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Wood Stone Staff Picnic 2011

Thursday, August 25th, 2011

Let it be known: Wood Stone knows how to throw a great party! This year’s staff picnic was no exception. A “fiesta” theme greeted employees as they entered the Birch Bay State Park location on a (somewhat rare for 2011) gorgeous Saturday afternoon. Tables were brimming with themed t-shirts, sombreros, cactus drink coolers and even chili pepper jewelry! Of course the food was phenomenal…and the games? Not sure what was more fun – watching the kids destroy the gigantic piñata, the team relays or the Hot Tamale eating contest (between our new presidents!).

Thanks to all (Jana Logan, et al) who helped organize another successful (and fun!) Wood Stone event!

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Our newly designed woodstonehome.com is officially live!

Thursday, August 4th, 2011

After months and months of blood, sweat and tears (ie. in a designer’s world: emails, photos and keen editing eyes) our newly designed woodstonehome.com is officially live! We have done our best to add in fresh, key elements missing from our previous residential site – from a fancy, interactive recipe section (yum!) to a page just for Industry professionals.  We will continue to work at adding new content and visuals over the coming months. We hope you take a moment to click through the site and please be sure to leave a comment below to tell us what you think… and don’t forget to tell your friends!

woodstonehome.com

woodstonehome.com

 

 

 

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Fun in the Test Kitchen

Tuesday, July 19th, 2011

Our new friend, Chris Hansen, stopped by the test kitchen to try out our ovens and bake some pies with Chef Frank for his new concept, Pizza Caldera in Jackson Hole, WY. A fellow marketing guy, he challenged us to actually get this posted (and populated to our social media spots) by the time he got back to his hotel room. Here’s hoping we won!

Check out the gorgeous Pizza with Figs, Procuitto and Mint Chris created in the Wood Stone Test Kitchen:

Chris Hansen & his Fig Pizza
 

 

 

 

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Recipe: Chocolate Gourmandize, the perfect Mother’s Day Dessert!

Monday, May 2nd, 2011

Serves 4

Looking for something special to serve your mom on her special day? Our Chocolate Gourmandize warm out of the oven will make any mother’s day!Chocolate Gourmandize A delicate chocolate cake with a decadent chocolate lava interior, we think Chocolate Gourmandize is divine with a fresh raspberry sauce and a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

Ingredients

  • 4 oz.  quality dark chocolate
  • 4 Tbsp. unsalted butter
  • 3 ea.  eggs
  • 1⁄4 cup  all-purpose flour, sifted
  • 2⁄3  cup  sugar

Method
Oven Temperature: 550-570 degrees

  1. In a small saucepan, melt the butter and chocolate just inside the door of the oven, being careful not to burn the butter.
  2. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs.  Mix in the flour and sugar with the eggs until the mixture is just blended enough to be fully incorporated.
  3. Slowly fold in the melted chocolate and butter into the flour mixture. Stir gently to mix.
  4. Pour approximately 4-oz. of the mixture into four 6-ounce oven-safe ceramic dishes, and place just inside the doorway, away from the flame.  Cook for approximately 8 minutes, or until the mixture begins to pull away from the container slightly around the edges but still has a little wiggle at the top.  If the mixture sets completely, it will be overdone.
  5. Remove the containers from the oven and allow the dessert to cool just slightly.  The dessert is extremely hot inside.
  6. Gently run a sharp knife around the edge of the bowls to loosen the mixture.  Turn the bowl over onto a serving plate. It should release easily.
  7. Garnish the dessert with raspberry sauce, ice cream, or whipped cream.

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Recipe: Margherita Pizza

Tuesday, March 29th, 2011

Makes 1 ea. 10-12-in.pizza
Named for Italy’s beloved Queen Margherita di Savoia, this tomato, basil, and mozzarella pizza was created in 1889 by pizzaioli Raffaele Esposito of Naples. With colors that commemorated the Italian flag, Margherita Pizza set the standard for pizza across the globe and successfully established Naples as the pizza capitol of the world. Here we share two versions of the Margherita pizza, Popular and Traditional….

 

Popular
Ingredients

  • 1 ea.10-oz. Wood Stone Dough ball
  • 2 oz. Wood Stone Pizza Sauce
  • 2 oz. fresh mozzarella (we suggest Grande brand), cut into 1/4-in. cubes
  • 4-5 ea. basil leaves, cut into chiffonade

Method
Oven Temperature: 570-600 degrees

  1. Flour both sides of the dough ball and gently open the ball by hand to the desired thickness. Generally a 10-oz. dough ball will make a 10-12-in. pizza.
  2. Ladle the sauce in the center of the pizza shell. Use the bottom of the ladle to spread the sauce outward in a spiral to within a 1⁄2-in. of the edge of the shell.
  3. Place the mozzarella pieces evenly over the pizza, up to within 1⁄4-in. of the shell’s edge.
  4. Transfer the pizza onto a large peel and land it in the raw landing zone of the oven. Once the pizza begins to color nicely on the side closest to the flame, rotate it 180-degrees and move it one pizza length closer to the flame, into the finishing zone.
  5. Once the side closest to the flame colors, and the top and bottom color of the pizza is balanced, remove the pizza from the oven using a large peel. Transfer the pizza to a cooling screen for about 1 minute and garnish with basil, then move it to a pizza board and slice into pieces. Total bake time will be about 4 minutes.

 

Traditional
For the recipe and full story about cooking a traditional margherita pizza, visit our ”Cooking Naples Style” page.

For more information on cooking with a Wood Stone oven, see these two important videos:

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Wood Stone at KOR Food Innovation

Tuesday, March 22nd, 2011
Grain Cake with Goat CheesePhoto by Rick Kidd Photography

Wood Stone was excited to have the opportunity to present and demo a number of products with a Mediterranean Cooking theme (ancient and modern) March 15th and 16th at KOR Food Innovation. The event was hosted by John Csukor and was attended by food service consultants, chefs, multi unit operators and equipment dealers.

Wood Stone and members from KOR Food Innovation were cooking on several pieces of our equipment; Mt. Adams 5′ stone hearth oven, 4 zone Countertop Plancha and the Josper by Wood Stone Charcoal Broiler Oven.

Stone Hearth Oven Menu

  • Shrimp Bisque pizza
  • Prosciutto and Basil wrapped shrimp
  • Oven roasted rack of lamb

Plancha Menu

  • Flat bread in Ghee with Skordailia
  • Charred Tomato on sourdough
  • Grain cake with Goat cheese

Josper Menu

  • Escalivade-Catalonian Grilled Eggplant, roasted red bell pepper
  • Mussels&Clams in EVO Nectar blend
  • New York strip

Interested in attending or hosting an event like this? Contact us today at Wood Stone. 800.988.8074.

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Posted in Events, In the News, Josper by Wood Stone, On the Road, Test Kitchen, What's Cooking at WS? | 2 Comments »

Cooking with Wood: Wisdom from a Wood Stone Chef

Monday, March 21st, 2011

By Ann Rudorf, Wood Stone Residential Chef

Wood Stone Residential Oven - Bistro 4343

If you build wood fires in your oven, (either wood-only or wood/gas combination) you’ve no doubt heard our adage “Burn only seasoned hardwoods with a moisture content of 15-20%.” Perhaps you’ve wondered, “Why do they stress this?  How does one determine moisture content? Does the species of wood really matter?” Here are some quick answers.

First of all, if the wood has a moisture content of over 20%, more of the BTUs are being used to “boil” the water out of the wood instead of going into heating the oven. Your goal of heating that stone hearth and dome is compromised and inefficient. Creosote build up is also an issue with wet wood. (20% moisture content wood produces twice the creosote of 15% moisture content wood.) It’s worth noting that wood with a moisture content of 10% or less will have lost much of its density, burning too quickly to leave sufficient coals. Use a Wood Moisture Meter to assure that fuel wood has the proper moisture content even before it is unloaded from the truck. (Note: Always measure moisture from the center of a freshly split piece of wood.)

We also stress using a good, heavy hardwood such as Oak, Apple or Hickory. You will get more heating BTUs out of a 4600 pound cord of Oak than a 2800 pound cord of Birch. Hardwoods also produce a better bed of long-lasting coals than lighter woods with a more balanced “coals to flame” ratio resulting in a better balance between floor and dome temperature for more successful cooking! Refer to our Wood Burning Oven Fuel Facts  for the weight per cord of wood found in your area.

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Thanksgiving at Wood Stone

Wednesday, November 24th, 2010

There is much to be thankful for this time of year, and at Wood Stone we figure there’s no better way to celebrate that fact then to provide a veritable feast for our 80+ employees! Here’s the skinny on how this whole thing got started from David Morgan, one of our Engineers:

“A long, long time ago (it was the late fall of 2002 to be exact) I thought, “I wonder what a turkey would taste like cooked in one of our wonderful ovens.” Yes it was a fairly self serving thought but hey… So I went to Chef Frank and volunteered to bring in a bird if he would cook it up. The idea was that we could share it around with the other employees at lunchtime. He suggested our mini feast would be best if it was the last day of work before the Thanksgiving Holiday. A few other folks found out and brought some side dishes and Voila! …it was the first Wood Stone Thanksgiving. The next year I brought another turkey and Wood Stone added one as well and the side dish contributions grew. The third year Wood Stone got 3 turkeys and Dan J. and I each made 15 lbs of mashed potatoes to go with the heavenly gravy and stuffing Chefs Frank and Tim were creating. Well, year by year, our Thanksgiving Lunch has grown until this year on the 24th of November Wood Stone will cooked 12 turkeys and mixed up over 60 lbs of fluffy, mashed, garlic potatoes. The chefs did multiple HUGE pans of their world class stuffing and enough ‘secret recipe’ gravy to float a boat and Oh! did I mention the mountains of Green Bean casseroles, Squash, Yams, Corn, salads, cranberry sauce, pickles? For those with room there were also tables of pies, cheesecakes cookies and other amazing treats!!! Oh!…the humanity!!!! :) Thank you Wood Stone for a wonderful time of sharing.”

Some images from today’s amazing lunch:



 

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Wood Stone Celebrates Twenty Years – TODAY!

Thursday, April 1st, 2010

employee_photo_web

ws_20yr_logo

Jackie Van Zwol, Sales and Consultant Coordinator

Once upon a time, in a land way up north and west, there lived some guys enjoying their lives. One sold restaurant equipment (Keith) and the other built commercial incinerators (Harry). One day a chef asked Keith to bring him a reliable wood-burning brick oven. “If you could but sell me an oven that I could love, I will reward you with pizza!” Keith looked and looked at all the ovens he saw in the land and thought “Gee Whiz! These are built like cheap imports! I know a guy with the powers to conquer this evil in the land!” Keith sought Harry. “Harry, Chef commands a good oven for his people! Can you please build one?” Harry looked at the ovens in the land and said “Good Golly, this will be like building a toy incinerator! Only we get pizza!” And lo, Harry built the oven, Keith sold the oven, the Chef cooked in the oven and there was much rejoicing in the land!

Keith and Harry were happy. So happy they wanted to share their happiness as well as the happiness of the Chef and his People. They embarked upon an adventure after that day and gathered other happy people that they could spend their days with. This group of people they named “Wood Stone” and they worked and played together, brought their happiness to others by sending them awesome ovens and teaching them to cook pizza and other yummy things and generally being helpful to everyone they met.

Keith and Harry are happy to this day. They and their group of friends are growing and finding all kinds of happiness to bring to all kinds of people in the world. They hope that this group they call Wood Stone will continue to grow and be happy for generations to come.

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What is your definition of Artisan Pizza?

Tuesday, February 9th, 2010

Pizza_web

What is your definition of Artisan Pizza? What makes a pizza Artisan?

Please leave a comment – we want to hear from you!

Posted in What's Cooking at WS? | 7 Comments »

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