Baguettes

Greg's most popular bread has got to be his baguettes. Since we're heading tomorrow morning to Studio C at Cities97 for a live taping of Foodie Thursday Greg made a batch of baguettes tonight so we can bring some for sharing.

You did good, Greg!

Taste Testers

Greg's batches of bread are never small and since there are only three of us in our family I've been bringing quite a bit of bread in to work for my coworkers to sample. "Bread Days" at work have become very popular and I'm not sure much, if any, of the bread I bring in even makes it out of the building at the end of the day. I want to say a huge thank you to all of my coworkers who graciously sample Greg's breads and provide invaluable feedback. You've made Oscar's Best Artisan Breads the amazing breads they are today!!

As Julia Child would say: bon appétit!!!

Pizza Party

After getting a few months of practice under his belt, Greg (and "Oscar") were ready for a pizza party with friends and family. Greg made a batch of pizza dough from his sour dough starter, Oscar and set up a pizza making table in the garage. Each person shaped their own crust (Holly earned style points here)...

and top it with their favorite toppings.

I have to say that our foodie friends and family really wowed us with their variety in topping combinations!

The finished pizzas were handed off to Greg where he fired one a time for about 2 minutes in the oven.




The pizzas need constant turning to keep from burning the edge of the crust closest to the heat source.

The meant Greg was in front of the oven for the majority of the evening, but I don't think he would have had it any other way.

After cutting the finished pizzas they were handed off to their creator.

Jim looks pretty happy with the finished results!

As does Holly.

This was my creation. Loved the homemade pesto as a sauce option.

Let's eat pizza!

Practice, practice, practice

Even in February, Greg was really getting some use out of his bread oven. While it was a bit too cold to fire it up every weekend he made sure his oven and "Oscar" weren't feeling neglected. Check out how cool his loaves were looking four months into this. (Photos from February, 2009)

In addition to bread, Greg had added pizzas and calzones to the mix. Yum!

The Building of the Bread Oven

Greg had never baked a loaf of bread in his life and yet he had a dream; he wanted to build a bread oven. So he joined a bread oven message board and started reading bread baking books. Then during the summer of 2008 he poured a concrete slab and started building.

With the oven finally finished, he loaded it with wood from our yard and started the first fire. When the oven was hot, the ashes were scrapped out and the first bread, Pita Bread for Andrea, was put in. Here's the happy baker checking on his work.

And here is the Pita Bread in the bread oven. Greg made three loaves of bread in addition to the Pita Bread. Pretty ambitious for a first run but it was all so very good with dinner that night!!

When Greg built the oven in 2008 he made a decision to use a sour dough starter for his bread. He created his own starter and named it "Oscar" and every bread product that has gone into the oven has been created using "Oscar."