Mmm Greg's cooking and Cloud's oven broke!!! Where have I been? So how did Greg make the roasted chicken? Since you did your last harvest what will you guys do with the garden all winter?

So school's going good... I guess??? I'll be glad when this semester's over. Cloud and I are trying to get together and book/send evites for the camping trip.

I'm trying to find time so I can decorate my house in fall decorations. I'm kind of excited. I don't know if I'll make anything or just garage sale.

I propose for the month of October to make Halloween treats. We could do rice krispies, popcorn balls, cupcakes, and much more. Let me know what you guys think.

Well ttyl
Love you guys
*BaBy DuCk*

Hello Seesters.

Let's use this blog! I propose that we just use this to keep in touch with each other. We just all post here about what's going on. That can be things we're cooking or sewing. Or goals we reach. Or stuff going in school or whatever. We can give recipe ideas, craft ideas - anything.

What do you think?

For instance, we just harvested the last of the summer veggies. We got a huge sweet potato that looks like a duck. And Greg made a roast chicken the other night that was DE-lish! I'm trying to teach him to cook.

Amelia, have you used your dutch oven yet?

Cloud, what have you been doing for dinner since you don't have a stove?

Our water pump went out last night. So we are without water for at least the weekend. Fun times. That should present a challenge with cooking dinner!

Holla back seestahs.

Hello

Hello sisters. It is a new month. So we need a new topic. Amelia, any suggestions? Will it be sushi month? Last month wasn't full participation, but its over, lets move on to something fun!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Gnocchi...dinner in a pinch

Okay, so I made gnocchi and was surprised how easy the whole thing was. The recipe calles for 1lb. of potatoes and 1 cup of flour. Two potatoes of mine constituted a pound so I put about 5 unpeeled potatoes in to boil in my dutch oven for over 30 min. They felt soft enough, and I held them with a dishtowel to peel them. I actually thought peeling them after would be more of a pain than before, but the peels came off so easily. I put them into a bowl, then mashed them, only to find out that I should have left them on for about 5-10 more minutes, because they were kind of chunky as opposed to mushy. The recipe said to add half the flour and work in more until it becomes a dough consistency. Adding to much would lose all flavor and adding to little, would make them crumble. I also added salt and fresh ground black pepper. Then I dug my hands in and began to mix. I was alarmed to see that after adding the entire cup of flour it still didn't have a dough consistency, then remembered that I did have more potatoes. So, another half a cup later, it felt like dough. ta-da. Then I scooped a little out and rolled it into a long worm about 1/2" thick. Oh I put water on to boil and salted it thoroughly. I then cut the "worm" into 1" pieces, then with a floured fork, pressed in to make indentations. After each roll, I would drop it in the water, and prepare another roll. By the time I was done, the gnocchi had floated to the top and stayed there for about a minute. I used a slotted spoon to retrieve them and then I set it aside. I was working with limited food availability in my kitchen, so here is how the improvisation went. I sauteed garlic in evoo and then added a bag of frozen vegetables. There was broccoli, red peppers, baby corn and carrots. I sauteed those all up, added salt, pepper, and a dash of oregano and BAM! Dinner.
After making gnocchi, I have come to a couple of conclusions.
-It is definetly a budget friendly meal.
-Effort is minimal.
Next time, I would like to try using different kinds of flours, and definetly different sauces.

Gnarly Gnocchi

Alright seesters, It is the month of May and I have chosen to make gnocchi. Now I would like to actually make it from scratch and incorporate it into meals and dishes. So, ready, get set, go. It's Gnocchi time!!!!!

Whole Wheat Dough

so, i made pizza again tonight.  but i forgot to take pictures - which shouldn't make too big a difference since i still haven't figured out the posting of the pictures.

anyhoo...

i hadn't planned on making pizza tonight.  but greg came home from work early and i needed something quick and easy.  i had to work with what i had on hand and improvise my toppings.  but i decided i would try a whole wheat crust.  though i had an actual recipe for a whole wheat crust, the recipe made enough dough for 6 crusts.  and cutting the recipe in half was too much math.  and i didn't have "whole wheat pastry flour" - just plain whole wheat flour.  in fact, i'm having a heck of a time finding whole wheat pastry flour.  but that's neither here nor there.

so i decided to stick with the same recipe, just sub the white flour for whole wheat flour.  and actually, i used graham flour instead of regular whole wheat flour.  i got the graham flour in hopes of making a particular bread recipe because it said the graham flour has a better taste to it than regular WW.  i still haven't made that bread recipe.  but i've used the graham flour in other stuff so far and i quite like it.  i also added some ground flaxseed (1/2 cup) to the flour mix.  i think since i did that (and perhaps also because of the graham flour), i needed a bit more water than last time.  i just added water a little at a time until i thought it was a good consistency.

of course, being WW, it didn't rise nearly as much.  still, i cut the dough in half and saved the other half for another pizza.  i'm very glad i did that.  it would have been way too much crust to topping ration otherwise.  i happen to have some pork sausage, leeks, and mushrooms that we bought at the farmer's market last week.  so i sauteed all that up.  i cut some basil and sage from the garden and put that on after the sauce (just used jarred spaghetti sauce).  i had to make do in the cheese department.  no mozz.  so i put some provolone, farmhouse cheddar (white), and parmagiano regiano.

all in all it was a good pizza.  i don't think i've found my WW crust recipe.  but it wasn't bad.  the topping was really good and there was a lot leftover.  i thawed some puff pastry the other day that i didn't use.  i'm thinking about trying to make a version of birrocks with all that left over stuff.  and of course, i still have another pizza crust to use!

pizza is fun!

MMMM Pizza

Finally, I made my pizza. I had been craving it all month. So I really wanted to make a deep dish pizza and decided on a cast iron skillet. Julie's crust recipe seemed perfect because it was thick. It really did rise, almost too much. I punched it down and rolled it out to put into the skillet and pulled some off, so there would be a top crust. Within five minutes, while I was creating my assembly line to put the filling in, the dough rose again, almost too much. I'm not very good at kneading dough and stretching it out and did not want to pull it out again to deflate it. So, I tried to push it down as much as I could and then began to fill with the good stuff. 

I made my own tomato sauce. I started by roasting in the oven 10 roma tomatoes. I put the tomatoes on the stove and added red wine, a considerable amount of garlic, red pepper flakes and a little less than a tablespoon of sugar. I thought about adding a dash of cocoa powder to bring richness to the sauce, but somehow forgot. I had it boil down, so that it would be thicker. I mashed the tomatoes and stirred in increments and I almost forgot salt. I tasted it and its so crazy how much a dash of salt brings out the flavor. 

In another skillet (which I'm not sure why I didn't think of using the cast iron skillet to do this, to prevent dirtying up too many dishes) i sauteed spicy Italian chicken sausage, already cooked, red peppers, mushrooms, and garlic. The sausage was already cooked so just kinda wanted the flavor to meld with the veggies. I threw spinach in at the very end as I took it off the stove, because I hate when spinach is over-wilted. 

The assembly: 

I ladled a small layer of sauce. Covered the bottom with basil. Sprinkled mozzarella cheese. Put the filling in, ladled more sauce on top, and covered with cheese. The pie was considerably full, but I thought it would help in not letting the crest puff up too much. I then covered the top with the remaining dough and pinched the edges together. Then covered the top of the pie with a layer of sauce. Popped it in a 400 degree oven and took it out when it smelled like pizza or about 40 minutes.

Here is a picture of the result.

 So, as you can see the crust kinda exploded. It was way too thick, but really good and soft. i just wish it was thick and a little bit more stationary instead of all bubbly. i should have let the sauce thicken more, maybe add some cornstarch or something, because it makes the bottom crust kinda soggy. Everything else was mmm good. I love how the skillet worked and sauce and filling was good, just wanna try a different crust. Hmmmm, so the search is on. i want something thick but not so airy. 

Also for Easter, I made a black forest cake and want to show you the pictures because it was so pretty.