I learned something new tonight. Did you know a pizza can catch fire? 😮

The curing process for the new wood-fired oven was pretty tedious. Especially for someone like Victor who’s ready to jump in and play with his new toy. Keeping the temperature low is no fun. Lots of monitoring the temp, adjusting to make sure it doesn’t get too hot too fast. Luckily, he had company with the pups. And several neighbors stopped by to check on the progress and keep him company as well.

FINALLY! Tonight he got to take it for a test spin, cranking it up to 900 or so degrees.

Tomorrow night, to celebrate our upcoming trip to Italy and break in the wood-fired oven, we’re planning to fire it up for our weekly potluck. With tonight’s test run, we learned a few things we’ll do differently next time around. But we suspect that it will take a few attempts to get it right. The pizza was half and half: pesto and a homemade red sauce, with caramelized onions, mushrooms, and mozzarella on all. It got a little toasty and even caught fire for a second! Exciting! But was pretty tasty nonetheless.

However, the pizza dough from Toscano & Sons was fabulous! Puffed up and was tender, crunchy and chewy as it should be. Let’s see if we can improve upon it for tomorrow night!