Real Bread!

I MADE BREAD!

For my first loaf, I am saying it's good. It tasted good and made for a good sandwich. 

This is the recipe I used. I added a tablespoon of olive oil and a tablespoon of dried Italian herbs - it was perfect: http://www.yourhomebasedmom.com/easy-french-bread/.

I can't wait to make more. Delicieux. 

Thick Crust Pizza

Nailed it!!

The dough rises for an hour. Then you punch it down and shape it. 

The heart wants what it wants. 

I made sauce again: drained crushed tomatoes, Italian seasoning, garlic, salt. 

SLAYING the homemade crust game. Saved us $30 AND we know exactly what's in our pizza. Economical AND "healthy"! 🤔😉

Homemade Pizza

All of my previous attempts to make dough have failed. Cinnamon rolls, bread. Pizza. Everything. 

But I was inspired by a simple thin crust recipe over at http://www.howsweeteats.com/ and figured I had to try one more time or face a life of convenient Pizza Hut delivery or frozen microwave pizza. Nashville abounds with delicious pizza (favorite: DeSano's, then Five Points, then House of Pizza) but it's not necessarily on the way home. And while Chef Boyardee will always remind me of childhood & home, it's not everyone's favorite. 

Just mix up lukewarm water, honey, and yeast, and let it sit (bloom?) for 10 minutes. The add flour and salt and mix until it comes together then knead a couple times then let it sit (proof?) for 5 minutes. So easy it was unreal. 

I made sauce with drained crushed tomatoes, garlic, and Italian seasoning. It was perfect. 

This is barbecue chicken, jalapeno, and pineapple pizza. It cooked for 15 minutes at 500 degrees and it couldn't have turned out better. I'm so glad I have a go-to pizza recipe. Maybe now I can try my hand at bread & be a little more confident using active yeast. But science has never been my strong suit!!

Homemade Pasta

I'll probably never buy pasta again.

Making homemade pasta took less than half an hour. It was a little stressful - I've never made it before. Trial and error though, cause I did learn a few things. 

                     Shiny new pasta maker from mom and dad. 

                     Flour, egg, and salt. Some water to bring it together.

Getting the dough to come together was super stressful. Dough hates me which is why I never make yeast breads or crust. But in the end it turned out. Then it rested for 15 minutes. 

You run it through starting with thickness level "7". Then decrease it to 6, 5, so on and so forth. I think I tried to go down in thickness too fast or ran too thick of a piece through cause sometimes it did this:

But if I increased the thickness and just folded it once it was fine again. 

                          The other side is for fettuccine and spaghetti.

I made fettuccine. 

             I really need one of those wooden thingamabobbers to dry it on. 

Cooked it for 4 minutes and it was perfect. I used enough salt, it was al dente, and covered in my favorite sauce: DelGrosso Sunday Marinara.

                                           Literally my favorite. 

I basically plan to make pasta forever always the rest of my life. 

Except macaroni cause who the hell knows how you make that.

Cream of Potato Soup

Everyone has their comfort food or even "sick food" as I sometimes call it. Part nostalgia part comfort, mine include Stouffer's macaroni and cheese, Spaghettios, and Campbell's Cream of Potato soup. The cans of potato soup at one point inexplicably featured a recipe for "soup-a-rice", which called for adding a canful of rice to the cooked soup. Why adding another carb to a bowlful of carbs was a good idea I'll never know. Anyway when I'm sick you know rice goes into my potato soup!

Canned soup is also a sodium blast so I have finally figured out a good recipe for it. It is quick and makes the perfect amount. And surely it's slightly healthier than canned!

Quick Cream of Potato Soup

1/2 tbsp. butter

1 clove garlic, minced

1 cup water 

1 chicken boullion cube or equivalent 

1 medium to large red potato, peeled and diced

1 tbsp. flour

1 tbsp. milk

1 tbsp. cheddar cheese (optional)

Melt butter on medium heat and add garlic. After a minute add water, boullion, and potato. Boil until potato is tender, about 5 minutes. Use an immersion blender to purée the soup, leaving some potatoes whole. Whisk in flour, milk, and cheese if adding. Stir as soup thickens. 

Here's a picture of soup which is probably indistinguishable 

from every other picture of soup because pictures of soup are boring.

Current Obsession: Mason Jar Salads

Finally, a Pinterest project that works. Coming up with different combinations & themes actually makes me excited to eat lunch in the office. It is definitely *not* a sad desk lunch! My favorite is Greek with spinach, kalamata & green olives, carrots, red peppers, chicken, feta, quinoa & red wine vinaigrette. But below is a spinach, sweet potato, black bean, chicken & quinoa salad with balsamic vinaigrette; and above is an Asian themed salad with brown rice, edamame, carrots, red pepper, shredded beef, oranges & spinach with a soy-sesame-honey-Sriracha vinaigrette. That's a bomb ass jar right there. 

Balsamic "Cream" Sauce

I rationalize a lot. Like, "well, it wasn't the worst thing I could have eaten" or "feta has less calories than cheddar so I can have more". That's how I feel about this sauce. It contains no cream, so it breaks down like this:

2 tbsps. unsalted butter, 200 calories, 22 grams fat

2 tbsps. all-purpose flour, 56 calories, .16 grams fat

1 chicken bouillon cube, prepared with 1 cup water, 5 calories, 0 fat 

2 tbsps. balsamic vinegar, 10 calories, 0 fat.

I don't really know how to calculate it, but straight up adding all that equals 271 calories and 27.16 grams of fat. That's a lot of fat! And I don't know how to get around that, but the sauce was delicious and surely even a cup of 2% milk would have added about a 120 calories and 4 or 5 grams of fat. But see, I saved those calories for my pasta! And chicken. And tomatoes. And mushrooms. And dang it, some fresh mozzarella. 

It all works out. 

Balsamic "Cream" Sauce

2 tbsp. unsalted butter

2 tbsp. all-purpose flour

Melt butter & whisk in flour, for 1 minute. Add

1 cup chicken broth and whisk until smooth. Add

2 tbsp. balsamic vinegar.