Life is in the Details

Early Summer Recap

Family, friends, crafting, gardening, and just enjoying the outdoors.  It's been great so far!

Homegrown pizza from the last of the tomatoes...

Over the past few months, since I've been home and have the time, I have been making a lot of homemade pizza, usually every few weeks. And since the tomatoes started to ripen I've been making homemade sauce as well! Since September is now here, and my tomatoes are dwindling, I thought I'd take a few of the remaining stragglers and make some pizza last night.  It was Friday night after all!

I make my pizza dough from this recipe at allrecipes.com. I make it in the bread machine since generally I keep my house at a subarctic temperature, even in Summer because of my super hairy, easily overheated, Eloise, which challenges the rising in "room temperature".

In the bread machine, the dough is kept perfect, so I don't have to worry about drafts or room temp. And I just place the ingredients into the machine like I would with a bread machine recipe. Basically putting the liquids on the bottom, the flour on the top, and the yeast on top of that.  I turn on the dough cycle and go back to knitting for a while.

Last night though I made the sauce right away and then assembled it later when I was ready to eat. I have used this recipe a few times now and my homegrown pizza sauce has come out wonderful.  In months where there are no tomatoes in my garden I use this one.

I cut up the five tomatoes that I had, two were fairly large and three smaller ones. I think that's about enough for one recipe of pizza. I did rinse out some of the seeds, but I'm not neurotic about it.  It would be fine to keep them in, but I prefer less seeds.  It ended up being about 5 cups of chopped tomatoes.

I added the garlic, I cheat and use the garlic in a jar. I'm sure that breaks some foodie rule, but it's so much easier, and my palette is not advanced enough to tell the difference.

I added the tomatoes and fresh oregano.  Unfortunately my basil is pretty much gone, so I had to use dried. With basil I can tell the difference, so it's definitely better with the real thing. I also add a squirt of honey, maybe about a teaspoon, I like a sweet sauce. And just simmer until most of the water is gone.  Then as the recipe says, use an immersion blender to chop up some of the sauce, and leave a little bit chunky.  That's it! It's very easy.

After my dough is finished in the bread machine, I just assemble: roll out the dough; add my sauce; some fresh mozzarella; and a few mushrooms that I had on hand.

YUM!

Homemade granola

A few weeks ago I made granola for the first time, and it came out fantastic! I used a recipe from the Cooks Illustrated website for Classic Granola and added a few extras, it seems a very versatile recipe. This morning I wondered what to make for breakfast and Ana suggested making the granola again.  I still had plenty of all the ingredients to make it again, so I thought good idea!

It's such a simple thing to make, you basically just chop the nuts, I used walnuts and almonds...

 

Give Eloise her token walnut that she waits for as soon as she sees the bag come out...

Mix with the oats and seeds, add a little coconut for some chewy sweetness...

and then heat up some honey and maple syrup and a bit of canola oil, and mix it in...

 

Spread it in a pan, and bake the granola, and turn it every few minutes to evenly brown the oats and toast the nuts.

Add some raisins and cranberries.  Last time I also added dried strawberries, yum!

 

Then in order to make bigger chunks, I press down on the granola with paper towels, which sort of sticks the granola together in bigger chunks similarly to Rice Krispie treats.

And wah-la, homemade granola.  I love it!

It seems to be much cheaper to make your own granola.  I know that the ingredients are a bit expensive, but it makes a lot, and the natural granola from the store is sold in such small packages and costs at least $5 for about 3-4 what I consider small servings. I can get about 10-12 fairly big servings from one recipe. It's definitely the way to go, and much simpler than I thought it would be.

Now I am curled up on the couch finishing some icord for those baby booties and listening to the insane gusty wind outside. I have a feeling there may be some trees and branches down after this one.  Driving rain too. Very glad I'm home today!

I Miss My Blog

I have not written here in a long time and I miss it.  I don't miss writing it, as much as I miss reading it. Is that weird? I love reading my own blog, I love looking at the photos and things and people that I love. I'd say I'm going to try harder, but I have said that before, so I'll just say I hope to post here more often.

Today is the Opening Ceremonies of the Vancouver Olympics! I LOVE the Olympics and I always wish I could take off two weeks of work to just watch every event! 

This year for the Olympics I am participating in Ravelry's Ravelympics!! I am a member of the Wollmeise Team and I plan to make some Wollmeise socks over the next 2 weeks starting tonight during the Opening Ceremonies!  That is the goal, to test your knitting abilities to try to finish  a project or multiple projects during the course of the Winter Olympics! And there are prizes and people cheer each other on.  Normally it has taken me longer than 2 weeks to do a pair of socks, mostly because I lose interest after one and the second one takes a while to get going.  Well I am hoping that this will push me to finish both in the next two weeks.

In other recent news, we have had tons of snow here on the East Coast! And it's made for some very pretty pictures!

 

It also makes a lovely backdrop for some recent knitting.  These mittens are my first stranded project.  They are the Bird in Hand pattern by Kate Gilbert.  I loved doing the stranded project but I ran into a few problems.  First of all, I used a needle that was a size too big so the mittens are rather large, and they had some tension problems.  (Notice how the dot pattern on my palm goes from large stitches to tiny stitches.) But for a first time out, I'm very happy with them, and they're so WARM!! It's amazing what doubling up the layers of yarn will do! I may have to move to a colder climate for these!

I used Madelinetosh Worsted in the Tart Colorway (which is now known as Tosh dk) and some Cascade 220 Superwash in the natural color.  With some scraps for the little thumb bird, I love the little birds on the thumbs.  Such a great detail! 

 

And the project I just finished last night that I was racing to finish is my Multnomah shawl.  I wanted to get it all finished before the Ravelympics started tonight, and I got it in just under the wire.  This one is in Wollmeise yarn in the Amazonas colorway. The color is so much more vibrant in real life, her colors just glow!  I would also like to thank my model, Eloise.  Isn't it a great color for her?

 

So I have been spending my free time cozy on the couch knitting warm wooly things and watching the snow fall outside.  It's been a wonderful winter for that.

Tonight the Opening Ceremonies and maybe some sushi as a nod to Vancouver and all their wonderful Japanese restaurants!  Other than Canadian Bacon and Tim Hortons coffee I couldn't think of what else to have for dinner that would be authentic Canadian and available at my local grocery store. Plus sushi is just darn good!