tekobo

It sounds like we are going to have a similar voyage of discovery here, apart from the scud launcher pizza wheel! I'll get the stone hotter and dome cooler next time and I too agree that it is nice to have some distinct cheese blobs as opposed to melting it all in from the start. For the four cheese pizza I put the hard cheeses down first and added the soft cheeses in the last minute or so. No photos coz the burnt bits were too ugly. See you when you do your next monthly!

Me too Bruce! I got three of the recommended flavours and threw in a Tsunami Spin because I liked the description. Keen to know what you think of The Works as you explore your latest haul. I might end up buying some more if I am as impressed as they all say we will be.

Of that, you can be sure. It's a really lovely looking KK. I bet you've been out to stroke it a few times.

Similar challenge here. The Husband has declared it a "moving parts puzzle". Next date night will involve agreeing what has to go where or go altogether.

Thanks @tony b. And @Aussie Ora. Four packs will be with me very soon for a modest sum. Laying in supplies in time for traditional English BBQ weather, when it finally turns up!

Awww Tony, what have you gone and done? I generally manage to save on rubs by making them up myself or winning a bet or two. This message from you and everyone else's talk about Dizzy Pig finally pushed me over the edge. Amazon stocks individual sampler packs here but better still is this website where they appear to be having a mega sale on the full size packs https://www.riversidegardencentre.co.uk/catalogsearch/result/?q=dizzy+pig. What do you think? Which would you recommend if I was to constrain myself to just two or three or four?

Yeah, I know @Bruce Pearson, it sounds weird when you say "smoked rice" but I promise you, it is good. The main thing about the recipe is that it is adaptable and you could add Creole spices or even @Tyrus' foreign (to a Nigerian) Bebere spice. I am sure many Nigerians would want to extend the list of ingredients with their favourite additions. The worst sin is for your food to be declared "neither sweet nor hot", or "ko dun, ko ta" in my language, forever damning you to the land of the bland. @Stile88, it is a little alarming when your beautiful pots go all grey in your cooker but I knew that film would wash off. They are now clean and waiting for me to find somewhere to store them! The husband had some this afternoon. He covered a small pot of the rice in pepperonata, broke an egg on top and baked it in the oven. He said he enjoyed it and didn't think it was too spicy. And finally, @amusedtodeath, thanks for the compliments. The "maze looking thingy" is a cheapo cold smoker from amazon. You light it with the candle that comes with it and the whole thing can go on smoking for up to 10 hours. I've never needed it for that long so I stop the fire by jamming in a piece of crunched up foil and save the box for another day. A bit messy to store but nice and easy to use. I didn't get the cold smoker from Dennis when I ordered my KKs and then promptly discovered I needed one for lots of things I like to do, hence this solution. Oh yes, and to answer your other question, I bought bags of different smoking dusts and refill when I have burned a maze's worth.

That is helpful to know. What sort of time do you leave your pizzas on the stone for? I had stone temp at 450F and dome temp at 700F by the time I got to the second pizza. The top got way too crispy by the time I had left it in for six minutes and I still had the softer cheeses to add. I like thin crust pizzas so I reckon I need to cut the time if I don't want crunchy crust pizzas. Pleased to be of help. I hadn't made dough of any sort for quite a few years and was a bit apprehensive yesterday. The Ken Forkish Enzo recipe worked out just fine as did his You Tube video of how to shape the pizza. Thanks for your tips @MacKenzie. Still looking to worship at @ckreef's expert altar, particularly if he has any new tips. No rush though, I am now committed to making pizza at least every fortnight now I know how good it is.

It has taken me a while to get around to trying out a Nigerian/West African recipe in the KK. The arrival of my La Chamba pots encouraged me to try this rice dish in the KK while it was heat soaking for pizza. Ingredients (approx - it is different everytime) 2 cups of long grain rice 14oz can of plum tomatoes 4 scotch bonnet peppers, seeds and all (too hot, even for me, will dial back next time) 1 red capsicum pepper 1 red onion 3 teaspoons of Carribean curry powder salt, pepper Some vegetable oil A slug of chicken stock Method Parboiled the rice in IDK for about 10 minutes so the grains still had a bit of bite to them. Made up the tomato sauce by blending all the other ingredients up to but not including the vegetable oil. Heated the oil in the pan and added the tomato blend. Cooked for about 15 minutes or so. Mixed the rice in with the tomato sauce. Added in a bit of chicken stock. The stock probably wasn't needed as the rice came out a bit softer than usual. Here is the pot in the KK after about 30 minutes. And now for the "party" bit of the recipe. I didn't know this until I started researching recipes but, because food at big parties is cooked by caterers over wood fires, the smoky taste of Jollof rice at parties is distinct from that which you cook at home. I asked my mother about this yesterday and she said yes, she had a friend who would always go to any party that was on just because she loved the taste of smoky Jollof rice. My mum then lamented the fact that caterers generally use gas cookers now and so that taste is not so common. Well, I got to reproduce it last night by putting the cooked rice into my other KK with the cold smoker for about 40 minutes. Yippee, it tasted just like it should.

Finally did our first pizza cook yesterday. A plain margarita. We both loved it. Didn't love, quite as much, the follow on four cheese pizza that I managed to burn but hey, that is part of learning! Happily there is one ball of dough left over and I can try again tonight. Made it on the 21" and the pizza size was just fine for us. Grateful for critical feedback if there is something I should have done differently. I heat soaked the KK for an hour to 550F then put the stone in. Waited for the stone to reach about 450F and then put the first pizza on. Could I have just put the stone in from the start?

Close, @tony b. I picked up some cheap pig cheeks at the supermarket. Normally I would use them in a bourguignon recipe but yesterday I made up the Le Pigeon recipe for pork cheeks with ouzo and feta. This is the first stage, waiting to go in the KK in the La Chamba saute pan. It went in after my pizza cook and cooked overnight in the residual heat. Will form part of a future meal so you'll have to wait for the verdict on the taste. I did use the olives and Pernod in the end.

Great news Bonfire! The colour is great and I really like your side tables. The anticipation builds...

Yeah, it's funny how it takes so many of us so long to acclimatise to the idea of spending that much money on a cooker and then when you do finally take the leap you wonder what took you so long! Welcome.

That's a lot of pressure Bruce, picking something that is worthy of your dad's pot. I have two things in mind. The first calls for ouzo and olives. I don't actually like either. The Husband has suggested substituting Pernod. I don't much like Pernod either. Happily, I have found a substitute online that I do like the sound of - vodka and anise seed. Less overpowering that the other two. Trying to force myself away from my go to French standard so will see if this adapted Greek recipe works.

Cheeky! I have plans I'll have you know. Just need to read the instructions for the pots. Don't want to break one on the very first cook!

The Husband was not impressed when I told him that the largest pot didn't fit in the KK. "What? You didn't measure it before ordering?". Then he asked, "Are you sure it doesn't fit?". I mumbled something about the website saying the dimensions were approximate but had to admit that I hadn't checked beforehand. I wasn't offended by his challenge - we are both engineers and tend to question and push back rather than just accept what the other says in order to have an easy life. Anyway, I am glad that he was unimpressed by the fact that I had bought a pot for the KK that didn't actually fit the KK. This morning I went out and tried the RS15 out on the lower grate in the 23". Guess what? It fits! Hurrah! As you can see we have rain and not much sun today. You can't have everything.

Absolutely! @MacKenzie put me on to him and I took The Elements of Pizza with me in the car earlier today to check on my options. It was then that I realised I really didn't have the time to make pizza today, even using his same day recipe. Still keen to try and will set myself up to have pizza for supper tomorrow, no matter how late it gets...

Great, thanks. I worked out that "pizza" and "tonight" are not compatible unless I was ordering a take out.

We just watched a netflix documentary about pizza and have declared tonight pizza night. I know you are the expert @ckreef but I am not sure where to find the definitive recipes. Did a search and saw that you had tried four different doughs but need to keep searching for the definitive tutorial. Grateful if you could post a link just in case I can't find it...

Cool! Looking forward to seeing your WFO cooks.

Ha ha Bruce . Nope. I need to focus on the basics here like making some space for storage and tables and getting some power out to the KKs so that I can try out the rotisserie. Your comment made me wonder what I would do if I had infinite resources though. With the type of space and land that you have in the US I might go for a 42" specially for parties. Having said that, I owe The Husband an Argentinian grill. And I have a konro grill on the way for those small hot Japanese bites. So many choices. Happily they are mostly too expensive in space and money to worry about. Having so much fun trying out new stuff in my current KKs. Yippee Paul! Looking forward to your choice process and, most importantly, finding out what colour you choose! Congratulations on your choice Tom. And good luck with the wife. We are right behind you!

Hi @Paul. You type @ and then start to type the person's name and a menu comes up with everyone whose name starts with that series of letters. You just pick the person off the list. The reason I do it is that I think it alerts them to the fact that you have referred to them. Do you get a notification (or two) when I say @Paul, @Paul?

Thanks @ckreef and @KismetKamado. I too adore ceramics and am so very happy to have these. A potter friend introduced me to donabe pots by way of a gorgeous cookbook called, very originally, Donabe. They too are gorgeous and the book helped me understand why @Jon B. is so happy with his. These La Chamba pots were my 50th birthday present to myself. In 10 months and x days time I hope to have found enough excuses to buy myself a donabe for my 51st!

Tom, i am so pleased that you are getting more expert advice from others! I hope it helps with your decision. Everyone, for my part, when I was making my long and drawn out buying decision it would have been good to see how much you could cook on each level of the different KKs that are available. There are pictures dotted around the place, and I remember that @Paul kindly posted a picture of his 16" fully laden, but it would be great if these could be assembled in one place. Who to ask to set up a pinned page so that we can each post pictures of big cooks to help people visualise what is possible with each KK? Completely randomly and out of the blue, I have just developed a crush on the 22" table top. No one talks about it but it is beautiful in its own sweet way.

Hey, Serena is bred to look like an Ocelot/leopard but she is actually a Bengal. We have four of them and they definitely "get in your business" which is what a breeder told us before we foolishly(?) moved from owning old fluffy cats to owning young mad cats. And yes, I do cook for the navy. The Husband is an ex naval officer and we live in a navy town @tony b here funny to watch but deadly for the insects. Good thing for birds is that they have learned to stay out of our garden. Sad for us although we can watch them over the wall in other people's gardens. Great side benefit is that we can grow and ripen really tasty berries and they don't get eaten before we get to them.