homemade – Peaceful Reader

Back to school

The end of school vacation is here. {try not to sob}

Summer remains-I prefer a long summer. This summer was the busiest I’ve had in a long time. Two grad classes to spark my imagination and recreate my classroom and two lovely vacations to relax my brain and prepare for the year ahead. I’m ready to celebrate more JOY at school and at home. I’ve finally fallen head first back into my yoga practice and feel ready to keep that going every day with intention. Today as I practiced my mind took me back to Loon Lake in Northern Minnesota. A perfectly calm place to be.

Groovy Girl is back at the dance thing and we’ll spend 4 nights at the studio each week. We’ve picked up a small batch of school supplies here and there. Today she managed to choose a new backpack (difficult b/c of ALL the choices) but she prefers to wait until her classes begin to see what she really needs. I’m freaked out about the need for a $180.00 graphing calculator…? I’m also shocked that my baby is a junior in high school and my firstborn is about to graduate from college! My – how time flies. It seems like yesterday that I was rocking my way through library grad school with a 6-year-old and a baby. And now I’m in my 16th year of teaching.

This past week I’ve made new binders for myself, got a little organized, mentally prepared my brain, and made a new batch of my homemade salsa. My mom has huge batches of tomatoes and I wanted to remind myself of all the steps so I did it alone one night this week; chopping onions, banana peppers, jalapenos, and skinning 20 cups of hot tomatoes while listening to music. It was magic in motion and a whirlwind of hot, spicy, and a few tears shed to get to the final-6 jars of salsa!

I made a simple dinner tonight with farmers market fare and I’ve had a lovely glass of pinot noir. I ate an amazing dark chocolate bar with blackberry sage and I shared with G, J, and K. In a few minutes, I’m going off to do a little bedtime yoga. This year is going to fly by and I want it to begin (and end) with flare. Are you ready for school?

Spring Break Pizza Party!

{photo credit: @sarah_burgart}

While I was in Indiana visiting my lovely friend Barbara, of Marilyn’s Bakery fame, we had a discussion about friendship that inspired me to invite two friends to a pizza party once Groovy Girl and I returned home. Luckily the roads were clear after all the snow and we made it home safely and in good time.

My menu for the gathering:

homemade pizzas

homemade margaritas

In my message to both friends I requested they bring their top 2-4 pizza toppings. We generally don’t make meat pies and we have had people unhappy with our veggie/creative toppings so it makes it easier if we can have a little help in the topping department. After we ate the pizzas the little ones made music and danced in Groovy’s dance room. We were able to sit back and sip.

{Alice, G.G., Macy, me, Mya, and Beth}

They brought:

feta cheese, pepperoni, spinach, pineapple, cheese curds, and shredded cheese.

We had: spinach, grated mozzarella cheese, whole mozzarella, basil, the dough, sautéed mushrooms, tomatoes, and red sauce. And the margaritas of course. Kids had juice and special water.

I have many different dough I’ve used over the years; this time I used the one inside Katie Workman’s The Mom 100 Cookbook; 100 recipes every mom needs in her back pocket. It was very easy to put together. I tripled the recipe in three different bowls so we would have plenty of dough to share.

Katie Workman’s Homemade Pizza Dough

(makes enough for two 12-inch pizzas or four 6-inch)

1 package active dry yeast (2 1/4 tsps) I appreciate when they add this in because I buy my yeast in bulk and keep it in a glass jar in the fridge.

1 tsp sugar (I omit this b/c why not?)

1 tsp course salt or kosher

2 T. olive oil, plus extra for coating the bowl

3 cups all-purpose (unbleached) flour

1. Place yeast (and sugar, if you opt in) in a large bowl, add 1 cup of warm water, and let sit until small bubbles form, about 10 minutes. Mix in the salt and olive oil. Add flour gradually, mixing until the dough pulls away from the side of the bowl. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface and knead until smooth, about 4 minutes (she says, you can use a standing mixer for this part). Place the dough in a well-oiled bowl and cover it with damp dish towel or ~~plastic wrap.~~

2. Let the dough sit undisturbed in a warm place until it is doubled in size, 1-1 1/2 hours. Punch down the dough, divide into 2 balls, and roll out on floured surface. I let it rest after I roll it out so it can rise a bit again. Place it on a pizza stone (hot or not, your choice) and add sauce, toppings, cheese, whatever your heart desires.

Bake at 500* until crust is a little brown. Let rest after you remove from the oven for a few minute before cutting it with a pizza wheel.

{@sarah_burgart; look at those smiles}

Now for the adult beverage part of the celebration. All three of us are hard-working teachers who needed Spring Break to whisk us away even for an afternoon of play. My margarita recipe is from @sjkane11 who added it to our Highland Elementary recipe book a few years back. I’ve made it ever since. I prefer to make things homemade and I like to make cocktails so it was great to say adios to super sweet mixes. I’m sure I’ve shared this recipe before but here it is again in case you lost it.

Margaritas (without the pain)

12 oz. can of limeade (frozen)

12 oz. tequila

12 oz. water

2/3 can or 8 oz of triple sec

1 can domestic beer

Ice and limes as desired

Use the frozen limeade can to measure ingredients. Mix all ingredients well in a gallon pitcher. Add ice and limes. Pour generously into salt-rimmed glass. Enjoy.

Pizza and game night

I’m so excited. Tomorrow night we are hosting our son and his girlfriend for homemade pizza and a serious game of cards.

Even though we live in the same town we don’t see enough of each other. He’s a student, works full time and has his own thing. We talked at our Christmas brunch about a game night and we are just getting around to doing it. Hello Spring.

Because of the book fair/conferences we won’t be able to begin our night until 8:30. That’s okay. They eat late all the time. Because of that I am spending my night prepping most ingredients. I’ll make the dough in the morning. That way it will be easy to assemble after I close the book fair down.

I am cooking a pound of good sausage, sautéing mushrooms, onions, and garlic. I’m chopping tomatoes and artichokes. And I’ll start my tomoto sauce in the morning while I make the dough.

We’ve made pizzas so many times as a family event that we can all help roll, toss, and top our pizzas just the way we want them. I loved that when Tristan’s girlfriend suggested the pizza idea for the game night that his response was “oh if you want pizza, my mom will make pizza!”

He knows homemade is almost always better!

Weekly Recipes 7 (The glorious garden edition)

{Groovy Girl and cousin}

Summer is winding down and school looms in the near future. It’s all good. I’m blessed to have a summer off with my kids and my books. Recently I dropped Groovy Girl in Deephaven, MN at the home of my youngest brother, Jason, and his two sons who are similarly aged, 13 and 11. She was to have a week of playing with the cousins in their neighborhood and they were able to do a handful of interesting activities while she was there. Tubing and boating, Valley Fair, and the MN Institue of Art were part of the fun.

While she’s been gone I’ve been alternatally reading, writing, and creating in the kitchen. Having my own fun! I had an armload of freshly cut basil from my mom’s garden and I turned that into several containers worth of pesto.

{Just one jar left}

I also took a few pounds of our tomatoes and turned it into tomato sauce. Last year my mom canned several jars and gave them to me and I loved using the sauce throughout the winter, dumping a jar into soups, chilis, and curries. So this year I’m creating my own jars. I used this recipe to make the sauce and I used this recipe to double check my hot water pack canning method, both from The Kitchn. The sauce is delicious and I look forward to using it during the snowy months to come.

{3 of the 6 jars}

As to the bunches of basil I used a new recipe this year because I’m tired of searching high and low for pine nuts that don’t cost a fortune. My husband found this recipe that uses walnuts and we happened to have a big bag of those already in the kitchen.

Basil-Spinach Pesto with walnuts

1/3 cup walnuts, finely chopped
1 cup packed basil leaves (about 2 ozs)
1 cup packed spinach leaves (about 2 ozs)
1/2 cup shredded Parmesan cheese
1 tsp diced garlic
1/2 tsp kosher sea salt
pinch of red pepper flakes, optional
2/3 cup extra virgin olive oil

1. Preheat oven to 350*. Place walnuts on an ungreased baking sheet and bake until lightly toasted, about 10 minutes; remove and set aside to cool.

2. In a food processor, combine basil, spinach, walnuts, Parmesan, garlic, salt and red pepper. Cover and pulse until coarsely chopped. Add oil and process until smooth.

3. Store in the refrigerator for up to one week or in the freezer for up to 1 month. Thaw frozen pesto in refrigerator overnight.

This is what I did differently: I did not use spinach. I didn’t have any and so I just used extra basil this time – I had that much. I may try the spinach part next week when I will have another huge batch of basil. I did add my own homemade dried pepper chunks from last year’s garden. My pesto lasts longer in the freezer than this recommendation. Sometimes I’ve left the cheese out to freeze but I’ve found it does not really matter.

I had a pretty big batch made but after using it for an appetizer for a pre-school party and after giving college boy a big container I haven’t frozen any yet. Luckily my mom is bringing me more so I will go through this process again.

What’s coming up in your garden?

Are you watching the Oscars?

We are and we had friends over to share the night with and it’s fun to watch with others as we “judge” dresses, hairstyles, and handsome guys! Neil Patrick Harris is doing a fantastic job of hosting-perfect amount of dry wit and silliness/underwear.

I was up early this morning making dough for homemade pizzas, cut up veggies, cheeses and cooked good Italian sausage + more to enjoy. Our friends brought salad, chocolates, wine, and beer. We filled out Oscar ballots and had fun watching everyone stroll down the red carpet in the rain.

This event is part of my NY’s resolution to have a new person over for dinner once a month and two months out I’m still going strong. This was a little bit more stressful event though as my husband had a play open last night, my stepmother was an overnight guest last night, and my amazing in-laws are arriving this week plus I’ve had a lot of balls in the air at work. We pulled it off though and I’m pretty sure everyone had fun.

My reason for making this a resolution; I worry about the cleanliness of my house. I don’t like to clean house. Why would I want to dust when I can be reading? I do love to cook though so I made a promise to worry more about what I could make for people instead of where dust bunnies are hiding. The pizza was a hit and nobody mentioned any dust. This is now my measure of success.

Also we made this kickass batch of mint fudge. It was delicious and we made a double batch (super smart) so we can share it with our incoming guests.

Our Oscar comments feed:

What’s with so many red dresses?

What up with Lady Gaga gloves?

The Lego movie rocks!

Lots of hair that really looks a lot like “bed hair”

So happy that Patricia Arquette won! And her speech was wonderful.

Reese and Anna Kendell looked fantastic.

Felicity Jones looked great.

Scarlett: amazing dress shade!

Mmmm. John Legend.

We all agreed we would like a Lego Oscar statue….

Thank you. That’s it. Good night.