Yesterday was a big day. As you saw in the previous post, Kim and I have been working hard to get everything just right for Sustainable House Day, which is fast approaching. But with all this work, one has to reap the rewards once in a while.
I spent some time in the afternoon making a door for the cob oven and cut it to size and popped on some handles. I used the two bits of ply that I cut for the door arch template, trimmed off about 1cm from the bottom, screwed them together and added some handles. The handles are just some shelving brackets that I screwed into the front of the door.
I lit the fire at about 5pm and kept it going until about 6.30pm. There were lots of hot coals that I pushed to the sides of the oven, and then put the door on for about 10 minutes to let the heat build up. Kim was busy in the kitchen making the pizzas and brought the first one out, which was a garlic pizza. Just a base drizzled with olive oil, crushed garlic, some Italian herbs and a little rock salt. It took just over 10 minutes to cook.
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| A big smile for the first pizza! |
It tasted delicious, (sorry for the dark picture).
This quick and easy pizza was brown on top and bottom, and was scoffed down in about 2 seconds flat. Luckily it was time for the main meal, so in went all the other pizzas.
These took a little longer, about 20 minutes and the door was on during the cooking time. These pizzas had a great smokey flavour and I don’t think I can remember the last time I really enjoyed a pizza or the company so much. It was a great evening, lots of food, wine and music. Many more like this one to come, me thinks.
Don’t you just love it when a plan comes together?
Oh yum.
I dare not mention yet another project (the oven you built) but oh boy this one would be a delicious one in the finish!
PS re your goals for 2011 on the side – ‘increase water storage’ – inspired by others we did just under 1000 litres for a fraction over $150 this weekend.
http://seemyfootprints.blogspot.com/2011/09/950l-water-tanks-for-50-fittings.html
I’m just imagining the taste of that pizza and have decided to show/tell DH just the same lol
Great stuff!
The cob oven looks fantastic Gavin and the pizzas YUM!
that pizza looks delicious – there was one disappointed dad here tonight when the local wood fired pizza place was closed.
Glad it was a success. If that door is wood on the inside it will need to be thoroughly soaked in water before using each time as it will begin to smoulder. It gets hot in there.
Those pizza’s sure look good Gavin! Glad your new oven worked a treat…
@ Misty. Cheers, I can still taste them now. Especially the garlic one, as I stank very bad the next day of garlic breath!
@ Kristy. Bravo on the cheap water tanks! I am impressed at your ingenuity with the barrels and the interconnection.
@ Kristy #2. He could make his own oven?
@ Soewnearth. I might take your advice, as it is getting a little brown on the oven side, and there wasn’t even any flames.
@ Tania. They were great. Kim is a good pizza maker!