First Pizza in the Wood Fired Oven

Well, there could be only one thing more exciting than the previous post...the first meal in the oven!!  So, here it is...
Late afternoon Matthew fired up the oven as the sun set over the hills of Nana Glen.  I know, it sounds a little cliche, but it was really the perfect setting.  We turned on the fairy lights as we stood under the gazebo watching the thermometer steadily climb to 350oC.  Time for me to go inside and get the bases and toppings ready.  I had been down to Coffs Catering earlier in the day and bought our first 4 pizza trays.  2 big ones for the grown ups and 2 small ones for the girls.  We like to have everyone make their own as we all like different toppings, and I think it is important to involve the kids in preparing their own food.  They tend to eat better if they have ownership of the meal, and it teaches them about nutrition also.
I squished (my technical term) out all the bases on the tray, using my regular recipe for pizza dough and chopped all the ingredients to put on top then everyone came inside and made their pizzas.  The four of us marched outside in procession, all with our trays in our hands to the oven and one by one, passed them to Matthew who put them into the oven.  Within minutes it smelled wonderful!  I don't know what it is, but there is definately something special about food cooked by wood rather than electricity or gas.  That wonderful earthy aroma and taste...mmmm...I'm starting to drool just recollecting!  Before we knew it, the peel was back in the oven and the pizzas were ready.  Nothing left to do but sit and eat.  We were so excited about tucking in, I forgot all about photos and just managed one quick snap of Matthew's plate - sorry bout the lack of composition in the pic but we were dying to tuck in!  And the result?  Delicious!  So good in fact, we are going back for round two tonight.  For a bit of variety though, we are going to have Turkish Pide instead of Pizza.  Hey, why restrict ourselves!

Bring on dinner time!