Homemade pizza improvements: HOT oven and cornmeal for rolling out dough

The girls' pizza: half cheese and pepperoni, half pepperoni and olives

We've been having fun with homemade pizza. As much as we love our local chain's pies, it is more economical (and sometimes even yummier) to eat in. Responsibility for pizza night has switched from Zed ordering online and picking it up, to me making pizza from scratch.

As with just about everything, the key to pizza success is in the preparation. Before making the dough, preheat the oven to 500 degrees Fahrenheit. In our house, we have a cast iron pizza "stone" which I give at least an hour to get to temperature. During that time, make the dough and let it rest and rise.

(Go watch the Olympics, or do something fun while you wait.)

After the oven is hot, and the dough has doubled in size, spread out a square of parchment paper and sprinkle it with cornmeal. Flour will work if you don't have it, but Kathy wants you to know that it tastes better with cornmeal.

Roll out the dough, brush it with olive oil, and finish with your favorite toppings. Kathy likes to help with this step. Her favorite part is spreading olive oil and tomato sauce to the edges.

When ready to cook, transfer the pizza (on parchment paper still) to the hot stone. In our oven, it bakes to crusty perfection in 12 minutes.

The grown-ups' pizza includes spinach (and sometimes blue cheese)

My dough recipe:
2 1/4 Cups all purpose flour
2 Cups white whole wheat flour
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 teaspoons yeast
1 3/4 Cups warm water

1. Set up stand mixer with dough hook. (You can do this all by hand, but I prefer not to.)
2. Combine dry ingredients and olive oil in the mixer's bowl. 
3. Add the warm water.
4. Turn the mixer on low to combine the water and flour mixture.
5. After all the water has been absorbed, turn the mixer's speed to medium and let the machine knead the dough for five minutes.
6. Remove the bowl (with dough in it) from the mixer. With oiled hands, form the dough into a ball, replace it back in the bowl, and cover the bowl with a kitchen towel.
7. Let the dough rise until it doubles in size, about one hour. Could be less, could be more. 
8. Finish your pizza as above. If it isn't to your taste the first time around, make some tweaks to the process next time. Let me know what works for you!

*****

I do take a shortcut with the pizza sauce, but only because we found a great tasting one in a jar. That's why I could take that hour to relax while the dough was resting. This is the one we like:

Most-fun-ever chicken noodle soup

It's been cold and snowy, and Kathy has been asking for chicken soup. While she's a big fan of Panera's chicken noodle soup, she hasn't been enthusiastic about my weak and basically flavorless broth. 

Last year when a friend's kitchen was scented with a most heavenly soup, I asked for tips. "Time. Let it simmer until all the goodness is in the broth." The next time I had a chicken carcass, I plopped it in my largest pot with an onion, carrots, celery, and bay leaves and covered it with water. It started in the morning and cooked all day. Hours and hours of simmering led to the best chicken broth I had ever made. Success! 

I hesitated to use this method again because I would need to be home to babysit the stove. I wanted a method with which I could leave the house. Another friend had success with making the stock in a crock pot. Brilliant! 

During our recent big snow storm, we had a roast chicken. After dinner, I set up the slow cooker, turned it on low for fourteen hours, went to bed, and woke up to a most comforting aroma.

Chicken carcass, carrots, onions, sage, peppercorns, bay leaves, water

This same friend with the crockpot idea mentioned making homemade noodles, and what a fun project it was with her daughter. The conversation reminded me that I have a pasta maker in my pantry -- the same one my parents used to make noodles with me when I was little -- that I haven't used for a few years. 

"Taryn, would you like to make pasta with me?" 

Is that a question? 

2 cups of flour, four eggs. Probably more fun to just do this on the counter by hand.

The recipe couldn't be easier with only two ingredients...plus some time and effort.

After an hour, divide up the dough. Clamp the pasta machine to the counter, and get started.

The crank turns a pair of rollers that start out about 1/4 inch away from each other. Process the dough by feeding it through the rollers a series of times. Move the rollers closer to each other each time, and eventually the dough is a paper-thin sheet.

Cutting the noodles

Now crank the sheet of pasta through the cutter of your choice. Kathy likes fettuccine sized for her chicken soup.

Noodles hanging out before going into soup

This noodley gadget is useful, but not necessary. My parents would lay the noodles out on dish cloths on the dining room table. I prefer not to do this because I have three curious, mischievous, thieving cats.

Taryn as noodle walrus

We had fun making noodles!

Kathy-approved chicken noodle soup

Final steps for most-fun-ever chicken noodle soup include:

1. Strain the broth from the solids.
2. Put the broth in the snow to cool down quickly.
3. Skim the fat that has risen to the top.
4. Saute onions and carrots in a big pot, then add broth and bring to a boil.
5. Let soup simmer until veggies are soft.
6. Break noodles into 2 inch pieces, add them to the soup. 
7. Fresh noodles cook fast! After two to four minutes, this soup is ready to serve.
8. Enjoy!

Snow Day!

I remember the excitement of snow days when I was a kid. The best ones were the surprises: waking up to inches of snow piled up outside my window and knowing -- without turning on the radio or tv -- that school would be out for the day.

View from our back door at 6:30am on our snow day!
(I love how snow changes the shape of familiar objects. )

But still there was a thrill of waiting to hear my school system named, among the long list in the DC metro area, as one that would be closed. My parents listened to WAMU for the news, I would turn on Channel 4 and wait for Bob Ryan to make the announcement. Then I'd do a little dance, and head over to my best friend's house to make blueberry pancakes before a day of sledding.

Snow days are different for my kids. It's not just the easy access to information via internet. Facebook, Twitter, and alerts through the local government take all the suspense away. Worse for my homeschooled girls, they don't even know the thrill of the announcement of No School. Since there's no commute, we carry on with "school" as usual.

This winter has been rough for Taryn and Kathy, as they hear about other kids getting out of school for extreme cold, threats of ice, and snow that may or may not be enough to prevent driving to the fabulous sledding hill in another neighborhood. Their routine has remained the same: get up, eat something, do some work, then play. 

Which, to a kid who goes to school, might sound pretty great. But that's another story.

Our school system has already announced that tomorrow is a day off. Our schooled friends are probably rejoicing. From Facebook comments, I can see that their parents have mixed feelings about yet another snow day. At our house? Deep sighs. "I know it will be just another normal day," Taryn muttered.

So maybe it won't be. Maybe I'll call it a snow day, too. We will shake up the routine and play hooky from homeschool. 

Do I tell them tonight? Or wait until morning when they see the snow piled up outside their window?

Either way...Snow day! I'm excited, too.

Planning a Court of Awards: "Ask the girls!"

If you are a Girl Scout, have been a Girl Scout, or have a daughter who is a Girl Scout, you will recognize that the Court of Awards is an important event. Even if you have no affiliation with the Girl Scouts, the name makes that clear. Our girls planned out their most recent Court of Awards, and it was the most charming, sweet, and unique party. No perfection required.

From decorations to food to opening ceremony, the girls decided how they wanted to celebrate their accomplishments, and gave themselves the assignments for how to contribute to the party. For the first time, all my co-leader and I had to do to prepare for the event was get the awards ready. The girls did the rest.

A selection of awards, badges, and patches the girls earned

At the planning meeting, the decorations patrol came up with the idea of making garlands from materials they already had at home. The results were really cute, from paper chains, to green and white tassels, to G-I-R-L-S-C-O-U-T-S spelled out on "badges," to chains of paper dolls.

Decorations over the fireplace

High fiving for a job well done

The ceremony patrol planned a traditional opening with a surprise twist. After the seriousness of saluting the flag and reciting the Girl Scout promise, they would break into song and throw confetti. Their "homework" for the party was to make a bag of confetti (using materials from home, natch), and to cut out paper bananas to throw, because, as the song goes, "There's No Bananas in the Sky."

Banana on the floor, not in the sky

The food committee was kind of funny -- if there was a theme, it was "bring something you like." Their table had fruit, veggies and dip, oatmeal cookies, potato chips, and Doritos, so it turned out well. One thing we will work on next time is being more allergy-friendly. When the grown-ups do the planning, it is a lot easier to make sure all the food is safe for all the girls. For this celebration, we made sure to send the girls with allergies through the line first to avoid cross-contamination of safe with unsafe foods.

Good selection of party food

The day of the Court of Awards was cold, and a fresh blanket of snow covered the camp. Our car was the first to drive in, and we followed animal tracks up the road, leaving our tire tracks behind. The girls and I built a fire in the lodge, turned up the thermostat, and did not have long to wait before friends showed up.

As the meeting started, the patrols cycled through stations: getting ready for the party, working on the World Thinking Day poster about Pakistan, and making posters for their cookie booths.

The ceremony went smoothly, the party was fun, and everyone helped to clean up! I'm so proud of the girls and their all their accomplishments.

That was fun!

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Bonus feature:  I wrote this up to help the troop parents and others in our Service Unit.

Where do all those awards, badges, and patches go?

Quick answer:  Awards on the front of the uniform, patches on the back.

When in doubt, consult The Girl’s Guide to Girl Scouting, or visit this website: http://www.girlscouts.org/program/basics/for_volunteers/where_to_place/

Long answer (with lots of important details):

Journey awards receive prominent display on the uniform. On a vest, they go on the left front (same side as the membership pin), near the bottom edge. On a sash, they go on the front underneath the other insignia.

Badges also go on the front of the uniform. On a vest, they go on the right front (same side as the troop insignia) applied from the bottom edge up. On a sash, they go below any Journey awards.

• Girls should be able to talk about some of the things they did to earn any badge on their uniform.
• Girls who regularly attend troop meetings and events will earn badges along the way.
• Some girls enjoy working on badges on their own, and will have lots of badges on their uniforms.
• If your daughter needs guidance about how to earn a badge, please talk to a troop leader. She will be happy to help you out!

Patches always go on the back of the uniform. Generally these are given to recognize a girl’s participation in events, because sometimes just showing up is hard! Encouraging girls to honor commitments is why our troop gives participation patches. Visit http://www.girlscoutsnyc.org/blog?p=223 to read about why one Ambassador Girl Scout is proud of her participation patches.

The Honor Troop patch is an exception, as it is an earned award that goes on the back of the uniform. The Council recognizes troops that go out into the world and do what Girl Scouts do, like community service, going on fun trips, doing outdoor activities, and selling cookies. For the application, see: http://www.gscnc.org/files/pdf/leader/c310.pdf

• Place this patch in a prominent place on the back of the uniform.
• Leave room for the “rocker patches” that indicate the year of the award.
• This patch will move from uniform to uniform as the girls grow through the program. Girls who “fly up” from Brownies to Juniors, for example, will remove the patch from the one uniform to place on the other.

The Early Bird patch is another award the troop earns. Before the end of the school year, we start making plans for the next one. When we commit to each other (and to the Council) that our troop will be active and ready to have fun in September, we earn this award.

• At least half of the current troop needs to register early.
• Girls who register early earn the award and a rocker patch for the year.
• Follow the guidelines as for Honor Troop when you place your Early Bird patch.