Showing posts with label kitchen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label kitchen. Show all posts

Friday, June 1, 2012

Pizza Nights!

This recipe makes great pizza dough and is super easy! I've made it both by hand kneading and with our stand mixer, and its worth it either way (albeit faster with the mixer)! The original recipe is from Crazy Plates by Janet & Greta Podleski but we've done some tweaking over the years. It's one of our favourites, and though it requires a little bit of pre-planning it gives a lot of options. The recipes are collected from many of our pizza nights, hence them magically going from only a bit whole wheat to totally and back again!

You'll need:
2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast (aka 1 package if you roll that way)
1 cup warm water
1 tbsp honey - I just estimate since its too messy to measure
1 tsp salt
2-2.5 cups flour
(minimum 1/2 cup whole wheat, but we've done it
almost all whole wheat - just add some extra water)
1 1/2 tbsp olive oil - again I just estimate to save on dishes!


Start by mixing the honey into the warm water, and then put the yeast in and let it sit for a few minutes to get frothy - like in the handy dandy picture! Then add the salt and olive oil.


Next add 1/2 cup of whole wheat flour and of the regular flour, and start mixing.
Add another cup of flour and keep mixing - that's usually enough for us. But, use some more if it's too sticky. Then knead it until its smooth and elastic-y.


Spray the bowl with some non stick spray and cover it and leave it alone somewhere warm and non-breezy for at least an hour. I try and make the dough in the morning before work, so it's ready for us when we get home.


Later on it should look like this!!


The cool thing about this recipe, is that it can make 2 thinner crust pizzas, or 1 thicker crust pizzas, depending on what you feel like, or how many toppings you have on hand. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Punch the dough down and form your pizzas and put them on sprayed pans. Add your toppings. And bake for 10-15 minutes depending on your oven, rotating them if you have two.

Here are some of the combos we've done recently:

Pasta sauce, cheddar cheese, jalepenos, tomatoes.
Buffalo sauce, bacon, green peppers, jalepenos, cheddar, cilantro 

Pesto sauce, chicken, caramelized onions and feta

Pasta sauce, mushrooms, tomatoes, cheddar salami

Some other things we've tried: Bbq sauce, salsa as sauce, taco meat, chorizo, capers, fresh mozerella and even making our own stuffed crust! Let us know what you try out! 

Monday, April 19, 2010

Ketch-up

So apparently it has been a year since we've updated this blog. Not for lack of cooking, but because other minor things have gotten in the way. Such as planning a wedding and getting married, me moving to California, and just plain forgetfulness. But we're back, and have a ton of fun pictures from our cooking adventures to share so things should get exciting again! As a tidbit of things to come, one of the things I've done is make us fun spice jar labels, which I just got all filled up a few weeks ago!! Bonus points to whoever can guess the one with the caricature on it.

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Sunday's Kitchen Fun

So as you can see from all these posts we were very busy in the kitchen on Sunday. We made the stock, the asparagus and brie soup and the sticky chicken. We started cutting up the chicken at 4:30 in the afternoon and finally finished eating our sticky chicken at about 11:15pm, so it was quite the evening of cooking. Mind you we did have some time while the stock was simmering to re-pot our herbs and drink Pepsi natural which is this new pepsi made with natural sugar and real ingredients. It was really good, way better than regular pepsi, and it came in a sweet bottle.


The herb garden before

Pepsi Natural

The herb garden after. The cactus is named Moe. We've got 3 types of chili peppers, oregano, parsley and basil.

and some ambiance for eating.