A Bag of Flour

Have you ever purchased an ingredient with the best intentions of using it right away, only to lose it in the back of a cupboard, the refrigerator or the far recesses of the pantry?  This happens to me quite often, I ashamed to admit. 

Last week I discovered this bag of flour I purchased at Di Gregorio's Market in St. Louis. 

Although I wasn't worried about the flour "going bad", its best used by date was long gone.  So now I'm on a quest to use this entire 5 kg (11 lb) bag of flour. 

As quickly as I can. 

Last weekend I made homemade pizza using a no-knead crust recipe from King Arthur Flour and a sauce recipe from Tyler Florence.  (I didn't have any majoram on hand, so I substituted an equal amount of dried thyme.  I also added a pinch of ground chile.)  Overall I was pretty happy with that one, but the crust was a little more "bready" than I would have liked.  No photos of this one; they all looked fuzzy since the hot from the oven pizza steamed my camera lense.

A mere six days later, I was trying another pizza recipe.  I wasn't worried about Tug being tired of pizza since I think he could eat pizza on a daily basis.  This time I used a different crust recipe to make a thin crust.  Had I followed the directions, I think I'd like this crust better.  Instead of making two pizzas, I chose to make one larger pizza and apparently didn't spread the dough thinly enough.  I'll definitely try it again and either roll the crust thinner or make two pizzas.

Before the next pizza attempt, or perhaps in between attempts, I'm going to take a stab at some different breads. 

This afternoon I started the biga (a pre-ferment) which has to sit at least 18 hours before I can use it to make focaccia.  Then I'm going to try my hand at ciabatta again.  My previous attempts at ciabatta haven't exactly met my expectations. 


And I'm thinking of making some more panettone, even though it's not Christmas Eve I think it will still taste as good.