It’s been snowing. Still. It seems to be the never-ending winter! Yes, I know we always get a snowstorm during the state high school hockey tournament. But usually most of the snow we have already gotten has melted. It hasn’t. Our yard is still several feet deep. And it’s still F-ing snowing!
Another busy week for our fam. The oldest moved out. We are down to just one more with us, for the time being. He’s got several years before he’s eligible for parole. I mean adulthood and moving out.
I had off from both jobs yesterday so we had the Plate licker and his littles over to hangout during the snow storm with us. It ended up being a pretty fun impromptu night. We made homemade pizza, and a couple frozen cheese pizzas for the kiddos. And me. I didn’t like the toppings available for the homemade, so I had a frozen pepperoni. I did have a slice of the homemade one, took off the toppings I didn’t like and dipped mostly crust into my pasta sauce. Wow! WE are making this crust again and again! It was my husband’s idea to figure out how to make deep dish crust from scratch. I just put the wheels in motion and made it. The recipe for the crust was simple:
In stand mixer dissolve 2 ¼ teaspoons active dry instant yeast and 1 teaspoon of sugar into 1 cup of warm water. Let that sit for 5 minutes. Mix in 2 ½ cups flour, 2 tablespoons vegetable oil and 1 teaspoon of salt. I actually forgot the oil and it was fine. Blend on low until it becomes dough. Then I switched to the “Knead” attachment and kneaded the dough for 3 minutes. When finished, I covered with plastic wrap and set aside for 5 minutes. Meanwhile I grabbed a stick of butter directly from the fridge and buttered my cast iron skillet.
When the dough was ready, I stretched, pushed and pulled it to cover the pan. If you want thin crust, you could divide the dough in two. We wanted deep dish. I added my special homemade pasta sauce, freshly shredded mozzarella cheese, chorizo (that was browning on the stove while I made the dough), jalapenos and mushrooms. A few shakes of parmesan on the top and stuck into the oven for about 30 minutes at 450 degrees. I used toppings we had in the house. If doing again, I would add more, and get some other meat. I don’t love chorizo, but the guys sure did!! They were licking their plates. We finished the night with movies, music and popcorn on the stove top. I love nights like these.
Earlier in the week I had made Pistachio bread. We had the leftover for dessert. That recipe came from this website. This amazing Monterey Chicken Spaghetti also came from the world wide web, you can find it here. The only change I made was to add bacon. Next time I will add mushrooms also. It made for a delicious dinner and I used my Instapot, which I really haven’t in quite a while. I finished the dish off in the oven though.
These were all really simple, yet very tasty recipes! If you try them, please comment with what you thought. I enjoy hearing from you guys!
I quite like looking through an article that can make people think. Also, many thanks for allowing for me to comment!