Thank you

Thank you to all those who have served and who are serving in the military, and thank you to their families. Memorial Day is the designated day to remember, but regardless of the day, we will never forget.

"Pizza bombs"--version 2

Well, you may recall that we had "pizza bombs"--a dish in which you flatten two pieces of dough and place pizza toppings on one piece and then pinch the second piece on top of it to seal the toppings in, and then bake--because I wrote about it here. Well, the dough from my regular bread recipe was kind of heavy, so I went looking for the pizza dough recipe in my family recipe book. (Thanks, Mom!) Here it is:

Pizza Dough
Let stand 5 minutes:
1 cup warm water
1 package yeast
1 tsp sugar

Then add:
1/4 cup salad oil
1 teaspoon salt
2 1/2 cups flour

Dough may be sticky. Spread with floured hands in greased pan. Add toppings. Bake @ 425 degrees for 20-25 minutes.

It worked well, and it was wonderful not to have to wait for it to rise, etc. like I do for my regular bread recipe. I used olive oil, because that was what was in my cupboard. I also just messed around with the dough like I usually have to, adding a little water, and then a little flour, etc., until it was the consistency that I wanted. Seems like I almost always (if not always ) have to do that--must be me.....

Anyway, I ended up making them too big, and there was some leaking of spaghetti sauce, but they were well-received. And hey, even if you don't want to make "pizza bombs", now you have a really easy recipe for pizza dough that uses pretty much all staple foods. Gotta love something else you can do with the flour, oil, salt, combination. :) If I put some effort into thinking about different topping combinations, I could end up with more variety--any ideas?

Farmers' Market and thinking about the garden

It's been awhile, in large part because our computer is having issues. Sometimes it will log on to the internet, and sometimes it won't. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that sometimes (ok, a lot of the time) the wind is blowing here, so perhaps the connection problems are weather-related. We have considered changing providers, but have not yet. It's easy to keep the same service when it's working.... :)

I have also been thinking about starting the garden, but when the children are still wearing their winter coats to school in the morning, and we have to fire up the woodstove a lot of the time, I am not quite ready to put any seeds/bulbs/starts in the ground yet. That didn't stop me from visiting the Farmers' Market that was held for the first time of the season on Saturday. Unfortunately, I had forgotten about it and got there when most of the people were packing up. There were flowers out, but I am more of a "if I'm going to plant it, I probably want to eat it" person, so I stopped at one stand that was selling vegetable seeds. They were a good price--I asked if they were non-hybrid, but the gentleman there indicated that they were most likely hybrid. There was also a spot on the table for Walla-Walla onion bulbs, but alas, it was empty. I want in the worst (or is it best?) way to be successful growing onions--but have had no edible results from my garden as of yet. Learned something interesting about Walla-Walla onions, though--they are not really storage onions. They need to be eaten within a couple of weeks of harvesting them, I guess. I'll most likely check back this week to see if there are any Walla-Walla onion bulbs (hope that is the right term) to be had, but I also want to get some onions growing that will store well.

Have you started your gardens yet? It seems like here it is always a line to be walked between starting too early and having your plants freeze (or perhaps get snowed on) and not giving the plants long enough to get anywhere because they are planted too late. Ah, well, we'll do our best....