Fireside cooking conjures childhood memories of scorched marshmallows, hot chocolate and mosquitoes. Cooking an edible meal over fire is not something I had ever imagined - successfully - or gleefully - achieving. And yet, weeks down the line, we are creating surprisingly amazing dishes, cooked over fire!! Strictly speaking we aren't cooking over but beside the fire. Our Pizza Oven has surpassed our wildest food fantasies.
Who would've thought I would actually be happy about the demise of my kitchen stove. If you missed out on the crisis, check out Catastrophic Cooking . After years of aspiring to do a weekly cook-up in the Pizza Oven, necessity has forced the culinary hand. Thursday is our big cook-up. We are still learning as we go. Needless to say, apart from minor glitches, and much singed hair, the food coming out of that Pizza Oven just keeps getting better. We're baking, stewing, roasting and sampling everything along the way. We've learned that the fire needs to burn longer to get the floor of the Pizza Oven hot. It has special fire bricks which take ages to heat but in turn even longer to cool. Last week the rains came half way through our cook-up and there was panic that the water against the hot dome would cause it to crack. We have only partially built a roof over it so we were frantically covering the Pizza Oven without interfering with the process. Or setting the covers on fire!
Yesterday I had my menu lined up. This morning as the first couple dishes were ready to go in - just awaiting the right temperature - I impulsively whipped up some cookies with the kids. The thing about food is that I want it to be quick to make but taste like a culinary explosion on your tongue. Even more important; it must be healthy while tasting amazing!!
Chocolate never lets me down. I love it in any shape or form. I was so much in a hurry to make the chocolate cookies that I added the cacao powder but forgot the cacao nibs. No problem. I then made a second batch of peanut butter cookies and tossed the cacao nibs in there.
Here is the yummy recipe:
CHOCOLATE COOKIES:
1 Cup Cassava flour
1 Cup Rolled Oats (I grind them)
Dash of salt
Dash of cinnamon
Dash of gluten free baking powder
Dash of bicarbonate of soda
Dash of vanilla
1/2 cup olive oil
1/2 cup coconut blossom sugar
1/3 cup cacao powder (extra cacao nibs optional)
2 organic eggs (thanks chickens!!)
You need two separate bowls. In one measure out the olive oil, cacao powder, eggs and coconut blossom. Beat. In the other bowl sieve all the remaining ingredients. Mix the wet with the dry. So simple!
The cookie dough is slightly sticky but easy to handle. Add the cacao nibs once the ingredients are well mixed. Form your desired size cookies. Our Pizza Oven was hot. Well over 200 C so we literally did a 10 minute bake. Flipping cookies and swivelling the tray a couple times to prevent burning. In a regular oven - which I no longer have - you'll bake for about 20 minutes at 160 C or until lightly browned. Allow to cool. If you can resist!
The children were so excited about their cookies that I made them a tea party in their tree house and went back to cooking. Throughout the day I kept promising myself I would "just finish this or that and then sit down with a cup of tea and one of those cookies...." At midnight I finally sat down to enjoy a cookie while I wrote this post. These cookies really are worth the long day grafting next to our amazing Pizza Oven.
Oh, I have the same problem! Getting the floor hot enough. I always light the fire too late, so the floor only gets hot enough to bake pizza when I pull out the last pizza! 🤣 Patience is a virtue few have access to! But as you mentioned, the heat retention is awesome. I still get temps in the 100's or close to it the next morning. I leave some roasts overnight but bake some bread before that. And I NEED to try the cookies! I have not thought about it. Or croissants. Your post makes me all excited to light the fire and cook in the pizza oven!
Do it! DO IT!! I need to bounce pizza baking ideas off someone else. My husband has been watching youtube clips but the people that cook there are like Michelen chefs! We are barely qualified to watch Masterchef! Oh and croissants? Do you have an unfloppable recipe? LOVE croissants. I worked in a patissiere in my young(er) days and ate more than one hot out the oven with a cappucino when I arrived at 6 every morning. Yummy
Oh I would love to! I am thinking about making a video or two of my experiments in the pizza oven. Maybe you'd find it interesing! Sourdough pizzas, and maybe sourdough rusks! And then the croissants. I am not in any way shape or form a pastry chef. I have tried sourdough pastry, but that one is still in the works. But there is a hack....... and I will make a post about it 😉🥐 keep your eyes peeled! Oh, the suspense. No, I am joking. But the recipe or the hack recipe is in the works.
Please let me know! I don't know why I miss so many of your posts. A hack sounds like the perfect recipe
I will let you know! Hopefully, it works out. All fingers crossed. The thing with sourdough, as I am sure you are aware, is it takes so much time! So when one recipe flops you need to wait two or three days for the next batch.
Yup! And when you don't need to make anything then you have an absolute glut of "discard" which I hate to discard
Right! When I worked at the bakery a couple of years back we threw out so much discard. It was sad. And it was 100% rye, so all the rye discard got dumped. Rich people who owned the place. Could not talk sense in them and they wanted everything done in their way.
When I was a child Mum used to use firewood to cook - messy but food somehow tasted better
I bet your whipping up some culinary magic ;D
Whipping indeed. And beating. And slicing and dicing. But culinary indeed, thanks to the marvel of the pizza oven. So, yes, your Mum knew what she was doing. It somehow does taste better
What a great read. I pretty much do not like reading recipe posts, but you have so many gifts, reading this post was a pleasure, a gift of its own.
Oh thank you for your sweet comment! I also hate reading recipe posts, that's why I try to make my writing more than just the measurements of various ingredients blah blah blah
She's a gem, isn't she?
This makes me want to break my oven!
This was a seriously yummy post. I cannot believe how many posts I miss of everyone's! I feel like a herder, tending to my own flock and that is all the time allotted to me. Yikes! I need to change something.
This was delightful, the story was heartwarming and the treehouse was such a fun time. :) Please never change. It is like a breath of fresh air coming over here. Some days, it is crazy, but, it is always such a treat to read. 💖
HAHAHAHA!! Please don't. I am happy to say that I don't miss my kitchen oven. BUT the pizza oven is still a LOT of work. I'm exhausted at the end of that day and still have to catch up on what I missed after the family are in bed
As far as missing so much. I feel the same. I sometimes have to go to the pages of my favourites to check I didn't miss something that whizzed by on my feed.
Here's a bunch I just picked. A local indigenous veld flower and wildly growing arum lilies. It's from a neighbouring valley that are at the foot of the mountains. They always have water. Which means they always have flowers! Thought of you when we were wandering....
Thank you, they are beautiful! Amazing what grows wild and free! God's gifts.
Indeed!
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An interesting recipe option)
Thank you. One of many. We've baked various breads. Various cakes. Stews. Roasts. Curries. Even soft egg in a tomato, onion and basil relish.
Ohhh I was amazed at the oven, then the cookies - then the book you sat down to read! Love your work! We do need to make another fire oven. We made a clay one once but it was eaten by cows.