Pizza!!!

Friday during the day peter and I were emailing back and forth trying to figure out dinner plans. We decided on home made pizza...who knew almost all recipes out there require you to start a day in advance! Luckily I found This recipe which only takes 45 minutes to rise! We made two small pizzas and peter and i each added our own toppings. Mine was a white pizza with caramelized onions, spinach, and gorgenzola cheese, and peter's was a pesto pizza with the onions and spinach and ricotta.

Here is my pizza (the more delicious one)



And Here is Peter's less delicious one

Poached Eggs!

I was really late on watching Julie and Julia, but when I did I loved it. Also it made me realize that I've never poached an egg and it looked like fun! So this morning I made peter a poached egg (since I dont want to eat it myself).

Check it out! I'm super proud that it worked first try!

Tomato Sauce

I like to make big portions of home made tomato sauce to keep around in the fridge for whenever we feel like pasta. I like making my own for two reasons, one is that I like the taste better, and the second is I can control more about it such as salt content. Generally I use canned tomatoes of any sort, and include sauteed tomatoes, garlic, and herbs and spices. I decided recently to try using fresh tomatoes instead of canned, and started with the fun first step of blanching the tomatoes. I also used fresh herbs instead of dried ones. The outcome was pretty good, but in my opinion the the canned tomatoes result in better sauce both texture and flavor wise. I'll probably go back to the cans for next time!

the best Peanut Butter in the world

Last night while watching the snow fall outside, I decided it was finally time to try making my own peanut butter. This is something I've been wanting to try for a while. I found an easy recipe and got to work.



This is seriously the best peanut butter i've ever had. It almost tastes like the peanut butter in a reeses cup!

Home Made Gingerale!!

I made my own ginger ale last night, using most of Alton Brown's Recipe, but replacing the step where you add yeast to carbonate it, by using my awesome Soda stream to carbonate it!

My apartment smelled delicious as it simmered. After straining out the ginger I decided to try the syrup on its own. It was spicy and hurt my mouth, I wouldn't recommend that. I then mixed it with my bubbly water and a splash of lemon juice and it tasted almost store bought!


I'd like to try rootbeer next, but I'm not sure where to buy sarsaparilla.

Rugelah

Last night I tried my second attempt at making rugelach. The first try came out really delicious but lost form during baking due to too much jam. This time I added less jam and it came out much better. The only problem was that I forgot how much a batch makes (4 dozen) and I decided to double it....

Holiday Season

I decided to try out making my own holiday stocking this year so I could have one in non traditional colors. I found a cute pattern and only modified it slightly. The modification was to add an edging under the cuff which you can sort of make out in the pictures.
First I cut the inside fabric, the outside fabric, and the batting.

This is the first time i've tried to do the traditional quilting stitch over everything to keep the batting in place, and I started with a simple box pattern, maybe next time I can try a more complicated pattern. I'm very happy with the way it came out too!

And voila! the final product