🍕 Pizza Making Gear

in ,

For many years I’ve wished to learn to make my own Pizza. I have many friends who do so successfully and that inspired me to get going! Now we make pizza every Saturday night at our house.

To hopefully inspire you - I have never made any kind of dough in my life. I was starting from total scratch. I’ve experimented with many different techniques and gadgets and have settled on a repeatable path that I like.

You don’t need much to make pizza from scratch. When I started I made Pizza in our Jenn Air oven with a Baking Steel. While it did not produce a true neapolitan pizza, it made something I like to eat! From there I have shifted my pizza making to cook in an outdoor pizza oven.

Read More

How I make Coffee - 2021

in , ,

The last time I wrote about How I make Coffee was 2015. Coffee is one of my favorite daily rituals and I am very particular about my equipment.

There are so many different ways to make coffee and there is only one way that I make it and that is using Pour Over. I have found that Pour-Over provides the most consistent brewing methodology (it’s just hot water and gravity) and really allows you to experience the different tastes in coffee beans. I weigh the beans and water so the coffee tastes the same each time.

I use three techniques for brewing coffee using pour-over. Two are “at home” and one “travel”.

Read More

Joseph Joseph TriScale Compact Folding Digital Scale

in ,

As I write this on Vashon Island I am enjoying a great cup of coffee. If you have read my post on how I make coffee, you'll know that I like pour over and when traveling will take a Hario V60 cone withs some paper filters. On this trip I brought a Chemex 6 cup pour over to satisfy the coffee needs of 3 people. I greatly prefer pour over than french press for producting a cleaner, less gritty cup with easier clean up (just toss the filter and grounds into the compost or trash).

The key part of any pour over system is a digital scale. This is because a pour over uses very simple weight measurements to dose the right amount of coffee and water.

The math is very simple. 55g of coffee for every 1000g of water (or 1000ml of water since water volume and weight in metric is the same).

So for 3 cups of coffee, I will use 50g of coffee and 900ml of water in the Chemex 6-cup, or half of that if I just want one large cup for me.

Recenly I purchased a great little travel scale, the Joseph Joseph TriScale.

Read More

Zojirushi Coffee Mug - 5 stars

in ,

I’m always on the hunt for a great coffee mug. Recently The Sweet Home published their research on travel mugs. For at home we drink coffee in Bodum Bistro Double Wall 10oz mugs  We really love those as they keep coffee warm for in home sipping. The only problem with them is we break 1 every 6 or so months.

I’ve been looking for a great travel mug so that I can take coffee to work with me. I had no idea that these new vacuum sealed mugs can keep coffee hot for up to 8 hours. That means I can make a pot of coffee for myself (600ml of coffee, one cup to drink at home, and one to drink on the way to work or during my first morning meeting). My home brew coffee now is quite incredible so why not have those benefits go with me to the office?

My challenge with mugs is that I’ve always been looking for something small. My colleague, Chris Jones, has this Vessel 8oz mug I’ve been admiring for a while now (matte black even) but 8oz while perfect for a short latte, is not enough for a cup of joe.

That’s when I saw the 10oz Zojirushi SM-SA36-BA Stainless Steel Mug.

It comes in 4 colors and 3 sizes.

Color

10oz

16oz

20oz

Black

SM-SA36-BA

SM-SA48-BA

SM-SA60-BA

Gold

SM-SA36-NM

SM-SA48-NM

Red

SM-SA36-RW

SM-SA48-RW

SM-SA60-RW

Pink

SM-SA36-PB

SM-SA48-PB

I absolutely love this mug. And so to Amazon buyers

The cap is dish washer safe and it’s easy to take apart it’s 4 pieces to clean. The body needs to be hand washed.

I make my coffee, which is around 200 degrees and about an hour after I place it in the mug, it’s still too hot to drink so I actually let it cool down a bit in the morning.

The mug is spill proof and small so I can place it in my bag without any risk of it leaking.

★★★★★ Exceptional. A spectacular product.

Epicurean Utensils

in ,

I've been a big fan of Epicurean products for a long time. You probably know them for their thin dishwasher safe cutting boards. They make their products from wood fibers and resin. We've had our oldest cutting board from Epicurean for almost 10 years and it still looks brand new. A few years ago they started making many more products from this same material. One in particular that I really love are their utensils for cooking. This post is about that.

What is it?

Kitchen utensils... probably not something you've thought much about. You probably have your standard wood spoons for cooking, or maybe some plastic / metal ones. Wood spoons are great because they are safe on your non stick cookware, but over time they get old and crack and they hold on to food smell.

51xRFDC0e5L._SL1500_

Enter Epicurean utensils. They are made from the same awesome material as their cutting boards and don't get hot, can be thrown in the dishwasher and safe for all kinds of cookware. You can just leave them in a pot while you are cooking without worrying about melting or burning. They are also very light and easy to work with.

Why did you get it?

A few years ago all our wood spoons started to break / crack from being put in the dishwasher so often. So I got rid of them all and ordered a set of utensils. I own:

They have many more products as well including silicon utensils. See here for a complete catalog of products.

How has it made your life better?

Good, high quality products are things I appreciate and value. Epicurean products are simply excellent and I own many. I recommend you try them out.

Are you going to keep it?

Yep, see no reason to replace them. They are wonderful.