Month: March 2008

Making pizza at home is just fun – it’s done, or almost done, by the time it would take a delivery place to drop by anyway, and you can play around, and know *exactly* what is going into it. This recipe makes six small pizzas…so they’re individual size but usually also big enough so around half can be enjoyed the next day (yummy cold pizza right out of the refrigerator!).

This recipe is inspired by the one in the Barefoot Contessa Parties cookbook. I love to play around with her recipes because they always work.

Ingredients for the dough:
1-1/4 c. warm water (100*-110*)
2 packages yeast
2 tbsp honey
3 tbsp olive oil
4 c. all-purpose flour
2 tsp salt
couple tablespoons fresh chopped herbs like rosemary or thyme

Toppings:
anything that sounds good!

The dough is pareve so I can make fleishig pizzas for Av with beef kielbasa pieces with barbecue sauce and red onions, or beef bacon and barbecue sauce, or go fajita-style with chicken, bell peppers, and onions.

If I make them milchig, I love roma tomatoes with fresh mozzarella and basil, or bagel-style with red onions & lox & capers & a little cream cheese.

(and if you don’t have to worry with things being pareve, fleishig, or milchig, then use any ingredients together that you like!!)

Directions:
In the Kitchenaid with the dough hook attached, I add together the warm water, yeast, olive oil, and honey, and mix well. Once that’s mixed, I put it on ‘low’ and add three cups of flour and salt. Once that gets going, I add the last cup of flour and some fresh herbs. Keeping the Kitchenaid on low, I let that knead for about ten minutes. At first it looks like a bit of a mess:

…but then it all comes together beautifully. After it’s kneaded for 10 minutes, I take the dough out of the bowl (and take the bowl out of the Kitchenaid), pour a little olive oil in the bowl, add the dough back to the bowl, and turn the dough around so it’s well-oiled:

…put a towel over the bowl, and let it rise for 30 minutes.

It will look like this:

Preheat the oven to 500*.
Separate the dough into six pieces, shape each into a circle shape – or whatever shape you’re feeling – and two will fit on a regular-size cookie sheet. Cover the cookie sheet(s) with a towel, and let the dough rest for 10 minutes:

Now they’re ready for toppings! This one has no sauce – doesn’t need it – it’s just two small sliced roma tomatoes, some fresh mozzarella, and a few fresh basil leaves. A little salt and pepper and a splash of olive oil, and it’s ready for the oven:

Start watching these at about 10 minutes – mine are usually ready between 12-15 minutes.

Ooooh these always turn out so great!

The latest issue of Mississippi Magazine came last week, and one of the features was on Spring door decorations. They were fantastic! I got 100% of the inspiration for this one that I made from the one called “Spring Garden Pot Wreath” available for $85 from A Daisy A Day in Jackson.

It was so easy, so fresh, and cost only about $10 to make. All it takes is a grapevine wreath (mine’s about 2 feet wide or so), some raffia, some small terracotta pots, and little colorful plants. For my plants, I used two little six-cell packs of annuals, and planted two plants per pot.

Next, tied the pots onto the wreath form with raffia. I did this part by myself, but it would have been a little easier if there had been one person to hold the wreath steady and another to tie the raffia!

Now I can either put it on the door, or how it is right now – hung on a wreath stand outside (on a wreath stake from Pottery Barn out in a corner of the yard would be great too!)

After we left Tigers for Tomorrow, we went over to Noccalula Falls in Gadsden.

We had a really nice time! We walked over to the falls:

Isn’t it so pretty!? The drop is 90 feet, off a ledge of Lookout Mountain.

This is the statue of Princess Noccalula (the legend is that she threw herself into the falls when her father was going to make her marry a chief he had chosen rather than the brave she was in love with):

We fed Shug at a little bench facing the falls so he could watch all the pretty water. All of the facilities were pretty nice, but parts of the path weren’t really graded well, and too close to the train tracks, for people like us with strollers:

The Gilliland-Reese covered bridge is at the park:

It was built in 1899 at Reece City (so maybe it should be the Gilliland-Reece covered bridge) and is 40 feet long:

There’s also a botanical gardens and petting zoo at the park, as well as what’s called ‘Pioneer Village’:

We want to take Shug back when he gets a bit older and can enjoy the little choo-choo train ride!

What a happy little thing!

Every night before we go to sleep, we put Shug in our bed, he gets fed one more time, and then he gets some very last songs and tickles for the day. I really can’t sing, but he doesn’t mind. Av took this little movie of our little “old gray cat” song and Shug always gives us the best giggles at the end when the “little mouse comes creeping”!

This past weekend, we were driving up to Mentone, Alabama (Mentone has a ski resort!) but on the way we stopped in Gadsden for a little while and decided to take Shug to Noccalula Falls. Well, on the way to the Falls, we saw a little sign for something called “Tigers for Tomorrow”.

Neither of us had ever heard of it, and nothing on the sign said what it was about, but it was one of those brown state-supplied roadway signs like other attractions and parks use – so we decided to drive out and see what it was, just for fun.

It turns out that Tigers for Tomorrow is a rescue shelter for exotic (and some not-so-exotic) animals. They have a no-breeding policy and simply allow the animals to live out their lives in comfort.

To be honest, zoos aren’t one of my favorite places. I mean, we belong to our local zoo, and I like taking Shug to it each week, but we mostly stay in the petting zoo / domesticated animals section because it just feels wrong that the wild animals aren’t wherever they really should be – in the wild, not living in cages or some other such enclosure.

The thing is, the people that run TFT are doing this out of the goodness of their hearts, and they really seem to be doing a very good job. Of course, if people didn’t take in exotic animals that they ultimately would have to give up, this kind of place wouldn’t have to exist to begin with!

(…so really I should get over the whole zoo thing since this is a rescue shelter!…)

Y’all, everyone there was *so* nice. One of the ladies brought out a baby goat from the petting zoo section (they had a zebra, camel, emu, turkey, goats, alpacas, and a lot more) for Shug to see. The sweet little goat was just a week-and-a-half old! So sweet!!

This alpaca came up to us. He sure does need braces!

One of the caretakers was in a pen with one of the cats, and they were getting along very well. I guess this one was probably someone’s pet previously. The lion was licking the man’s arm and playing with his legs. They were both having a really good time:

We’ll probably bring Shug back out when he gets older and wants to learn more about lions and tigers. TFT also has a guardian angel program where people can ‘adopt’ the care of an animal for one year – nice!

If you’d like to go, make sure you wear some good tennis shoes, because it’s not paved and a little bit rough. Av carried Shug in his Baby Bjorn – his stroller could have made it, but it would have been pretty bumpy. Also, TFT lists their address as being in Attalla, but they’re in Dekalb County, less than 10 miles or so from Collinsville.

If you’re coming from Attalla, though, you pass right by Wills Creek Vineyards, where they sell muscadine wines (and they even have a variety that goes to help support TFT).

We were there on Sunday, when the winery was closed, but maybe we’ll come back sometime so Av can check them out and maybe pick up a bottle or two…

My friend Amy from North Mississippi celebrates Easter, and she makes *the* most gorgeous eggs! I told her it was a shame that we weren’t sharing her ideas and pics with the world, so here’s how she does it!

She gets bunches of yellow onion skins for free from her grocer:

She puts the onion skins in the bottom of a pan, places some regular white eggs on top, and covers it all with water – not too much though. Just enough water to cover the eggs. She says less water equals more color:

Boil them as usual, and they come out all marbled and gorgeous. If you leave them in the pan with the onion skins once they are done and the heat is off, you can get the color even deeper:

I think these may be my favorite – she uses boiled red cabbage leaves and leaves the eggs with them overnight to get this blue / turquoise color:

Isn’t she great?!