Garlic fingers - More uses for pizza dough

So as a follow up to Fridays posts, when we make garlic bread we will pull out a lump of pizza dough.  Its a quick and easy, not to mention tasty way to make garlic bread.  If you are using a ball of dough from the freezer and let it thaw first.









Once you dough is thawed, you need to prep the pan just like you where making a pizza.  A little bit of olive oil evenly brushed over the pan, and a light coating of corn meal over that.







Again just like pizza roll it out, you’ll what it more on the thicker side. we don’t worry about the shape so much when rolling it out. When its more or less flat spread some garlic butter on there, we use a store bought one but you could always make your own. 






Then all you need to do is add the cheese, and throw it into the oven for 10 minuets or so, all melty cheese and golden brown








When you take it out of the oven let it cool for a few minutes, then cut it up.  I use my pizza cutter (I don’t burn my fingers as much that way). Ta-da, Garlic bread figures, the little people really enjoy these more then using French or Italian bread and there’s never any left.

Pizza Night

Since I got my early Christmas present (kitchen Aid Artisan[aka. Ferrari, it’s bright red]) I’ve started making pizza dough again.  It really is quick and very easy, I’ve almost all ways have the fixings for pizza handy too!  I found a recipe I liked and tweaked it a bit, of course. This dough freezes really well and is easy to roll out. So lets get started…


So here is Ferrari in her staring roll … I put one package of yeast (or 2 1/4 tsp if you have a jar like me)  and 1 tbsp of sugar into the bowl of my mixer, then add 2 1/2 cups warm water.  I turn my mixer on to stir for a few seconds to give it a quick mix.  Let this sit for 10 minutes or until its frothy.  (it frothy in my picture but it is hard to see) 





while the yeast is doing it’s thing we can get the toppings ready to go, this is usually a pretty quick thing depending on what's kicking around in the fridge and cupboards.  Tonight's fare is fresh mushrooms, green pepper and some tomato from the fridge, and some pineapple tidbits from the cupboard, and of course Sauce and cheese from there respective hiding places. I try and keep some pepperonis in the freezer in single use portions, how ever saying that we recently had an issue with some I had bought that where not the usual brand and they actually went bad in the freezer.



So this next ingredient is a bit of a weird one … a few months ago I started to substitute All Bran cereal for bread crumbs in my cooking (e.g. meatloaf, hamburgers ect…) its a good way to hide some fiber in stuff with out the troops noticing (it has a bit of a sweet flavour to it) … hahaha and my evil plan worked … I’ve made home made shake’n’bake and they all went back for seconds :D
Any who.. one of the recipes I was using called for 1/2 cup of whole wheat flour, not some thing that I keep on hand because I don’t like it :P so I add about 1/2 cup of Crushed All bran in stead, 2 tbsp olive oil, 1 tbsp salt and the first cup or two of the flour.







Notice we’re using the dough hook and you’ll want to keep the speed low until the flour is mixed in enough that you won’t get a face full.  So this is what it looks like so far, it will take about 5 cups of flour or so.  You’ll want to add a cup of flour at a time keeping the speed slow enough that the flour stays in the bowl.









Here we have a couple more cups of flour, and that the dough is looking more .. well.. like dough.  Keep adding flour until it’s smooth and not sticky.  











Ta-da ..Pizza dough! this is what it should look like when you take it out of the mixing bowl, smooth and relatively round.  Now grease a normal mixing bowl with a little olive oil or Pam works too.  Roll the dough around in the oil to coat it and help prevent it from ticking to the bowl.  Throw a clean tea towel over it and leave it in a warm place.  Inn my house I find its to cold to get it to rise so I put it in a gently warmed (not on) oven or over the vent on the oven when I have other things cooking. It well take a bout an hour for it to double in size.




Here it is in one of my retro pyrex bowls, nice and poufy. so now I pop it out of the bowl and give it a quick knead, and roll it into a bit of a sausage so I can cut it into 3.






  
And here you have it 3 lumps of dough!  If you are going to use them right away they need to ‘rest’ for 10 minuets (thy rise a little more), if you want to freeze them now's the time They just fit in the sandwich size baggies before they rest. Pop them in the freezer and when your ready for pizza pull it out and let thaw.  When it’s thawed continue with the instructions below.






So first things first, you have to prep the pan you’re using.  What I do is line one of my cookie sheets with some parchment paper because my pans have seen better days, next I pour a little olive oil into the middle of the paper and use a sauce brush to coat the whole thing with a them layer of oil.  When the oil is evenly spread use a table spoon or so of corn meal (that's the yellow stuff you find on the bottom of fresh bread).  Okay now for the hard part … place one of the balls of dough in the middle of the pan and get out the rolling pin,  I usually just make rectangle pizzas but it was valentines day so I made this one in a heart shape …sort of. If you like thin crust roll it so it nice an thin or roll the edges up to make a more store bought look, we just roll it out to fit the pan and no crust.





Now we throw our toppings at it, some times the kids really do throw the toppings on. While we get the toppings on I’ll preheat the oven to 350 F.  It only takes 10-15 minuets to cook a fresh pizza depending on how well done you like your crusts.











This one is just a normal one we do,  I like my crust pretty light so there nice and quick to cook up.

Little mans boxer briefs

 

    My little man asked for some more boxers the other day, so i asked if he would like me to make him some boxer briefs.  So he ran to find a donor pair from his drawer that where getting a little small.  so we set to work  carefully cutting them apart along the seam lines.  So I found the easiest way to trace around the fabric “pattern pieces” is to put down a piece of cardboard, large enough to for your largest pattern pieces.  On top of the cardboard I put down a piece of paper (i use Kraft paper, used for wrapping packages and come in a roll like wrapping paper) and carefully pin the pieces out flat and trace around them with a pencil.  Now I use my snazzy rulers and make clean lines, because we want them a little bigger I add an extra 1/4 inch or so around all the edges.

 

 

 

For the front of the crotch I made the lies less curvy and we opted not to add the “pee pocket” (the hole between the layers in the front … you know what it’s for … we just call it the pee pocket) So it’s just a single layer of fabric, which simplifies things a bit. For this project we are upcycle some old t-shirt we have kicking around that are in good shape. 

 

 

 

 

So with our new paper pattern we cut out 2 leg pieces,  1 bum, and 1 crotch piece.  Now because of the nature of the area, you want to keep the seems as flat as possible, so instead of the standard seam I placed them one on top of the other an used a surger type stitch or any other fancy or plane stitch.  First  I stitched the crotch to the bum, and each of the leg seams. 

 

 

 

 

Next I put the legs onto the center pieces, again using the serger stitch on my machine making a flat seam.

 

 

 

 

 

Here’s what they look like with both legs attached

 

 

 

 

 

Next they needed a waistband, for this pair we use a pieces of non-roll elastic.  I stitched the ends together to make a loop and then pinned it to the top of the undies, making sure to stretch it out as you feed it through the machine.  I used an elastic stitch that is on my machine but a plain zig zag work just as well.

 

 

  

So here’s the two pairs I’ve made so far.  the only thing left is to finish the leg openings.  The red pair has just a plain piece of 1 inch elastic.

 

For fun I use some of the finished edges from the bottom of one of the t-shirts, again trying to keep the seams flat. don’t forget to stitch the ends together

 

 

 

 

And voila little boxer briefs!

 

 

 

 

Little Suitcase

 

I found this little suitcase picture on Pintrest there was no instruction an where I could find so I sort of made it up as I went along.

So here is a piece of the picture I found. The original is quite long but you get the idea.

 

Materials used; I used a pillowcase, a old scrub shirt, a pair of old jeans, and a two longish coat zippers I had kicking around.  For my trial run I decided not to use any interfacing or batting between the layers, to save my poor sewing machine some work (denim is quite thick and I find that the standard home sewing machines do not like to many layers of it at one time,   find three is about the max before I start to have problems).

 

So First things first, because I’m using finished garments/linins I have to cut open the finished seams so I can lay the pieces flat.  For this bag I’ve cut down the front seam from the zipper and all the way around that seam to the back, so that the piece I’m left with is one of the back pockets and one off the front pockets (can be seen better in the next picture).  To reduce a little bulk at the waistband of the pants I cut it open leaving enough fabric to attach a lining fabric to (aka the pillowcase). For the back piece of the bag front (the pocket piece forms a large front pocket on the bag front) I cut a piece of the pant leg the same length as the pocket piece, and again to reduce some of the bulk used the pillowcase to line the unseen part at the bottom( this will ultimately be the inside of the large front pocket).

 

Next I pinned the pocket front to the back piece,  trimmed the edges, added the piece for the inside lining (I used the scrub shirt for this) and basted all the pieces  together.  I also cut the back bag and back lining pieces and basted them together. 

This is also a good time to make sure any pockets you want on the inside are sewn in before you baste the pieces together.  And what kind of of handles or  strap you want to attach.  I used so 1 1/2 inch wide twill tape from my stash. 

 

 

Using the the pant legs for the zipper band I made one long rectangle (long enough to fit around the bag) and the matching lining piece.  With both fabric and lining  cut the band to accommodate the zippers.

Because I used two coat zippers I put the tops together at the center top and stitched them in.

 

Next I joined the zipper band to the bag front and back starting from the center top and working my way down each side. this is the time you would add piping to the out side of the bag if you like, you also could sew you seems to the out side and bind them the same way I did it look pretty good too, I did my seem to the inside and no piping.  I made my Bias tape out of some of the pillowcase so it would match, but you could use store bought if you like.  Notice I've left most of the bottom open and free, I'll show you why in a later step.

 

So here you can see the pockets on the inside front and the stitching for my handles, I’ve also started to pin my bias tape around the seems for a nice clean finish inside the bag.  This time I started from the bag bottom and worked my way all around the seem of the bag.  do the same to both sides. 

 

Next I attached the bag bottom to cover the zipper ends from the out side, for this I used a small rectangle of fabric from one one the pant legs. I’m surer there a better way to do this but all in al this worked ok.  I sewed this piece on by machine, just remember not to  sew over the zipper with your machine if you’ve used a large metal zipper like I have.

 

For the inside bottom I used a piece of the pillowcase to match the bias tape, this piece I stitched in by hand

And here she is the finished bag, I think it’s super cute!

Homemade Lactose Free Butter

 

Well this week I stumbled upon a book at the library on country cooking, and thought I would give butter making a whirl (lol no pun intended). Turns out it supper easy and pretty quick too.

What you need/ I used:

Food processer

Heavy Cream (AKA Whipping Cream in Canada)

water

bowl

Cheese cloth 

 

 

 

So I was absolutely gitty in the store when I discovered that they now have lactose free Cream, hence the lactose free butter.  So you start by setting up you food processer with your chopping blade.  Pour your cream into the food processor and start, my food processor only has a high and a low setting, so I used High.

 

 

 

 

After a few minutes you’ll notice it’s turned in to whipped cream (haha duh right  :) ), You want to keep whipping it. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You want the buttermilk to separate from the fat, this only takes 5 – 10 minutes.  The fat turns itself into a ball and the milk will sit on the bottom.

 

 

 

Next you want to turn it out into your cheese cloth, I think I had about 4 layers or so sitting in my canning funnel so that the buttermilk can drain into the bowl underneath.  Now pick it up and give it a twist, you want to do this over your bowl.  You want to get as much of the buttermilk out as possible.

 

 

When you have got as much of the butter milk out as you can out need to rinse it, for this I took my butter still wrapped in the cheeses cloth and swished it a round in a bowl of water, give it a wring, I did this a few times.

 

The next step is to put into a mold of some sort, I have a collection of little silicone molds from the dollar store in varying shapes and sizes.  I line my mold with plastic wrap, for easy clean up, and storage.  So now push the butter into our mold, and place in the fridge to harden before you try and take it out of the mold.

 

    And the finished product, after about an hour in the fridge it hard enough to take out of the molds, I then wrap it in the plastic wrap that I lined the mold with and pop it back in the fridge or into the freezer.

DIY Explorers Play Tent

 
After seeing the play ten tutorials on on Pintrest I thought I would give one a try for my little man, and it give my hubby some thing to channel his energy into.  So we went out to the hardware store for some supplies.  What we came home with was 2 – 1x2’s that were 8 ft long and a 5/8 inch dowel.  When we got home we raided the linen closet, yet again and pulled out this twin sized sheet set.  It kinda reminds me of the turn of the century explorers (i.e.. Indiana Jones) or an African safari.

So now with our materials in hand we headed out for the back yard.  We started  by cutting our 1x2’s in half, so they are roughly 4 ft long, and drilled a hole in one end of each of them.  We used a 5/8 inch drill bit because we wanted to have a sung fit so the dowel didn't fall out of the holes well the kids are playing with it, and we didn’t want to use any glue/hardware because we still wanted to be able to fold it up or take it apart for storage purposes.

Here’s a picture of just the frame, really Simple and supper quick for this part.

And here is a picture of the the sheet over the frame.  This is where all tutorials I saw online stopped, but we decided to add “doors” (flaps that open and close) to the front and back. We also added a tube at the top to run the dowel through, so it wasn’t sliding all over the place. All you do to make the tube is fold the sheet in half and run a line of stitching down the center along the fold, keeping in mind that the tube your making needs to be big enough to run the dowel through.  On mine I sitched about an inch from the fold.

 

As you can see we used the flat sheet for the main tent portion and I used the fitted sheet for the ends.  We started by removing the elastic from the ends and cutting the seams out of the corners.  Then we folded the sheet in half and cut down the center to make two end panels, then we folded each end panel in half and cut to make the opening for the flaps.  Then we finished the ends that would become the opening of the door (fold over twice and stitch), and hemmed up what would become the bottom of the door panels.  For the the closures on the doors we used  Velcro on one side and on the other we used twill tape for ties.

We also add some ties to the side to help support the weight of the sheet on the frame and so we could tie the doors open.

The tent has been a big hit, my kids and all the neighbor kids have been play in it nonstop.  If you make one and add the doors like I did make sure your elastic loops are on the out side of the tent, I have to go back and move mine, but other then that it works great! and cost less then $15.