Irv oven

 

I'm getting better and better at using the small oven in Irv.  Its tricky for several reasons...1) it's smaller in every dimension compared to a 'normal' oven, so standard cookie sheets won't fit, and you're always cooking closer to the flame than in other ovens. 2) The burner is pretty much in the middle of the oven, making the oven even smaller.  It's propane so the flames fire up underneath a metal tray (fixed in place), above that is one adjustable shelf.  To bake, you put food above the flame on the adjustable shelf.  To broil, you set your item on the floor of the oven, with the open flame above.  3) I think cooking closer to the flame has resulted in darker bottoms on my pizza, which is generally good, but the top isn't done yet when the crust is perfectly done.  I've fixed this by first baking a pizza in the top half of the oven until the bottom of the crust is done, then moving it to the broiler!  It works pretty well but it's a bit more hands on than I'm used to since it has to be watched pretty closely.  In addition there's no light in the oven, so we keep a flashlight handy to check food.

The biggest challenge is the size of the oven, and the small amount of space above the flame.  Our big stock pot barely fits inside, but only without the lid, so I can't braise anything (and I have lots of recipes that call for a stint in the oven).  I worry that trying to bake bread will be hard because it may burn on the bottom before it's baked all the way through.  In addition because it's so small, there's not a lot of room for bread or cakes to rise, especially if you want to bake it on a higher shelf to avoid burning the bottom.  Maybe I'll have to stick to smaller, flatter breads and cupcakes/muffins.  I'm hoping to make some this weekend...

I made what I called "stinky pizza" for dinner last night - a sort of thin-crusted mash-up of miscellaneous ingredients that I wanted to get out of the fridge.  It had a raw garlic,crushed red pepper and olive oil 'sauce' for the crust, wilted fresh spinach, green olives, (very pungent) yellow onions, blue cheese, and mozzarella cheese.  It was really good.