Homemade BBQ pizza is Fantastic!

This is one of our top 5 meals for sure at our house, I LOVE IT and it feels sort of healthy.

I found a great recipe for whole wheat pizza crust here. The only change I make is that I use all wheat flour, no white. My sister new pizza idea is buying the crust, that will definitely speed up the process!

We like thinner crusts at our house so I just sprinkle some flour on the counter, throw down the dough and roll it out until it's pretty thin . Then I put it over our pizza pan like this:

The dough definitely overlaps the pan so I get a pizza cutter and cut off the excess. Thus we have a perfectly thin, and round pizza crust. I let it raise for 15 or 20 minutes then put it in the oven for 5 minutes.
After it's been zapped in the oven we spread the bbq sauce and top it with yummy toppings like peppers, onions, chicken, cheese, tomatoes and any other veggies we have laying around. I put it in the oven for another 8 minutes or so and out comes a delightful pizza!

With the extra dough I made yummy breadsticks (you can see them below). Here's how I make them:
1. Roll out the extra dough, pretty thin
2. Use the pizza cutter to cut into strips.
3. Let raise for 20 minutes or so
4. Cook for 4 minutes
5. Brush with oil and sprinkle on parmesian cheese and garlic salt (those big salts like on preztels would be way good!)
6. Put in the oven for another 5 minutes.

And there you have a yummy, moderately simple recipe that is moderately healthy ( we could have cut back on the cheese :)

Strawberry Jam Catastrophe

So I was strolling down the isles of my favorite Henry's Market and I was shocked at the price of strawberries. 77 cents!!!!! I have never seen a pound of strawberries so cheap. So naturally I bought 18 pounds. (This picture is only showing half of them, I have an impulse problem! I was determined to make strawberry Jam so I got the pectin, sugar and strawberries and headed home for the big project.First I took the leaves off of them, I borrowed a GIGANTIC bowl from my neighbor. I don't think you can understand how many strawberries I bought, it was ridiculous.

Here are all of them, they almost took up the whole top shelf of the fridge.

So, I decided to use the freezer jam recipe inside of the pectin package. It called for 8 cups of mashed up strawberries. I didn't have a potato masher so I decided to throw the strawberries into the blender. BAD BAD IDEA! Apparently when you do this the strawberries expand and get all foamy. I didn't realize the problem at this point so I continued following the recipe. 8 cups of strawberries and 16 cups of sugar...seemed like a lot of sugar, but I just went for it. Notice how liquidy the stuff is.

My lovely assistant, Mariela, made the pectin and we added it to the strawberry/sugar mixture. I tasted the final mixture and it was SOOOO SUGARY. I started blending more strawberries and adding them into the mixture. DISASTER! I finally gave up.

I had all these empty cans from my grandma's applesauce so I decided to fill them anyways. The jam is pretty sugary, but I still loved it. It never set up, so I have to use a spoon, but it is great as syrup on pancakes!

After the catastrophe I started asking around and I got some help from family and friends, here are some lessons learned on freezer jam.

1. Just buy a potato masher for $5 and don't use a blender

2. Never add as much sugar as they say. My mom said that she never felt right about adding more sugar than fruit. (I'd like some help in this area still to get a feel for exactly how much sugar to add).

3. NEVER try to reinvent the wheel. I don't know why I didn't ask one of the 15 immediate relatives I have that already know how to make freezer jam for help. Next time I will be smarter!

I still have 5 quart bags full of strawberries that were leftover so I will be trying this again in a while when we run out of jam (probably not any time soon). Hopefully take two will be better!

Red Velvet Cake is a Scam!

Zac volunteered me to bake a Red Velvet Cake for his good friend's wife's surprise birthday party. I was a little nervous since I've never attempted red velvet cake and it sounds hard, but luckily Zac told me that his mom makes a delicious red velvet cake so I called her and gave it a whirl.

The reason it is a SCAM: I thought that there was something special about the ingredients of a red velvet cake that was very different from a normal cake that made it red like cherries or something...not true. You just add red food coloring, shocking. I was so surprised. I think I'll make blue velvet cake next time, just because I can. :) Nevertheless, this was a delicious, moist, WOW cake that I recommend, thank you Shelly for the recipe!

Here's the recipe:

Cake
2.5 C Flour
1.5 C Sugar
2 tsp Cocoa
1 tsp Salt
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp baking soda
2 eggs
1 C oil
1 C Buttermilk ***
1/4 C Water
red food coloring (as much or little as you want)

Put it all in a big bowl, stir, put in pans, bake at 350 for 20-30 minutes depending on pan, just do the toothpick test. I used my 3 piece set of oval casserole dishes so I had to take them out at different times.
Frosting:
8 oz package softened cream cheese
1 cube real butter
2.5-3 C Powdered Sugar
1 tsp vanilla

Mix it all together and frost. I like to put it in the fridge to harden it up to make frosting it easier.

On my list of things to buy: Something to put a cake on besides a cookie sheet, the cookie sheet is SO tacky! Yuck!

Chocolate Covered Cake Balls II

I meant to get a picture of the cake balls closer up. I put on a baby shower for my friend today and I attempted to decorate the cake balls. You can click on the picture to get a close up. I melted white chocolate and added food coloring and put it in a little cake decorating thing to decorate the tops but it was SOOOO difficult. The chocolate was all over the place. I definately am not an expert in this field. Oh well, they taste freakin awesome so I didn't care too much.
PS: We put peppers on the veggie tray and they were YUMMY, I've never thought to do that before since I'm not a huge raw pepper fan.

Chocolate Covered Cake Balls

I saw these on my friends Lisa's blog and then tried one at my friend Erin's house and I HAD to try them out. I'm doing a babyshower this weekend so I practiced them last weekend so I could get the hang of things. There are about a MILLION varieties using this same idea.

They have also been called 'Bakerella Balls' because that is the original creater. Here is a link to some of her other similar creations: link

1. Bake a cake-I chose chocolate.

2. Let the cake cool completely, then break it up into small pieces. Mix a container of cream cheese frosting with the cake. ( Other people have tried broken up oreos and broken up nutter butters)

3. Roll them into little balls and stick them in the freezer or fridge until they are nice and firm.
4. Dip them in chocolate and return them to the fridge to harden. I dipped them in melted hershey's kisses, melted white chocolate chips, and melted cookies and cream bars. The cookies and cream were definately my favorite! I heard that if you mix a little shortening with the melted chocolate the chocolate sticks better. I'll try that next time!
It makes a LOT, luckily we had plenty of friends to share them with or else I may have gained about 20 lbs! We had 85 balls!

Aunt Jeanne's Potato Salad

If any of you know my Aunt Jeanne you know she is an excellent cook! Her potato salad is excellent and I tried to make it for the second time and I learned some things that I don't want to forget!



1. Make a 1/2 batch!

2. Do not put in too much sweet relish!

3. Do not let the potatoes cook too long!



Here is her recipe:



5 Large potatoes-cubed and boiled

15 hardboiled eggs cut in pieces

1 package of celery hearts chopped up

1 sweet onion finely chopped

1/2 container of cream cheese

3 raw eggs

1/4-1/2 C flour

3/4 C sugar

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 C vinegar

1/2 C water

1/4 bottle honey mustard

1 1/2-2 C Miracle Whip

1 tbl Sweet Relish (add to taste, start small!)



1. Mix the red ingredients until they are really smooth.

2. Bring the green ingredients to a boil on the stove and then add the red ingredients. Mix until they are all smooth and thick then add the purple ingredients. This makes the dressing.

3. Mix the dressing with all of the blue chopped veggies.

4. Enjoy
As you can see from the picture, this recipe makes A LOT of salad! It made a perfect side dish for memorial day!

Sweet N' Sour Chicken: the fried variety :)

This was really similar to the sweet n' sour you would get at a chineese restraunt...really good! If I had to rate parts I'd give the chicken a 10 and the sauce a 7, I'm looking for improvements on the sauce so any ideas are welcome. Here is the original recipe with my adjustments.

It basically is veggies and fried chicken over rice all covered in a sweet n' sour sauce...yummy

Sauce:

1. Mix 1/4 c water and 1/4 c cornstarch in a small bowl

2. Mix the following 4 ingredients until they boil, then turn off the heat and slowly add cornstarch while stirring.

Pineapple juice from an 8 oz can
1 1/2 cups water
3/4 cup white sugar
1/2 cup distilled white vinegar
2 drops orange food color

3. Add pineapples

Veggies:

Chop up your favorite veggies, we chose green and orange pepper but if I wasn't so lazy I would have done onions and carrots too. Fry them up in a little butter or oil until they're just soft enough.

Chicken:

1. Mix the following ingredients to make a batter...it kind of resembles a thick pancake batter. Then add 2-3 breasts of chicken that have been cut into little pieces and mix it all up.

2 1/4 cups self-rising flour OR 2 C regular flour, 1/2 tsp salt, and 1 1/2 tsp baking pwdr
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground white pepper
1 egg
2 cups water

2. Heat up the oil( I used medium heat) and use tongs to scoop out the pieces of chicken and plop them into the oil. They cook WAY fast and they are SO good!

I tried to make it in the afternoon and then warm it up that night and the chicken was not nearly as good as it was fresh from the grease...I will remember that for next time. It was literally the best fried chicken I've ever made, you should try it!

Here is the final product, I forgot to take the picture until Zac was already almost done...dang