A May Weekend

Still working on catching up. Let me tell you about one of the last weekends in May.

 

Friday, May 21, the elementary school had their dance festival outside. It rained just a little. Jet and I went to watch. He's not used to going places where he has to be still so some of my videos of the boys are a bit shaky with me trying to keep Jet with me. Overall he did a pretty good job, though. Yay for snacks! The boys also did a good job with their dances.

That day was also Pizza Party Day. We had individual pizzas like we had last year for that holiday.

We were also going to have a balloon quad party to help Jeremy with a balloon arch, but Jr. ended up putting together all the quads himself which was a big help. Thanks, Jr.

Even though Jeremy had so much going on, he brought me home some flowers. Aww. He's a sweetie.

Saturday, May 22, Nichole and Jr. went with Jeremy to finish putting together and setting up the balloon arch.

Jeremy also helped out at the Create fair at Thanksgiving Point that day. It's like the maker fair he did before.

The kids and I waited for a delivery and while we were outside, we got out my unicycle and Jr. had some fun trying it out. It's been so many years but I did a little, too. 

That evening, I went to help Jeremy take the arch down, leaving the kids to make "mystery meat" pizza muffins since it was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's birthday and he wrote the Sherlock Holmes stories. There were several different kinds of meat and I told the kids to put different meats in different muffins so nobody would know what they were eating until they bit into them.

May 22 was also Maritime Day so we had orange jello with "navel" oranges in it. Get it? Get it? Jr.'s idea. It was also Vanilla Pudding Day so we had vanilla pudding. 

And it was Solitaire Day. It would have been fun to go out birding looking for solitaires (yes, they are birds) but we didn't. But Jr. Jr. and Lucky did play some solitaire that day (just not together- tee hee).

 

Lucky wanted to learn how to make chicken cordon bleu casserole so Sunday, May 23, he learned. He did a good job following the recipe and putting ingredients in. He had a little help with mixing from Mom because when you have a big bowlful of stuff, it can sometimes be hard. I am glad my kids are interested in learning cooking skills that will be a big help for them in the future.

I'm the Cook

Nichole came to me one day with some cooking gear as I was getting ready to make dinner and told me, "Hey, I'm the cook, Mom."

She proceeded to help me make pizza muffins.

Mixing the ingredients

Kneeding the dough

Rolling it out

And afterward, enjoying the fruits of her labor (or at least the muffins of her labor)

Later she told me, "I'm the pizza cook. Mommy's the rice cook. Daddy's the pasta cook. Jr. is the brownie cook." Though both Jeremy and I agree that Jr. is more like the brownie burglar.

Pizza Muffins

Some people asked how Nichole and I made pizza muffins, so I figured I’d tell about it here. First I’d like to give some background about myself. I’m not a bad cook and I’m not bad at baking, however, I’d always been intimidated by using yeast. Whenever we made rolls or pizza dough, my husband was the one to make them. I was afraid of not getting the water at the perfect temperature as I had always heard it would kill the yeast if it was too hot. Fall 2008 I took a bread making class at our church building. A mother and daughter team from Pantry Secrets, a small business based in Utah County, came to teach us about their bread dough recipe. A versatile recipe that can be used for so many more things than just bread. I learned that in their recipe, you use hot tap water and guess what… it doesn’t kill the yeast. I instantly became a fan of this bread recipe and I’ve been making bread as well as using this dough for other things ever since. Jeremy got me their DVD for Christmas and I’ve been using the tips in there for so many dough projects from cinnamon rolls to hamburger buns. You can learn more at www.pantrysecrets.net
Now that I’ve got my little testimonial out of the way, I’m going to put the basic bread recipe on here. If anyone finds out that I’m not supposed to do that, let me know, but as far as I know it’s okay. I’m letting you know where it’s from and telling you that I am very pleased with this.

[I’ll add my own comments in brackets]

Pantry Secrets Homemade Bread Recipe [this is written for use with a Bosch mixer or Kitchen Aid, neither of which I have, so I do it by hand]
10 ½ cups white bread flour or wheat flour (do not use all-purpose flour)
½ cup sugar
1 Tablespoon salt
3 rounded Tablespoons saf-instant yeast
3 Tablespoon liquid lecithin* [soy lecithin is an emulsifier, I think. Instead of using oil, lecithin is used. It is shelf-stable and does not go rancid like oil does after a while]
4 cups hot tap water
Mix dry ingredients [I do it in a big bowl with a mixing spoon]. Add lecithin and water. Mix for 1 minute and check consistency. If dough is too dry, add more water. If dough is too moist, add more flour. Mix for 5 minutes [or dump it out of the bowl onto a sprayed with cooking spray surface and knead by hand for 10 minutes]. (Do not add water or flour to the dough after it has finished mixing.) Spray counter and pans with Pam. Shape loaves and cover with a dish towel. Let raise 25 minutes. Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes. This recipe makes four loaves of bread.
*Squeeze or pour approximately 3 Tablespoons of lecithin directly into the bowl. Do not measure [they said the lecithin is too hard to clean off mixing spoons, so that’s why they say don’t measure].
For whole wheat bread, use the same recipe but add one cup of applesauce as part of the hot tap water. Mix for ten minutes.

Now for Nichole’s and my part. We divided up the kneaded dough into the four loaves. Two were wrapped in plastic wrap and put in the fridge for later use in rolled out doughs. One loaf was divided up into hoagie type buns (and Nichole’s contribution of her sort of kneaded dough). The last loaf was divided up into a bunch of rounds rolled out. I let them sit for a bit while working on baking the hoagies and gathering pizza toppings.

Then I rolled the rounds out again (After they had raised a little while sitting, they rolled out even bigger). Now came the toppings. Each got a little bit of tomato sauce, then a sprinkling of garlic powder and Italian seasoning, followed by some cut up pepperoni and pieces of olives, topped with mozzarella cheese.

I gathered up the edges at the top and pinched them together, then put them in a muffin tin. I baked them in the oven at 400 degrees F. for 10 minutes.

Pizza muffins. Yum.

Of course this is the dough I use because it doesn't intimidate me, but other doughs you're comfortable with will work.