Wednesday, December 17, 2008

KitchenAide Mixes It Up

Christmas came a little early for me, this year, in the form of a brand new KitchenAide. Oh yeah.

I was first introduced to the KitchenAide by Chef Peter when we co-taught a cooking class, a couple of years ago. One of his first recommendations was to make it our main kitchen appliance.

We used it mix dough for pizza and pasta. We were able to make cookies and cakes. We even used one of the attachments to make sausage. This did it all, except clean itself.

Over the years, I've made lots of pizza dough. I make the dough by hand, because I like the feel of mixing my own pizza dough. When you have a limited amount of time to teach a class, however, you need to save some steps.

When I used the Kitchenaide to make dough, the whole process went much faster.

After a short while, I became convinced. Chef Peter, was right. It became our most valued appliance. The students loved using it. It was easy to operate, and easy to clean.

We really noticed a difference when we used it to make pasta dough. Pasta dough can be quite stiff and difficult to work with. Really difficult to work with. With the Kitchenaide, we were able to make pasta easily.

Now, I have one in my own kitchen.

As I took it out of the box, I felt a little intimidated. It is big and heavy. I wondered if it was maybe a little bit to much. You know: kitchen appliance over-kill.

Our first project, was making a batch of Christmas cookies. I always get roped into making the cookie dough. Last year, and in past years, I battled an ancient electric hand mixer to try to make the dough. Clean up was stressful and difficult.

Guess who cleans up?

What a difference a year makes. My new KitchenAide handled the task with ease.

Best of all: clean up was a snap.

Of course, I wonder how I was able to get along without it. It's a great appliance, that I applaud.

So if you want to give a great gift, give a KitchenAide.

I'll be sharing more of my KitchenAide adventures, right, here.

Stay tuned.




pizza and KitchenAide in your kitchen,

albert grande
Make Pizza, At Pizza Therapy

And now in Beta Testing, check out:

My Pizza Face:
The My Space and Face Book of Pizza

Monday, December 15, 2008

Hand Stretching Pizza Dough

I found this video very helpful for anyone learning to work with pizza dough.
Note that the pizzaiolo is very gentle but firm with his dough.

You really need to get a feel for the dough as you work it. I like the trick he uss to fix a hole in the dough.

I think he makes some wonderful points. But most importantly he works the dough as he stretches and shapes it.

Right on.



If you want to make pizza, you need to learn as much as possible. This is a great pizza resource from my friends Tony Gemignani and Diane Morgan:



pizza on earth, good will to all!

albert grande
Pizza Therapy
Legends of Pizza

And now in Beta Testing,
A Pizza Community:
My Pizza Face Dot Com