The Fresh Loaf

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Habenero Pizza and another Rainy night in AZ

Doc Tracy's picture
Doc Tracy

Habenero Pizza and another Rainy night in AZ

Well, another rainy day in Arizona. I'm getting the tiniest bit of cabin fever. Having a rare treat, a glass of shiraz. Not a great wine but it sure tastes good. My husband ran to the store to get it while I was baking a pizza. Pouring down rain and wind. Even my doberman refuses to go take a potty!

I threw together a dough today and it turned out awfully wet. (maybe our humidity?) Anyway, it was a made up recipe and I threw in too much starter so I probably just miscalculated. I was feeding my white starter, being lazy and decided to make a 1-2-3 bread. But instead of being careful, I threw the rest of my starter in so it was probably a 2-2-3 bread. I decided to use a whole durum flour for 50% and white whole wheat for the other 50%, the starter fed on AP. (Have I mentioned I don't like white bread?)

So, I ended up with this gloppy, soft dough. It smelled so nice, but was really wet! I decided to use half for a pizza and put the other half in the oven. The half that I made into a bread was really flat, kind of strange looking but tasted oh, so sweet!

The pizza, one of my better pizzas! I used fennel seed in the sauce, with a lot of wine and canned tomatoes. (I now have decided I like fennel seed, after an unsure beginning) Had some dried porcini mushrooms in my spice box so I soaked those in water, threw the water in the sauce and the mushrooms on the pizza. Some black forest ham, onions, mozarella. And---a fresh habanero from the garden. Now, if you've never had a garden fresh habanero, you have no idea what flowery aroma and taste they can produce. In the winter ours are not that hot. (in comparision I guess) But the flavor they add is a miracle! They smell like flowers! Hot, spicy flowers! Mixed with fennels, wine, mushrooms and the flowery habaneros, this was a meal from above.

Maybe I just have cabin fever, LOL!!

No dessert tonight, maybe just a cup of hot mint tea. A movie with my wonderful husband, some reading and to bed. I've been reading the Julie/Julia project for my bedtime reading. What a wonderful blog. I highly recommend it. I can really relate in my RV situation right now.

Comments

OldWoodenSpoon's picture
OldWoodenSpoon

have me drooling!  Cut it out!

You have me wanting to plant a habanero in the garden this spring, too.  I never would have thought to put it on pizza though.  I would have expected too much heat.  Thank you for the creative inspiration.  And with those toppings you had to have a delicous pizza.  You could have put it on cardboard and had a delicous pizza.  Aren't you glad you didn't, though?

It's funny how those loaves that look so strange can taste so good, isn't it?

Stay dry and safe out there in all that wet. 

OldWoodenSpoon

margieluvschaz's picture
margieluvschaz

Your pizza sounds great. I'm making a pizza tonight- will have to try it!

 I love habaneros.  Have you ever made an jellies with habaneros?  I made a raspberry habanero jelly that is really nice.  We use it on chicken or pork-

Margie

 

Doc Tracy's picture
Doc Tracy

I haven't tried a rasberry habanero jelly. Our plants didn't start producing well until the fall so we didn't get a huge quantity. I have a jar of west indies sauce in the fridge but haven't been able to figure out what to use it on.

I have been meaning to try some sort of habanero jelly. With rasberries sound fabulous.

Yes, plant a habanero. We live in such a mild area ours overwintered with just a little extra help. They are up against the house which gives them some extra thermal warmth and few nights with hard freezes we have blanketed the peppers and other tender plants. Christmas lights on my tomatoes have worked well too and look very cute.

I'll be blanketing everything that has exposure tonight. I think the peppers will be safe but my herb garden is away from the house and all my tomato seedlings need extra protection. It will get down to about 32 and possibly a light freeze.

Habaneros are great on pizza! Just use a light hand and deseed/devein them so that you can enjoy the flavor without too much heat!