Oh yum.

You know how amazing homemade bread is, right? If not, you're missing out.
And you know how good homemade pizza is if you've tried the easy dough from my last post, right?

Over at The Ivory Hut they have invented a marvelously wonderful hybrid called Crazy Pizza Bread. You must go and make it. Now. Do not pass GO. But if you find $200 lying around, I could use some!

PS- if on the off chance you have any leftovers, it really does freeze beautifully!

Homemade fruit rollups

Okay, I grew up begging for fruit roll-ups and very rarely getting them because they were so full of sugar. As an adult, I indulged until I discovered they're mostly full of corn syrup...something I can't tolerate. Literally, it makes me ill!  So I've been exploring the idea of making my own from excess fruit laying around. Having found these homemade polka-dot ones over at Fix Me A Snack means I might just be borrowing a dehydrator in the near future!  I wonder how low my oven temp goes....?

In the meantime, enjoy the eye candy!

Homemade Pizza dough!

First, I've been a very bad blogger. It's the crazy-busy time of year at work as schools are starting up again. At least, that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.

In the meantime, here's that recipe I've promised people for pizza dough. I tried a half-dozen online recipes before settling this tweaked version. It's kinda a conglomeration of all the ones I tried...but without the difficult, time consuming parts. With this recipe, I can have homemade pizza on the table in about the time it takes for delivery...but at a cost of $4.06 rather than the $20+ delivery runs around here.

Ingredient Cost breakdown:
Yeast: $0.02 (bought a giant freeze dried package at Costco for $5.47)
Olive oil:  $0.17 (and I use organic, so it's pricey)
Salt: $0.02
Flour:  $0.24
Sugar: $0.03

Ingredients:

• 2 tsp active yeast
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1 cup warm water (about 110 degrees, or shower temperature)
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 2 1/2 cups flour
• 1 tsp garlic or Italian herb mix (basil, oregeno, etc)

How to:

• So the basic process is easy. Turn the tap on hot and let it warm up to the highest temp you get. (maybe fill the sink for dishes while you're at it?) 
• Grab a big bowl and add 1 tsp sugar and 2 tsp yeast to the bottom.
• Pour 1 cup of that really hot water over the yeast and sugar, stir and set it aside for 5-10 minutes, until it's foamy all across the top of the water. (At this point, I load the dishwasher with all that hot water in the sink)
• When the yeast has risen, add in 2 tbsp olive oil, 1 tsp salt, and 2 1/2 cups flour. I also add either 1tsp garlic or 1 tsp Italian seasoning- sometimes both! 
• Mix these together with a wooden spoon until it forms a big sticky ball, then let it rise until doubled in size...between ten minutes and an hour depending on the room temperature. To speed it up in winter, I set the bowl in the aformentioned sink of warm water. (this cleverly gets you out of dish duty, too!)
• Once dough has risen, drop it into a puddle of flour on the counter and stretch it out into whatever shape you need it to be. We don't have a pizza tray, so it's rectanglar pizza for us!
• Grease the pizza baking sheet and sprinkle with cornmeal. THIS keeps the pizza dough from sticking!
• Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
• Spoon on your canned spagetti pizza sauce and spread into a light layer on the dough.
• Sprinkle a layer of mozarella cheese and add toppings. (We like pepperoni, olive and peppers)
• Bake at

No I haven't vanished...

I spent all last week frantically working toward my husband's birthday present...finishing the remodel we started last OCTOBER!  I am proud to announce that with the exception of 1 wall in a non-necessary room, it's finally done! Of course, then we had to throw him a birthday party to show off the new kitchen, so that ate up my weekend... And then I pinched a nerve in my back, missed a day of work and had a lovely cortisone injection. So I've been a little busy lately!

Stay tuned for a step by step update on how we built new walls, knocked holes in other and installed a new kitchen...mostly by ourselves! Heck, mostly by MYself! :)