matt_smith

sounds delicious... thanks for this!

good grief that sounds delicious... i'd like to try that but the link seems a bit broken.

I love that! When I was home for a week with the fam for christmas, I brought my pan home and baked a loaf every other day... by the time I left, we had given loaves to neighbors and close friends, eaten a bunch, and now I'm fielding phone calls from my dad 2-3 times a week helping him troubleshoot the recipe. It's a family affair!

I purchased a Descoware 3 QT oven off ebay to use with the no-knead bread technique that's been taking the baking world by the ears, and have since found myself using it for lots of other things. Descoware seems to make (have made? it's mostly 70's vintage) a good product, and they can be had quite reasonably if you keep an eye on ebay. also, i like that the top and side handles are cast iron and can thus withstand higher oven temperatures... some of the cheaper enameled cast iron i've seen (and even some of the expensive) has plastic handles that can only withstand heat up to a certain point... not so handy.

great story, Fat Guy! thanks!

knowing full well that i'm WAY late to this particular party, let it be said that i have been anxiously watching this phenomenon since a few hours after the article's publication in the NYT. having finally gotten ahold of a proper pot and enough time to bake with, i tried my hand at it. so, let it be known that you are now looking at my first ever successful loaf of bread. thought i'd share my moment of triumph with you all, as i know you'll understand. yesssssssssss! the crunchy chewy taste of success!

bravo for doing it, and double-bravo for doing it yourself. MUCH cooler than buying one, no? i think the food tastes better if it's on the far end of some clever engineering. can't wait to see what comes out of it!

heh. so would i, believe me. i've bugged the staff there as much as possible about it, but i've only been able to pry out a handful of ingredients and part of the technique. they're remarkably tight-lipped about it. i can tell from eating it that it's based on rice, beets, and black beans (i think). i also know that it contains chipotle peppers. and i know that they mash the mix into a form to create the "patty," a procedure that might result in it sticking together quite a bit better than most homemade veggie burgers i've had. it has only the slightest mushy quality to it. more info and some backup for my sweeping assertions here, here, (scroll down), and the official cafe site (spare though it may be) is here.

nice to know i'm not the only one out there that enjoys these. thanks for the great recipes! the black bean with cilantro and line looks great...

Did a pretty thorough forum search, and determined a few things: 1) Many members on the board do not consider veggie burgers to be real food in any sense. 2) Many others do, and seem to have excellent ways of preparing them that I would like to try. 3) Most of those from 2) haven't posted specific recipes. I say this only because I'm trying my hand at a variety of methods at home and have reached a point where I need some new direction. I find the sheer possibility of ingredients and options for this particular dish delightful, but I've also learned that precise amounts and directions can make the difference between veggie burger bliss and unappealing mush. So, those of you who make, partake, or enjoy, any good recipes to share? (Note: If you think veggie burgers are sacriledge, I both apologize and offer to take you to a great little spot called Northstar Cafe the next time you're in Columbus in an effort to prove you wrong. The Vegetarian 'Northstar' burger there is head and shoulders above all but the best burgers I've had the pleasure of eating, meat included)

way to bust out the charts, jackal! so it appears from looking at this lovely graph that my theoretical room temp starter, at or around 70, would be the least tangy of all temperature possibilities. that doesn't sound very promising. you can't start it cold, can you? as in, in the fridge (please pardon if that's a stupid question, a lot of this still seems a bit like alchemy to me)?

excellent... i've heard enough about the 90 degrees being a requirement to keep the right yeast going and the 'bad' yeast out to worry about doing it at 70-something. but with your info in mind i'll give it a shot. any rules or tips from making the transition from the counter to the fridge once it gets up and bubbling?

i'm looking forward to getting my own starter going, but am at a loss for a place in my apartment that exists at a constant 90 degrees... anybody rigged up any particularly ingenious (read: cheap) methods to do this?

I said that 1 1/4" fire bricks wouldn't need supports? Moi? It was more of a guesstimation than a certainty, based mostly on the weight of my 2" fire brick (if you think 1 1/4s are heavy, you should try lugging around 2s!). Bowing is not good. You don't want your pizza toppings to run towards the middle. Can the end pieces not butt up against the hearth like they did on the shelf? Is there something in the way? Speaking of bowing... does the floor of the oven have a slight curve to it? If it does, I'm not sure this configuration will work. If it's flat, then I'd say it looks great. Even if the end pieces have to be leaning, it's not going to make that much of a difference. The end pieces are nice, but not crucial. Are you striving for a Vulcan oven style NY pizza or a Neopolitan wood burning oven NY style pizza? ← well, you sort of suggested. gave me enough to at least try it. seems flatter than the rack (pre-brick supports), all the aforementioned advantages, and no signs of disaster yet. the end bricks (trying to decide how much of a purpose those are actually serving at this point) can't butt up against the others because there's 'heat vent slot things' there. you can kind of see the one in the second set, second photo (do those actually serve an important purpose? i can't imagine they're for style in the bottom of my cheap oven). the end bricks are leaning due to a little ridge of metal along the outer edge, not because the bottom is caving in. **nervous laugh** most of the reading i've done seems to reference a Neopolitan wood burning, but i think i hardly know what a Vulcan oven is, so i suppose it's still up for grabs.

welcome Liron and thanks for the directions!... i'd been looking for a good (read: authentic) pita bread recipe. i'll try these once i get the oven back up and running.

hoboy! i was planning on mixing my own this weekend, but i was out of town and thus could not attend to it properly. that would be spectacular. i've read a lot about care and feeding, but i'd want very specific directions to avoid mucking it up. gift horse and mouth and all that... hi-o, ohio! i'd be down for the Cleveland eats as well, schedule permitting. PM me details? i think i understand what you're getting at... basically the rack would be sandwiched in between two layers of bricks, right? the splits are what you see there (i guess they're half the width of a normal brick)... two layers would be mighty thick, and would probably knock my preheat time right out of the realm where i'd be able to pizza it up for dinner on a worknight. not to mention the night i come home and just want to make something quickly in the oven...

update! (and sorry for the double-post). i took everything out, and it seems the oven floor is a bit more substantial than i initially gave it credit for. so i put them back in, on it. the end pieces look much more precariously balanced than they really are. if i hear a loud crash in the middle of the night, i'm running for my life (what happens when you break the heater element off the bottom of a gas stove?), but so far so good. looks less 'put together' than before, but should be much more functional. theoretically, the bricks should heat up faster as well without the dead air between them and the oven floor, and the heat should be very even. any thoughts?

thanks all, for the great info! you've already saved me much time and trouble. i did use a mildly soapy solution to clean them, but they didn't soak in it or anything. most of the water that hit them was clean. even so, i'll let them dry out a few days before i do any baking in there, and i'll get it good and warm for a while first. somehow, the thought of those bricks exploding doesn't sound like a very good time. neither does Dawn-y crust. scott, you're spot-on about the heat void in the center... i hadn't thought of that. i'm hesitant to put them directly on the floor after closer inspection of the underside and element. the floor is a thin sheet of metal and is only connected to the walls on either side, with no struts or supports in the center... guess the designers at Hotpoint didn't figure on it being a load-bearing surface. i'll track down some kiln supports (sigh). no sense in making this a one-cheek affair at this point. Jeff Varasano's page was what kicked me off on wanting to make my own pizza in the first place, which led to my interest in bread. my pies are nowhere near his, but my dough is getting passable and my good buddy/upstairs neighbor is still willing to eat them with me. the goal is bread and pizza. i'm focusing on simple italian breads, sourdough loaves, and french baguettes (when i'd like to feel especially humble). (by the by, the post with the kiln supports kind of suggests that 1 1/4" fire bricks (halves, or 'splits') wouldn't need the supports. i'll admit i put all the stones in first and then added the supports... they were on their own in there without any immediate destruction. but the rack was bowed a bit and i wanted to avoid catastrophe... do you think it could just do without? would having a few supports in there drastically effect even heat distribution?

so i see the HearthKit, and i like the idea. i've got an old gas oven, and have found that precise temperature control and even heat distribution are far foreign concepts. i am a very inexperienced baker, however, and cannot justify shelling out that much dough (heh). i can, however, afford to buy firebrick (and decided to do so after being inspired by many helpful threads on this forum). so, after a trip down to my local brick and masonry supply, some scrubbing, rinsing, drying, placing, and praying (those buggers are heavy!), i have what you see below: now, assuming that those middle 'support' bricks and the rack do their jobs and keep the bottom of my oven from collapsing, crushing the element and making my apartment explode, and i can thus live long enough to use this thing, my question is: what's the best way to season firebrick so it can be used as a baking surface? i've searched the forums and heard references made to oiling and baking at various temps, but no specific technique has surfaced. what type of oil is best to use? does the whole brick need to be oiled, or just the top? how hot and for how long should i bake them? double thanks in advance. luck/practice willing, i can soon follow up this post with pictures of delicious pizzas, loaves, and other breads that i made in this thing.

don't know why, but somehow knowing it was venison made it far, far more appealing visually.

wow... great story and we've just barely begun to mention food... heh. can't wait to read the rest of it!

half avocado with garlic. especially great in the summer.

excellent story... and delicious sounding recipes... thank you!

as a kid, my father taught me to make Peanut Butter and mayo sandwiches... a PBM. about 5:1 ratio of PB to M. i still actually eat one from time to time. i can't believe that this hideous confession is my first post on the forum. talk about making people reconsider having me on...