitude with regard to wood, which, I must point out, DOES grow on trees. Once again we were faced with inadequate temperatures and long cooking times (so long that most people gave up and cooked them in the oven).

Despite this it was an interesting session and as I said to the Bread Lady afterwards, it’s amazing how well the group has gelled and how far we have come in technique in just a few years. This is proved by the way that they have worked so hard to run the catering at the last two Open Farm Sundays. (Do you think the word “proved” could look a bit like  a weak pun in this context – it wasn’t intended).

She said: “You’re only saying that because they gave you free pizza.”

The words “Bread Lady” might convey the impression that she’s a softer, crumbly version of the “Iron Lady”, but as you can see, she still manages to be both tough and accurate.

Tuesday night on Tuesday night

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If this was a hard-hitting and controversial blog I’d probably write about how we’d hosted a group tonight where few of the kids had any manners (as in a complete lack of “please” and “thank you”). but as it isn’t, I’d probably have to go on to say that it probably wasn’t their fault, but that of their parents.

Yes, I’m nice. This isn’t natural, I’ve have been using relaxation techniques and such stuff and I can now look at them with a fond smile and think “I really hope this karma stuff works because you’re coming back as a pustule, young man.”

Don’t get me wrong, the majority were nice affable people you’d be happy to meet at any time and one or two were so pleasant and friendly it was a true pleasure to meet them. But, as with rotten apples, it only takes one to spoil things. They are the ones you remember. I will say no more, but as part of my mellowing process I am growing more Wodehousian, and there were one or two tonight who were absolute blisters.

On the plus side, we’re getting better with the wood-fired oven and one of the pigs has had eight piglets. We’ve normally managed more, but eight is still good.

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What a difference a day makes

It’s been a busy week. We had lots of people through, as you may have deduced from the blog, and pictures of pizzas. The pigs had the best idea, as you can see in the photo – just sunbathe and let the world pass by.

Our usual Quercus groups were in on Monday and Wednesday (with an adult pizza-making class in the evening as well), seated yoga on Thursday, school on Tuesday, school on Thursday (fitted round the yoga as much as we could) and group with mixed disabilities on Friday. There were 62 kids making pizza on Tuesday, meaning we were taking the pizzas out of the oven, washing the trays and handing them over to the next group while they were still warm.

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Pizza as far as the eye could see

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And more pizza…

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Wild flower mix

That was the good stuff.

Sadly, that sort of throughput, plus a few other odds and ends, brings a lot of problems too, and when you don’t have time to stop and deal with them they can  pile up and spoil the atmosphere. The heat hasn’t helped either, with petty arguments among the group members and a constant refrain of “It’s too hot.”

That’s the difference a day makes – a few degrees cooler and with a few hours to sit down and do things the whole outlook changes. A miserable Friday night has changed to a happy Saturday without much effort.

It’s a lesson I learnt a long time ago. Unfortunately I’ve never managed to memorise it for future use.

I’m also suffering a crisis of confidence about the blog. It was meant to be about Quercus Community and our activities, but as somebody said a while ago, it’s all over the place. I can’t remember the exact words, which were kinder than that, but the truth is that there is no central theme.

My initial aim was to write about the group, the members of the group and what we do. Unfortunately it isn’t easy writing about people who might read what you say about them (I am not always tactful even when I have time to think about things and edit them) and when these people are vulnerable adults the difficulties are magnified. That’s when it became a bit of a gardening, cooking and sustainability blog, followed by the blog that complains about modern life.

It’s a miracle that I actually have any followers when you think about the mistakes I make. Does anybody have any ideas on a direction to take? I’m thinking that it needs to get away from my opinions and back to Care Farming (though I seem to be the only Care Farm about when I search other blogs). That could take in outside care, gardening, foraging, composting and cooking so it wouldn’t be a major change. Might include a few nature notes too – we’ve been getting some good butterflies and have enough jackdaws lurking round for pig and poultry food we’re beginning to resemble the set of The Birds – had a flock of around 70 last night and frequently have 40-50 round the pig pen.

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The morning after

We had a good night in the kitchen, though we did need to enlist the help of an electric fan. I had the fan, the participants had plastic aprons and a wood-fired oven – that really tested their capacity to stay cool under pressure.

In a way it was fortunate that we’d decided to light the fire by committee. I asked the farmer if we could have it lit and he passed the message to Tim. The farmer thought 4 pm was soon enough to light it and Tim was a bit on the cheese-paring side with the wood. All in all, we didn’t end up with the roaring furnace that I would have done, but I suppose we could say they were being careful with the Earth’s resources.

You could also say they were being tight, but as I use TESCO’s cheapest flour and cheapest tomato sauce I’m not one to talk. I’m not known as the Prince of Parsimony for nothing. (OK, I admit I just made that up).

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You test the temperature of a pizza oven by bravely thrusting your arm into it. If the hair on your arm instantly burns off, the temperature is right. Of course, you can only do that around twice a month. Ideally I would have had a variety of dough and casseroles available to cook as it went down in temperature.

If it doesn’t burn off you aren’t up to temperature. I still have two hairy arms. However, it’s a challenge rather than a disaster so you just have to be patient.

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Fortunately everybody was patient and good-natured, but it did take over an hour to cook all the pizzas. It isn’t the fastest process in the world, even using baking paper, but it should have been quicker than that. If we’d used an electric oven the convenience of the eating experience would probably have been improved, even if we may not have laughed so much. We ended up using the electric ovens for the last few anyway. Funny how we’re retro about food, with wood-fired ovens and old methods, but I don’t see anyone sitting on the side of the river bashing their washing with stones.

Just a thought…

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Pizza? What, again?

We have 16 people coming to make pizza tonight, using the outside oven. Personally I can’t understand the need to regress by a century and feed pizza into a space full of ash and flame when we have perfectly good clean controllable electric ovens. Tonight I could be sticking 16 pizzas in and taking 16 pizzas out fifteen minutes later. Instead I’m going to spend the afternoon getting things up to temperature so that I can eventually feed a procession of individual pizzas into the baking equivalent of hell.

On the plus side, they want foraged salad, and I have just found a new stash of fat hen so I’m as happy as a pig in salad.

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Fat hen

I just need to make some dressing with chive flower vinegar and the job’s a good ‘un.

In the gardens we’ve been interspersing light gardening with sitting under the cafe awning and drinking water from the fridge. One of the lads on the farm is currently off work after becoming dehydrated on Monday, so you can’t be careful. Despite that I will be ribbing him at great length as it’s a stupid thing to do and because we needed him here with a school party. Self-inflicted – no sympathy.

The outside temperature spiked at 35 degrees C for a few minutes, though by the time I’d collected my camera and taken a couple of outdoor shots it was back to 34, which is still pretty hot by my standards. Even inside it’s holding 31.

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In the garden

We’ll be holding a birthday party for the farmer in a minute, though he’s late, as usual. Apart from the fact he’d be late for his own funeral, he fails to grasp that if you tell our group you’ll be here for 2.30, they start getting agitated at 2.31. Looks like we’ll have to make a few excuses.

 

Now I’m merely simmering…

OK, no more ranting, I’ve been comprehensively lectured on being nice by my wife, I’ve filled up on tea and I’ve just bought the bacon for my breakfast sandwiches so I’m in a mellow place. I’m far from booking my place at the Pollyanna School of Business Management but I can now type without shouting at the screen.

It’s also, accidentally, well over a day since my last post, which is good for calming down.

We had 62 kids making pizza yesterday (amongst other things), which isn’t easy. It called on all my depths of calmness, particularly as the final group seemed to contain the most irritating children of the day. At that point you have to remember that they are only young, and that to say what you really want to say to them would probably result in another complaint from the parents…

After we waved them off and had a welcome cup of tea I reflected on a day spent standing uncomfortably close to four fan ovens blasting out 200 degrees C. Maybe I should have kept my thoughts to myself and not told my wife and another colleague that their day spent out in the open air prodding bees and flowers was easy compared to my day with washing up and timings and an edible end result to produce. At least the resulting atmosphere allows me to use the welcome word “frosty”.

Then the explosions occurred.

The first one was quite small, more of a bang, and the electricity went off.

The electricity returned and we were just saying “I wonder what…” when the big one happened. My wife nearly fell off her chair and the poultry started making a commotion. It occurs to me that I’ve lived all these years and I don’t actually know the word for the noise a flock of agitated chickens makes. Then again, there are lots of words I don’t know, though I can’t tell you how many, as I don’t know them.

Outside on the lane the box on one of the poles was producing sparks like a Roman candle.

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Generator and jump leads – high tech!

And that was why I had no electricity to blog until I got home. When I did get home I had to go shopping for the Wednesday evening visitors, a process made more complex by the failure of the freezers in my local supermarket. Then I had to eat ice cream. It was only at that point that I was able to power up the netbook before falling asleep in my chair.

So that is why the blog is late and I have calmed down since that last one.

 

After the ups and downs of the past week – currently standing at two Goat Escapes and one pig escape – it was nice to get back to the even keel of a school visit.

We picked a salad from the garden, and the only traditional ingredient in it was rocket which has self-seeded itself from last year. It was fat hen, chickweed, mallow, nasturtium, rose bay willow herb, dead nettle, borage flowers, chive heads and the petals of daisies and marigold.

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In the absence of a salad spinner (which seems to have fallen victim to “tidying up”  (I hate shared kitchens!) I had to use the old tea towel method. Only problem was that I’d forgotten how much water I was about to drive off…

Fortunately there was no damage done apart from a bit of mild surprise and a slippery floor.

Unlike the nettle soup I made with the same class last visit, most people seemed to try a bit of the salad, even if they didn’t all like it. I don’t mind that, it’s when they won’t try that I grow frustrated. Last time only one would try the nettle soup and only two tried the leek and potato, despite the familiar ingredients. I think it’s the fact that they see it being made that seems to put them off. It can’t be good for you if it doesn’t come from a factory…

We still have  along way to go in food education.

Looking on the bright side they were good at the difficult questions (eg why didn’t Henry VIII eat chips?) and the best class I’ve ever had for cleaning up afterwards.

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End of the week

It’s 4.30pm on Saturday (though I won’t be posting until later), or 1995 if you follow the other form of dating I’ve been using. In 1995 I’m married with kids, happy and couldn’t tell you what was happening in the outside world because I didn’t have time to notice.

Wikipedia tells me that John Major called a leadership election to confirm his leadership of the party. I mention this only because it gives me chance for a John Major anecdote. I met him once and was introduced. About an hour later I met him again and he remembered my name. There was no need for him to have done that and it struck me that a man who could remember names like that, and appear to be pleased to meet you for a second time, would probably rise high in politics. He did.

There’s probably room for a whole digression on leadership and what it takes to succeed in politics here, but it wouldn’t be as interesting as cookery and gardening. I wish I’d realised that years ago.

Here are some pictures of a Wild greens quiche with guinea fowl eggs. My wife is making me describe weeds as wild greens now. Some years ago we went through a similar process with a product I now call “manure”.

It’s onions, blanched nettles and fat hen in  a ready made pastry case. After adding the eggs and milk I dropped torn up chive blossom, calendula petals and whole borage flowers to the top. I will have to work on preserving the colour of the petals.

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The water I blanched the nettles in took on a lovely green colour after just a minute or two of steeping and after removing the leaves I drank it. Much nicer than the cup I made earlier in the week, and much fresher tasting, though it did have overtones of calabrese. Compared with overtones of fox I’ll go for that.  With hindsight I should have strained the insect shaped bits out of it, but I’m not a vegetarian so no harm done.

We have another school next week, a planning session, part one of my takeover of the catering side and I’m going to do some cuttings with willow water. The comfrey plant food is decidedly murky now – you wouldn’t want to swim in a pond that colour- and the indoor salads are really getting a move on now, in contrast to the disappointing outdoor salads.

Finally, after seeing my display of Wild Salad at the Open Farm Sunday I’ve been asked if I can do one at a buffet in  a few weeks time. My weedy fame is spreading!