Pizza Time!

June 22, 2009--I know, I know. It has been a long time since my last blog. If you only knew how long it takes to upload the pictures you would be much more understanding! We are in Siena right now and our hotel offers Wi-Fi and it is sooooooooooooo much faster than our connection at home that I am taking advantage of it.

As I mentioned in the last blog we finally were able to make pizza in our oven! Sadly, it is also the last time we made pizza in our oven!! It is a lot of work and a lot of fun, but it really isn't something you do for just a few people. You need lots of wood and lots of time.

Primo came over about 2:30 in the afternoon to teach me how to make the pizza dough. He has the dough down to a science. Do you know that if you are making pizzas in the winter you use more yeast and more salt than in the summer? Or maybe it's the other way around! Oh well, I have the recipe at home!



















At around 4:30 Larry started a fire in the oven.

















Primo came back over to help supervise the fire!

















Primo also showed us how to weigh out the dough in order to make equal size balls so the pizzas will come out about the same.

















Paolo joined the fun and showed me how to make the sauce, roll out the dough, and finish the pizzas.

















Using canned tomatoes Paolo uses a wooden spoon to get all of the juice out, but without pushing through the tomatoes.
















Here Paolo is showing me how to use your hands to spread the dough flat and round.















It doesn't take much sauce and you don't spread it all the way to the edges.
















I didn't do much up until now, but I did cube the cheese!















Paolo adds a few pieces of raw sausage to the pizza.
















This seems like it should be easy, but you need to push and pull to get the pizza on the paddle and not over the edge of the table!

















The first pizza is in the oven!
















Larry learns how to pick up the pizza and put it on the pizza paddle while Primo is ready to open the door!




















I'm trying my hand at spreading the pizza dough with my hands. Paolo had a hard time keeping his hands to himself when I couldn't manage to stretch it enough.





















Here we are enjoying the pizza together.















Everyone is busy eating!


















We had a great time together. Primo, Paolo, and Carlo brought everything! They brought wood for the fire; the recipe and ingredients for making the dough; all of the toppings for the pizza; and the wine to drink! We provided the pizza oven, plates, and soda for the boys! It was a wonderful experience and we hope that we will now be able to do it on our own!

BTW, I finished this blog in London, but two of the pictures looked funny so I needed to delete them and upload them again! Those 2 pictures took more than 35 minutes!