12-Hour Rise! Making My Own Pizza Dough, Making My Own Pasta.
February 5, 2021
by drplasticpicker
Slowly but surely I’m getting to the 24 hour pizza dough rise. The original recipe was the bobbie flay recipe, but I’ve done it so often now and added my own variations that I feel like it’s my own. Plus I use it as a food waste recipe to use the last remaining bits of flour. Today was 4 cups of flour (2 cups of bread flour, 1 cup of wheat flour and 1 cup of all purpose flour), 2 teaspoons of salt, 1 package of yeast, 1 teaspoon of sugar, and sprinkled rosemary AND thyme (the thyme is new). The sensory experience of kneading the warm dough in the relativeness darkness of the kitchen is very relaxing. It’s set on the kitchen counter covered near the cookbook area, covered with the pretty green beeswax wraps.
I have a full day of clinic today, and I may or may not have to show up at our Girl Scout meeting. Girl Sccouts is a whole other blog topic. But yesterday I wasn’t that helpful after clinic because I was tired still from the emotional elation of the UCSD Family Practice Grand Rounds entitled “Creativity, Wellness and Climate Activism.” I stopped by to thank Dr. AF for his honest and powerful presentation. But I’ve learned to self-care in a fundamental way. So last night I was napping on and off late afternoon, and then our tween daughter wanted me to toss the ball to her while she practiced volleyball. I was feeling tired initially but it was something important to her. So I self-elevated my mid-40s body off the couch, and threw her the volleyball again and again and helped her practice setting and spiking. I’m amazed that she likes volleyball, personally I’m scared of a ball hitting me. I think it’s because I wear glasses.
But it was a beautiful moment yesterday afternoon, and one I may not have been able to be fully present for if I hadn not become Dr. Plastic Picker. I’ve learned how time and the mind works, and when you slow down your mind you literally slow down time. The world works better when we go by nature time. Not rushed. Not face-book time. Not Instagram time, but Nature-time.
And nature needs time to create it’s wondefulness, just like the 12-hour pizza dough. The 8-hour rise was superior to the 1-hour rise. The 12-hour rise I expect will be great especially topped with beet greens and radishes that are ready to harvest from my little container garden. Really the beet greens being ready to eat, and me wanting to finish using the last bits of bread flour and wheat flour were the big motivation for making the pizza dough this morning. It’s amazing that I did it and it averts all this food waste, but then I’ll also save essentially $50 from not ordering out food on Friday night. And then we’ll also continue to eat more of a sustainable and plant-based diet. It’s amazing how it all works out. I don’t really care or monitor my weight like I used to in the past, but my body is naturally coming to a healthful weight and my previous clothes are fitting better. I’m just full after eating dinner because it’s usually has more vegetables. And then at night, I’ll have a cup of tea and have some little sweet thing with it. And that is it.
The key for our family in eating carbohydrates, is do eat home-made and fiber filled. The refined carbohydrates at the grocery stores and with take-out are really insulin-spiking and the cause of a lot of the health-problems in our country. Also personally I’ve found making my own starches allows us portion control and to make sure there is more fiber in it and also personalize it with our spice preferences.
I have a hand-me-down pasta maker, but I guess hand-making pasta isn’t that hard either. I’ll try the pasta maker again, but it was a bear to clean. I think I may enjoy the sensory experience of hand-making pasta. What has worked in our family is that I make the dough, and then our tween daughter likes rolling things out as long as I make the dough. It relaxes her quite a bit.
Yesterday’s whole wheat pasta was a success, as each serving had 6 grams of fiber! It was on the denser side though. One of my instagram litter-picking friends @cleanwhereyouwalk recommended 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour, 1 1/2 cups of whole wheat flour, 5 eggs, 1 tsp salt and 1 tablespoon of olive oil. That seems like a lot of eggs for pasta, but I’m willing to try it. I’m putting this on the blog so I can refer to it again when i make pasta next. Did you know that a fancy pasta place will charge $25 a plate for “hand-made” pasta? And Avocado Toast is $13!!! That is crazy.
Well, that is it! I’ve decided what I’m going to make with the kholrabi! I’m going to try to make my first egg-roll filling tonight. Or maybe as a filling for hand-made ravioli? I’ve decided to take the weekend off completely. I’m actually off OFF. I’m exhausted. This morning I feel very well, since I did about 10 minutes of yoga last night and slept with the Ocean Waves Dark Screen YouTube Video again. Good sleep is so important.
Well, I hope this post finds you well and with your own weird root vegetable to be creative with. This is ours and we have to do something fun with it for our Instagram friends! LOL Or not, it’s all for fun anyway. Oh yes, and also because we are trying to save the earth by eating great food.