My big boy!

Several weeks ago C had a day off in the middle of the week.  Love those!  He had a ton to get done around the house so decided to send Z to school for part of the day.  Z was running around like a crazy boy and trying to "help" Daddy find clothes by throwing everything out of the drawer.  So C picked him up and plopped him in his crib.

Undeterred Z hopped up and proceeded to climb out of the crib and jump into a pile of bean bags!  In the middle of the climb I hear C yell, "Uh Lisa you better come in here and see this."  I caught him mid jump.  I about had a heart attack!

We didn't feel like learning if he would try the same manuever that evening and opted to transition his crib to a toddler bed.  We were pretty scared about the whole thing but the alternative was a cracked head.

C went and got a gate for the doorway.  We're thinking of changing out the door one day to one of those half doors!  Wouldn't that rock!?

The first night was a dream.  He ran to the gate once and cried.  I brought him back to his bed and he fell asleep.  It has been about three weeks and we haven't had  trouble putting him to sleep.

That is, until the last two nights.  I think he wants to stay up with us as if we're up to anything fun.  Little does he know how lame his parents really are.

Highly anticipated Sunday Pizza Dough!

We've added a couple new static pages to the blog.  I am shamelessly advertising them through a post for those that subscribe. 

Most noteworthy - C finally had some time (and a badgering wife) and wrote up how to make our pizza dough!  If you don't know what his day job is try and guess based on his write-up.  The answer is in the About us page.

If some of the pizza photos make you drool don't just throw in a frozen pizza or call Dominos.  Start your own Sunday Pizza!  You don't have to be all crazy like we are and do it weekly.  You could just make homemade pizza (or even sort of homemade, hello jiffy) once and on Tuesday and it counts in my book.

Finally, interested in knowing what's on the Sunday Pizza Calendar?  Yeppers, I've gone off the deep end completely and embedded a google calendar showing who is coming to pizza or what the theme is for a given Sunday. 

If you want to email with any crazy pizza pictures or in general here's the email!  SundayPizzaBlog@gmail.com

Sunday Pizza: 01.23.2011

Stuffed Crust ready to bake!

Do you ever have one of those Sundays where you look forward to Monday?  If you have kids you probably know what I'm talking about. Right around 6:30 I said, "Man, I can't wait for Monday!"  Did I feel guilty?  Puh-lease!

Here's the skinny ... Sat morning C practically buzzed Z's hair.  [Turns out he is a cutie and can wear it short and C continues to remind me it will grow back]  While prepping Z for a military career C noticed his ear had nasty stuff coming out of it.  blah.  There goes soccer - here we come doctor!  Turns out Z has an ear infection and slight pneumonia.  Poor little guy.  [he has tubes in both ears, hence the nasty stuff]  Sat night C had a fever too.  What's going on?

Sit n Spin

We almost cancelled all Sunday plans but C and Z made miraculous recoveries by Sunday morning.  Way to go!  We watched the Bears wear their uniforms and pass to the wrong team for a couple hours.  Dreadful.

Thin crust with all different size slices

Luckily, Z's and his buddy Elliott go to school together so he's long been exposed to anything Z has [pretty much screwed] and his parents were comfortable coming over.  The boys fought like brothers from minute one.  Z and E and their parents decided to skip making pizzas this week.  phew.

In honor of the Bears game we decided to make an official stuffed pizza.  Well, official might be pushing it since C insisted on going light on the cheese.  We treated ourselves to a 12" cast iron skillet to make a larger pie to feed 6 adults.  As you can see above we also made our traditional thin crust.

Enough sausage, ya think?

What makes it truly Chicago is the wall to wall sausage layer on the bottom. Um... Yum!  We blind baked the crust, then layered with cooked sausage, cooked spinach, red bell pepper, then cheese.  Finally, we topped it with a thick layer of sauce.  My mom will tell you too much sauce...

The one error we made is to not cook the pepper.  Pre-cooking toppings release their liquids so the dough doesn't get soggy.  The dough was a little soggy but everyone claimed to love it nonetheless.  Next time, we'll cook all non-cheese toppings and blind bake the crust longer.  All part of the journey.

Oatmeal Breakfast Cookie

Did you ever see Seinfeld do standup?  He always talked about Cookie Crisp cereal. "What is the deal with Cookie Crisp? I mean, really, it's cookies for breakfast!"  The SNL spoof would say, "Who are the ad geniuses that came up with this one?"

In our continued quest to eat better C and I have been eating oatmeal for breakfast more and more.  Let's just say, no matter what we add neither one of us is a fan of the gloppiness of oatmeal.  It is hard to eat regularly.

One morning C said to me, "I wish we could just have oatmeal like in a cookie or something."  Bingo!  I looked up a couple recipes and made a batch that very day!  It was an awesome idea and they came out fabulous.  To be on the safe side I made another batch with success.  Make them Sunday night and they last the week.

I'm betting these are dynamite (and even easier) made as breakfast bars.  If you try it lemme know what you think.  How about that Seinfeld?  You can have cookies for breakfast!

Oatmeal Breakfast Bars
based on WiseBread Recipe

2 mashed ripe bananas (as evident in picture of ingredients)
1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
1/4 cup milk
1 Tbsp honey
2 globs of peanut butter
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp cinnamon
2 cups uncooked oatmeal
1/2 cup raisins

handful of chocolate chips (I happen to have dark choc chunks - YUMMY)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  In large bowl mash bananas then add applesauce through cinnamon and stir well.  Add oatmeal and combine.  Once fully mixed add raisins and choc chips. Let sit 5 minutes.

I gotta say the chocolate is BOSS in this recipe.  You only get a little choc here and there but it'll make your morning, I promise!

Ok plop cookie dough onto pammed cookie sheet.  I used the back of a spoon dipped in water to flatten the cookies.  Bake for 15-20 minutes.  Yowser they are tasty.

Kafta Kabobs

Why oh why is Mediterranean food so delicious?!  I just love it to pieces.  Just one minor little hiccup... I hate olives.  blah!  Yes yes like loving French food but hating cheese.  Or loving Daily Show and hating Jon Stewart (gasp!)  What can I say, I dislike salty, slimy, briny, chewy black eyeball looking things.

Anyway, this post is dedicated to my dear friend and former teaching colleague, Gina!  First off I owe her an apology for not responding to her email this weekend.  Sorry Gina - I have no excuse other than I'm lame.  You're the best and deserve the best and eff all the rest!  Nuff said!

On ferry to San Juan Islands

Last week or so I blogged about making tzatziki.  [Andrea left a comment on the tzatkiki post with a link to a fab sounding Mediterranean layer dip.  ooh just lose those olives. Thanks Andrea!]  Gina emailed me and said she "loved tzatziki ... fond memories of hotty Greek boyfriend from college ... please post what to put it on!"  Ok raise your hand if you want to hear more about hotty Greek boyfriend?  Stay tuned for details from G in the comments.  hint hint, G.

I feel like I'm still working on Falafel so I made Kafta Kabobs instead.  This is a killer recipe and actually my bro-in-law's favorite.  Couple notes, you can bake like meatballs or actually skewer and grill.  We grill in the summer and bake in the winter.  Do what you like.  Notice anything missing in the picture above?  Yep, tzatziki!  DUH!  In my haste to snap a shot before gobbling it down I forgot it.  Woops.  Imagine it there.

Kafta Kabobs

1 lb ground beef
1 lb ground lamb (this isn't always avail in grocery store.  We've used all beef plenty of times just fine)
3/4 cup parsley minced
1 small to medium onion finely diced
2-3 cloves garlic crushed
2 tsp cumin (heaven)
1/4 tsp cinnamon
salt/pepper

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Spray a cookie sheet with cooking spray.

Weigh your options here... I tend to use my food processor and pulse the parsley, throw in large bowl, pulse the onion throw in bowl with parsely, then pulse the garlic throw in bowl with parsley and onion.  This is instead of prepping by hand.  The trade-off is it saves time but you have to wash the food processor vs one knife.  I'd rather wash personally.

Add the rest of the ingredients to the bowl and mix until well combined.  Another option is to use the Kitchenaide if you have one.  You have to dirty a large bowl anyway so why not use the Kitchenaide and wash the paddle.  Easy.  Only use "Stir" setting and mix until combined.

Shape into short little sausage sized kabobs.  Plop onto cookie sheet and bake for 30 minutes or so.  I cut one in half to make sure they are done.  The best thing about these is you can double or triple the recipe and freeze after baking.  They reheat awesome!  Chow down!

Sunday Pizza: 01.16.2011

Deep dish only seemed fitting to celebrate Da Bears win!!  Sadly, they beat the Seahawks and I feel for my Seattle buddies that are Hawks fans.  Ok, I'm really not that sad.  Next week, bring on the cheeseheads!

Pepperoni lips!  Don't you love C's shirt?

We have enjoyed a nice long weekend.  Sunday Papa Howie and Bubbe came over for pizza.  Z was ecstatic to see them!  He played with Papa or Bubbe as we worked on the pizzas.  [Z makes a pizza every week but we ultimately started this whole thing to perfect our pizza.  The dream is to open our own pizzeria someday.]

A word about Chicago style pizza.  [Anyone feel free to comment with your thoughts]  Most people think Chicago style is only stuffed pizza. This is a huge misconception.  There's more to Chicago pizza!  Stuffed pizza is basically a pan pizza with probably a pound of cheese and usually one maybe two toppings.  Then it is topped with sauce and baked.  It can also be topped with another layer of dough then sauce.  One piece of stuffed pizza stays with you for about two weeks, like luggage.  "They get lodged right here!"  Imagine me pointing to my gut like Tommy Boy.

We made deep dish.  Think thick crust.  Normal amounts of cheese and toppings but on thicker crust.  Still an investment to digest but not nearly as glutenous.

We haven't made a deep dish pizza in ages and were a little clunky.  Eventually, it worked out just fine.  We found a technique we like from Cook's Illustrated.  First, stretch dough to larger than the deep dish pan you are using. We use a 10" cast iron skillet which works for 4 adults.

Lightly oil the bottom of pan then add dough, pushing it up the sides.  Cover with tin foil then weight with dried beans to blind bake.  We happen to have a heavy ceramic bowl just smaller than the skillet.  Bake at 450 degrees for about 10 minutes.

C made this lovely bowl

In a large bowl combine toppings for the pizza.  This includes plenty of sauce but NOT the cheese.  Our filling happened to be sauce, sausage, mushrooms, onion, yellow bell pepper, and sauteed spinach.  Yep, the WORKS!  When crust comes out of the oven remove the bowl and tin foil.  Add filling to dough and top with cheese.  Bake for 20 minutes or until cheese is brown to your liking.

We also made our normal thin crust pizza.  I totally loved the deep dish pie but thin crust is my fav!  Here's to a fun-filled short week for everyone.

Happy Friday!

We made it!  Gotta say I've had better weeks.  I've even had better sucky weeks.  sheesh!  Want some cheese with that whine? :)  Why yes I do.

Have a fab LONG weekend, do something wild and crazy!  Please know that tonight I will raise a glass (or two) of wine tonight and toast you all.  

What am I making for dinner?  Lamb and beef kafta kababs.  mmmm like fancy gyros.  How's that for an oxymoron?  Watch for the post next week.

Cheers!