Thanks to Pani for taking this for us. :)
3 days ago
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Wednesday, January 07, 2009
Pizza for supper!
This is one of the kids' favorite meals ... but I tend to avoid it because I could never get it to come out right. Plus, Mike is a pizza pro, so while I know I can cook many other foods quite well, pizza ... I just am not confident. A regular oven just can't do the same thing as a pizza oven. Mine always comes out underdone, or thick, or just plain not right. So, I experiment on the kids - tonight was a good opportunity; Mike's at a business dinner and we could play. (Side note: Mike would be great about "playing" with pizza and experimenting ... in fact, in all fairness, he'd probably have fun (and make it MORE fun!). I am just too fussy about what I offer him. I'm working on that ...)
So ... I figured out a good "method" that works. I will eventually try making my own dough (it will cost a LOT less than the store pizza dough balls) as well as my own sauce, but until I figured out the timing and temperature, I decided to make things easy, and we used pizza dough from Shaw's, hunt's garlic & cheese sauce, and home shredded mozarella (the bagged stuff never melts right, IMO). Well ... some of us used that. Some of us skipped the sauce (Bren & me) and loaded up on pepperoni, olive oil and seasonings (garlic & basil). Yeah, I know, healthy, right?
Here are the results ... they turned out great, I think. We put these in my 8x8 square pan, and 2 8 inch cake pans. I sprayed with non-stick cooking spray, sprinkled with flour, and then used 1/3 pound of room temperature dough in each. Baked in a pre-heated 500F oven for 5-7 minutes. We removed from the pans and cooled on a cooling rack for about 4 minutes before diving in.
The kids were just a hair frustrated - they really enjoyed using the airbake cookie sheets last time because they could make crazy shapes. While that was fun - I agree about that - they just don't cook the pizza well, they came out really doughy. They all agreed that these tasted much better and they *supposed* it was okay if they made them this way again. (Insert sighing and rolling of eyes.)
Betsy's:
Justin's (left) and Andrew's (right)
Mine (left) and Brendan's (right)
It was fun. I'm sure they'll be bugging me even more often to make this now. :)
So ... I figured out a good "method" that works. I will eventually try making my own dough (it will cost a LOT less than the store pizza dough balls) as well as my own sauce, but until I figured out the timing and temperature, I decided to make things easy, and we used pizza dough from Shaw's, hunt's garlic & cheese sauce, and home shredded mozarella (the bagged stuff never melts right, IMO). Well ... some of us used that. Some of us skipped the sauce (Bren & me) and loaded up on pepperoni, olive oil and seasonings (garlic & basil). Yeah, I know, healthy, right?
Here are the results ... they turned out great, I think. We put these in my 8x8 square pan, and 2 8 inch cake pans. I sprayed with non-stick cooking spray, sprinkled with flour, and then used 1/3 pound of room temperature dough in each. Baked in a pre-heated 500F oven for 5-7 minutes. We removed from the pans and cooled on a cooling rack for about 4 minutes before diving in.
The kids were just a hair frustrated - they really enjoyed using the airbake cookie sheets last time because they could make crazy shapes. While that was fun - I agree about that - they just don't cook the pizza well, they came out really doughy. They all agreed that these tasted much better and they *supposed* it was okay if they made them this way again. (Insert sighing and rolling of eyes.)
Betsy's:
Justin's (left) and Andrew's (right)
Mine (left) and Brendan's (right)
It was fun. I'm sure they'll be bugging me even more often to make this now. :)
Dental fun ...
I really ... quite strongly ... dislike trips to the dentist. I do not even like going for a simple cleaning. Well ... a week ago Monday, I had a tooth pulled. One that could have been saved with a root canal, but has no lower tooth to rest on (it isn't a chewing surface) so they gave me the option of getting it pulled. I went for that (after a couple of years hedging and debating and tooth pain) and am glad I did - it did require a return trip yesterday to file down a bit of exposed bone (yuck) but on the upside ... the tooth pain is gone, the pressure from the tooth growing into the lower gums (which I hadn't paid attention to) on my lower jaw is gone ... it's a relief.
Now if only I could learn to not be so stubborn - our Christmas Eve was yesterday (our church is on the old calendar and today is actually Christmas) and I went - to a lovely family dinner (a number of the families at our church have taken us under their wings) and then the Compline. It was all lovely ... beautiful ... but I didn't enjoy or appreciate it as I should have, I know I worried a few people ... I probably should have stayed home, taken my pain meds, and rested. Pride stinks, it really got in the way of my making good decisions last night. I would have liked to have gone to the Nativity Liturgy this morning, but I think God put roadblocks in my path and eliminated the choice for me ... the weather was bad (it had rained and frozen overnight). I don't know if you can see that each individual branch of this Japanese maple is encased in ice.
It was - is - quite beautiful. The kids had an hour delay, too. I ended up deciding - because I am wiped out and sore, although not too bad - to not try and go. I would have been half an hour late, and if the headache I have now is any indicator, today wouldn't have been much better than yesterday, so - I stayed home. I look forward to next year and being able to fully participate in what our church offers for celebrating Christ's birth!
Christ is born! :)
Now if only I could learn to not be so stubborn - our Christmas Eve was yesterday (our church is on the old calendar and today is actually Christmas) and I went - to a lovely family dinner (a number of the families at our church have taken us under their wings) and then the Compline. It was all lovely ... beautiful ... but I didn't enjoy or appreciate it as I should have, I know I worried a few people ... I probably should have stayed home, taken my pain meds, and rested. Pride stinks, it really got in the way of my making good decisions last night. I would have liked to have gone to the Nativity Liturgy this morning, but I think God put roadblocks in my path and eliminated the choice for me ... the weather was bad (it had rained and frozen overnight). I don't know if you can see that each individual branch of this Japanese maple is encased in ice.
It was - is - quite beautiful. The kids had an hour delay, too. I ended up deciding - because I am wiped out and sore, although not too bad - to not try and go. I would have been half an hour late, and if the headache I have now is any indicator, today wouldn't have been much better than yesterday, so - I stayed home. I look forward to next year and being able to fully participate in what our church offers for celebrating Christ's birth!
Christ is born! :)
Sunday, January 04, 2009
Happy Birthday!!!
My Brendan is 12!! This is the last year I can say I don't have teenagers yet. LOL!
I did take an official "birthday" picture today ... but I like this one better.
This was taken on New Year's Day - we got just enough snow, powdery, too (not the norm here - it's usually wet and heavy) - perfect for sledding.
Today - I'm pretty sure he had a great day. Started off a little rocky (I made him get up "early" and shower before church since he had a headache last night and went to bed early - at 12 he is still not a big fan of showering, especially when Mom makes him get up early to do it!), but we sang "Many Years" to him after church (which he thought was cool). Then we hit Red Robin in Foxboro for lunch - neat since the kids and I got to see Gillette Stadium for the first time - granted from the outside, but still ... neat. We wandered around the big outdoorsy store there and Brendan got a multi-tool (mainly for camping and Scouts, but he does find regular use for it). After we got home, I made tacos for supper - his favorite - unfortunately, we had to skip the hard corn shells (his preference) thanks to the braces but I think he still enjoyed pigging out. :) Once supper has settled a bit, we'll pull out the lemon crunch pie instead of normal boring cake (his words a few years ago ... lol).
Happy Birthday Bren! We love you!
I did take an official "birthday" picture today ... but I like this one better.
This was taken on New Year's Day - we got just enough snow, powdery, too (not the norm here - it's usually wet and heavy) - perfect for sledding.
Today - I'm pretty sure he had a great day. Started off a little rocky (I made him get up "early" and shower before church since he had a headache last night and went to bed early - at 12 he is still not a big fan of showering, especially when Mom makes him get up early to do it!), but we sang "Many Years" to him after church (which he thought was cool). Then we hit Red Robin in Foxboro for lunch - neat since the kids and I got to see Gillette Stadium for the first time - granted from the outside, but still ... neat. We wandered around the big outdoorsy store there and Brendan got a multi-tool (mainly for camping and Scouts, but he does find regular use for it). After we got home, I made tacos for supper - his favorite - unfortunately, we had to skip the hard corn shells (his preference) thanks to the braces but I think he still enjoyed pigging out. :) Once supper has settled a bit, we'll pull out the lemon crunch pie instead of normal boring cake (his words a few years ago ... lol).
Happy Birthday Bren! We love you!
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
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