Deals to Meals Review

I mentioned a couple weeks ago that I'd signed up for a new service offered in Colorado (and 12 other states) called Deals to Meals. Basically, they scour our local grocery ads every Wednesday and create menu plans out of the best sale items. They also recommend which non-perishables and freezable items are at their lowest price so you know when it's a good time to stock up.

I LOVE this service! What a great idea! I've been in such a rut lately with my menu plans...pizza, tacos, pasta, etc...and had reached a point where I just wasn't excited to cook or eat dinner. In fact, Nick had figured out that if he called me around 4:00 p.m. and casually suggested he pick something up on the way home from work, I was likely to agree. Not good for our budget or our waistlines!

Now, I have healthy recipes (including side dishes) scheduled for every day of the week and I'm always excited to try them! Everything that I've made from Deals to Meals has been delicious. My pantry and freezer have been filling up the last couple weeks without increasing my spending. I love that the entire plan is done for me so I don't have to think too much before going to the grocery store :).

The service costs $4.95 per month (after a 2-week free trial period), but if I refer any of my friends I can get a year of free membership! So if you decide to try the 2-weeks free trial then please let me know!

Baking Bread: My Routine

Before having kids, I would often daydream at work about all the things I would have time for as a stay-at-home-mom. I would go hiking, start a garden, take naps, and learn to bake bread from scratch. Now that I'm "living the dream", I've realized that I could have been enjoying fresh-baked bread all along. It's really not that difficult, and the health benefits and cost savings make it well worth my time. I bake all of our sandwich bread, dinner rolls, tortillas, hot dog and hamburger buns, and pizza dough. Now that I've been doing it for nearly two years, I've developed a pretty easy routine that I thought I would share with you. I'm not going to describe how to bake bread, as I am not in any way qualified to do so, but I will link to some of my favorite recipes and resources.

My Routine:

We usually go through two loaves of sandwich bread a week. We use it for toast, sandwiches (obviously), garlic bread, or a simple snack dipped in olive oil or spread with butter, jam, or Nutella. The most hands-on time consuming part of baking bread is assembling all of the ingredients, so every two weeks, I get everything ready for four loaves of bread. I start a double batch in my stand mixer and assemble all of the dry ingredients for another double batch in a freezer bag. I bake two loaves that day and store one in the freezer for later in the week. One week later, I already have a "kit" for another two loaves ready to go.

Baking a loaf of bread takes about three hours from start to finish, so it can easily be done in an evening. The basic process starts with about 15 minutes kneading the dough, 90 minutes rising, shaping the dough into a loaf, another 45 minutes rising, and finally about 30 minutes baking. That sounds like a lot of time, but really, it's only a few minutes of hands-on work (especially if you have a stand mixer or bread machine to do the kneading!).

Equipment:

I started off baking bread with nothing more than one bread pan. I kneaded by hand and used store-bought whole wheat flour. Eventually, I borrowed my parent's bread machine to do the kneading for me. Over the past two years, though, I have made two major purchases that I LOVE. Both are rather expensive items but well worth the initial investment because I use them all the time and they should last for many years. (Plus, if you consider that my bread costs about $0.50/loaf to make, and store-bought whole wheat bread goes on sale for about $2.50/loaf, I've already saved about $416 in the two years I've been baking bread, not even counting the other bread items I make).

• Grain Mill: Whole grain flour goes rancid very quickly, but you can preserve the most health benefits by grinding your own flour immediately before use (which is why I keep the dry ingredients kit in the freezer). I bought a WonderMill Electric Grain Mill ($269.95). It's fast, quiet, and easy to clean. I can grind whole wheat berries (or any grain, for that matter) into regular flour, bread flour, or pastry flour.
• Stand Mixer: This is a new addition for me. We bought a Kitchenaid Stand Mixer (about $250). I prefer a stand mixer to a bread machine because I am able to knead dough for two or more loaves at once. Of course, I use this for cookies and other treats, too!

Ingredients:

Since we go through bread ingredients rather quickly, I've found a few great non-grocery store sources that save money in the long run:

• Wheat Berries: I buy whole white wheat berries from the LDS Cannery (LDS is an acronym for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. You don't have to be LDS to visit a cannery; just ask an LDS friend, like me, to take you). For a great explanation on the subtle differences between white wheat berries and red wheat berries, check out the blog Food Storage Made Easy. In a nutshell, white and red wheat are the same nutritionally but the white berries have a milder texture and taste, making your flour seem more like white refined flour. A 25-pound bag only costs $5.80!
• Vital Wheat Gluten: This stuff is expensive at the grocery store. I buy it online from Honeyville Grain.
• Yeast: Those tiny jars (or worse, envelopes) of active dry yeast are also really expensive at the grocery store. Costco sells 2-pound packages of yeast...I forget the price, but I'm pretty sure it was about the same as the 4-ounce jars!

Recipes:

• For sandwich bread, I usually make King Arthur Flour's 100% Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread. I love the King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking cookbook, which also includes great recipes for Oatmeal Sandwich Bread and Sprouted Wheat Sandwich Bread (plus TONS of other great whole grain recipes, including sweets!).
• Whole Wheat Hot Dog Buns: You will never eat another store-bought hot dog bun again, I promise!
• Perfect Pizza Dough

Have I mentioned my favorite benefit to baking my own bread? It makes the entire house smell DELICIOUS! The best air freshener around!

The Fruits of My Labors

It's January, and our North-facing driveway is covered in ice, but we've been eating farmer's market and homegrown tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, basil, peaches, and apples. This is the time of year when I'm thankful for a long summer of food preservation. When I grab a jar of tomato sauce for a quick dinner, I think about all the August nights I was up past midnight waiting for those jars to seal. As I open another pint of salsa when visitors drop by, I remember trashing my kitchen during nap-time to end up with a few jars cooling on the counter. When pregnancy cravings prompt me to raid our linen closet for a new jar of dill pickles, I am happy to have destroyed my fingernails peeling all that garlic. And when Baby requests more "sauce", it's satisfying to open another quart of sugar-free applesauce for my little angel...even if it meant hours of pressing cooked apples through a food mill.

My desire to learn about home canning was inspired by a friend who stayed with us a couple years ago during a road trip with her family. She brought salsa and jam as a housewarming gift, which struck me as the most thoughtful gesture. It's been nice to have a pantry full for my little family, but even better to have quick gifts on hand. Everyone on my Christmas list ended up with at least two jars of food. A loaf of bread and some jam or apple butter have become quick sympathy and get-well-soon gifts for friends.

I thought I would share two more recipes that have brought the best of summer flavors to my table in the middle of winter. Both are freezer recipes, so you don't need any special equipment to enjoy them next year.

This Pesto Torte has been described as "the best thing I've ever tasted" by multiple people in my life, believe it or not! It's a spread for crackers, the perfect hors d'oeuvre to bring to a party. You basically make an entire round spring-form pan and divide it into slices, wrapping and freezing each individually so that you have eight portions ready for parties throughout the year.

By the way, this blog is one of my favorites: Thy Hand Hath Provided. Her young family grows and preserves most of their own food and buys the rest from local farmers. She posted instructions for roasting and freezing roma tomatoes. They are flavored with olive oil and fresh herbs and end up similar to sun-dried tomatoes. I have a gallon bag of these guys in my freezer and am LOVING them! I have yet to buy a single hard, waxy grocery store tomato all winter (except when I asked Nick to pick up some bananas and he came home with about three pounds of tomatoes instead...???). These roasted tomatoes have found their way into pasta dishes, grilled cheese sandwiches, white pizzas, and casseroles. Yum!

It's a bit cruel to share these recipes now, when tomato season couldn't be further away. Sorry. Just giving you a taste of summer before you have to go shovel your sidewalk again!

Photos courtesy of Thy Hand Hath Provided.

Making Yogurt in the Crockpot

I know this sounds a bit eccentric, but it is sooooooooooooo easy, guys! And totally worth it!

Check out this blog for detailed instructions, but here's how it works for me (so you can see how easy it really is):

5:00 Right about when I'm starting to make dinner, I pour 1/2 gallon of milk into the crockpot and turn it on low.

7:30 When I'm doing dishes after putting Baby to bed, I turn off the crockpot.

10:30 When I'm about to go to bed, I stir in 1/2 cup of yogurt (yep, plain regular yogurt) and cover the crock pot with a bath towel.

The next morning: I wake up to 2 quarts of delicious, creamy yogurt! Ladle it into some old yogurt containers and I'm all set.

See how easy that is? You don't need any special equipment or ingredients. I've been making yogurt for a couple months, and you don't even need to buy a new "starter" each time...just save 1/2 cup from your last batch. It will turn out a little bit more runny than store bought yogurt, but it's really not very different. I've read here that you can just add 1/2 cup of powdered milk at the beginning to thicken it up a bit. This blogger also recommended to add a spoonful of jam per bowl when you serve it for flavor.

It's nice knowing exactly what we're eating without worrying about too much sugar or artificial sweeteners. Baby loves this yogurt plain and I usually have it in a smoothie or with homemade granola (another easy treat!).

I'll let you do the math to see how much money you save with 5 minutes of hands-on effort: How does the price of 1/2 gallon of milk compare to two full quarts of yogurt? I felt like a criminal after discovering how amazingly easy this is and not sharing it with all of you, so now I can sleep again :).

Apples Galore

On Saturday, we made a trip down to Penrose (about 90 minutes from our home) to visit Third Street Apples, a pick-your-own orchard. We had a great day!

We picked Jonathan's, Golden Delicious, Jonalicious, Mcintosh, Seek-no-Further, and one tree labeled "Mystery Apple" :). The owners encouraged us to sample the apples; here's a shot of a cranky Baby chomping on what we thought was a small bite!

Baby got a chance to crawl freely amongst the trees while Nick and I picked apples.

We couldn't pass up the fresh apple cider and apple butter for sale in their gift shop.

When we got home, I made a batch of applesauce with Jonathan's. It turned out pink because I included the skins. Soooo yummy! We still have tons of apples left so hopefully we'll get enough applesauce to last us...a month? If we exercise restraint, that is.

I clipped this recipe out of the Gazette a couple weeks ago (9/16/09) and couldn't wait to try it for dinner tonight. I didn't take a picture, but it turned out beautifully and would make a nice breakfast for company.

The Ruby's Dutch Apple Pancake

(from The Ruby of Crested Butte Bed and Breakfast)

5 large eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon granulated sugar, divided

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt

1 1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter

2 large, tart apples, peeled, cored, and cut into 1/2-inch wedges

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 tablespoon confectioners' sugar

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

2. In blender, combine eggs, vanilla, and 1/2 cup granulated sugar and blend until combined, about 5 seconds. Add flour, baking powder, and salt and mix until smooth, about 10 seconds.

3. To 10-inch ovenproof, nonstick frying pan over medium heat, add butter. When butter hhas foamed and foam has subsided, add apples and saute, stirring occasionally, until softened, 4-5 minutes. Sprinkle apples with cinnamon and remaining sugar. Stir together and saute until apples are glazed and edges are slightly translucent, about 2 minutes longer.

4. Spread apples evenly in frying pan and pour batter slowly over top, so apples stay in place. Reduce heat to medium-low and cook until bottom and sides are starting to firm up, about 8 minutes. Transfer to oven and cook until top of pancake is firm and golden brown, about 10 minutes longer. Remove from oven, invert pan over serving plate. Cut pancake into 6-8 wedges. Sprinkle each portion with confectioners' sugar.

Happy apple season!

Chimichurri Sauce and the Old Stone Church

First things first: Have I ever mentioned my favorite restaurant, the Old Stone Church? Located in Castle Rock, it's nearly halfway between Colorado Springs and Littleton, where my parents live, so we occasionally meet for lunch when a granddaughter visit is required. The restaurant is located inside a renovated church built in 1888; not only can you request the booth in the old confessional, but the atmosphere is quite elegant and quaint with stained glass windows and a bubbling fountain inside.

We've only been for lunch, as the entree prices are $8-12 versus $18-25 per plate for dinner. My favorite menu items include the Crab Cakes with Anaheim chile cream and angel hair pasta or the Brie cheese, grilled and served with roasted garlic, blackberry jalapeno chutney and flatbread. Nick usually goes for the flautas (crispy flour tortillas filled with grilled chicken and mild jalapeno salsa) or the traditional fish and chips with amber beer batter and jalapeno tartar sauce. I've tried half a dozen other menu items that were absolutely perfect. Don't get me started on the desserts - the bananas foster or white chocolate bread pudding are nearly impossible to share.

Perhaps the best part of the meal is the grilled flatbread served with bright green chimichurri sauce brought to your table as soon as you sit down. Chimichurri is a traditional Argentinian barbecue sauce made with fresh herbs, olive oil, and vinegar. While gauchos may have originally served it atop grilled steaks, the flavors can brighten up a variety of dishes, including pasta, bean salads, grilled chicken, fish, or vegetables, or a simple dipping sauce for bread.

Each batch turned out a different shade of green, but they all taste delicious!

Since my garden is overflowing with fresh basil, I decided to make a huge batch of chimichurri sauce this week. I froze most of it in Ball's freezer jam containers and reserved a bit to freeze in ice cube trays for use whenever we just need individual servings for bread dipping with dinner. If you are a guest at my house this winter, chances are you will be served beautiful, fragrant chimichurri sauce with some home-baked bread; that is, unless we eat it all first!

Tomato Time

I thought I'd pass along a few more recipes for the home canners out there!

1. Traditional Salsa (from Ball's Fresh Preserving website)

This is my second year making this recipe, and it is much more flavorful than store-bought salsa. Last year, I made 14 pints, which lasted, oh, about a month (I set aside 10 for Christmas gifts). I really want to make enough this summer to keep us swimming in all the salsa we can eat for the next year. So far, I've made 16 pints, but only 13 remain after eating and gifting a few already. Salsa is SOOO much work, but hopefully I get my act together to make some more this month!

2. Barbara Kingsolver's Secret Family Recipe Tomato Sauce

I discovered this recipe in Barbara Kingsolver's book Animal Vegetable Miracle. It's quite tasty, but I'm not sure if it's cost effective to make tomato sauce. For some reason, whenever I can anything with tomatoes, it only makes about half as much as the recipe promises. My 7 pints ended up costing about $4.50 each (plus the cost of jars, which I re-used from last year). You can easily buy a 28-ounce jar of tomato sauce for about $2.50, so homemade ends up being quite a bit more expensive (although I don't know the cost of a jar of organic tomato sauce, which would be more comparable).

3. Zesty Peach Barbecue Sauce (from Ball's Fresh Preserving website)

I'm just glad to have some barbecue sauce in my pantry whose #1 ingredient isn't High Fructose Corn Syrup! I've canned 15 jars, 12 ounces each, and may even make more so that I have plenty for Christmas gifts. I served some roasted chicken with this BBQ sauce on it for dinner the other night; it's delicious!

Too Many Pickles?

In my quest to eat locally, I am starting to go a bit overboard with the home canning. So far this year I have canned strawberry-rhubarb jam, blackberry jam, banana pepper relish, salsa, and now...more pickles than we could ever eat.

Ranch Foods Direct (2901 N. El Paso St., Colorado Springs) hosted a free pickling class on Saturday taught by Rachel Zimmerman. Rachel was the youngest of 10 children, and one of her earliest memories is sitting on a stool as a toddler, entrusted with the responsibility of placing the peach halves into the bottom of gallon jars; her little hands were the only ones that fit. In class, we made a batch of dill pickles, and I was eager to volunteer as her assistant so I could get hands-on experience.

Her recipe comes from a vintage Kerr canning book, no longer in print.

Dill Pickles - Fresh Kosher Style

36 to 36 cucumbers, 3-4 inches long

3 cups vinegar

3 cups water

6 tablespoons pickling salt

Fresh or dried dill

Garlic

Mustard Seed

Wash the cucumbers. Make a brine of the vinegar, water and salt. Bring to boil. Place a generous layer of dill, 1/2 to 1 clove of garlic (sliced) and 1/2 tablespoon of mustard seed in bottom of each clean quart jar. Pack the cucumbers into the jars. When the jars are half filled with cucumbers add another layer of dill and complete the packing of the jars. Fill the jars to within 1/2 inch of the top with the boiling brine. Put cap on jars, screwing the band firmly tight. Process 15 minutes* in boiling water bath. Pickles will shrivel some after processing. They will later plump in sealed jar.

*Add 1 minute processing time for each 1000 feet elevation above 1000 feet. For Colorado Springs residents, this would be 21 minutes processing time.

Rachel showed us a couple of variations to this recipe. You can add a layer of cherry or grape leaves in the top of the jar to add crispness (that's right, just go pluck a few leaves off your cherry tree or grape vine). Another option is to add some sliced fresh ginger root for a spicier flavor. I did both of these variations in my pickles.

This is only one of the boxes of cucumbers, washed and ready to go with a bowl of fresh dill.

Now, you may be wondering why I made so many pickles for a small family of 3. First of all, I had no idea how many cucumbers were in each 25 pound box being sold at the farmers' market. I went up to one stand, and they were selling the most beautiful, small cucumbers for $20/box. The neighboring farmer may have overheard our conversation because when I approached, she said they were selling cucumbers for $20 as well but she would give me a box for $15. I paid for my cukes before realizing that this farm stand was selling larger ones, and I really wanted small ones so I could can them whole. Too embarassed to "return" my produce, I went back to the first stand and bought another box. I thought, maybe I'll get a couple dozen quarts out of this and I'll have enough for Christmas stocking stuffers. A whopping 38 quarts later, I still had half a box to go...I called my neighbor and begged her to take them off my hands. I didn't care if she threw them away, as long as they were out of my sight! (She made bread and butter pickles).

These are a bit shriveled and will plump up later.

Thanks, mom, for coming to help out when I realized I was in over my head! Poor Baby would have been rather neglected otherwise. I can't taste the pickles for 6-8 weeks, so let's just hope that they're delicious...or I'll have a bunch of unlucky Christmas gift recipients!

Since this is my first year doing pickles, the start-up costs are a bit higher than they'll likely be next year (for example, I will not have to buy the jars again, only lids). Also, I'm including the cost of all 50 pounds of cucumbers even though I only used about 37 pounds.

• 38 new wide-mouth quart jars (on sale for $11/12 jars): $34.83
• Cucumbers (50 pounds): $35.00
• Pickling Salt: $1.29
• Fresh dill ($2 each, 3 bunches): $6.00
• Apple Cider Vinegar ($4.39 each, 2 gallons): $8.78
• Mustard Seed (estimated, I lost the reciept): $5.00
• Fresh ginger root ($3.99/lb, 0.5 pounds): $2.00
• Garlic (homegrown): FREE
• Cherry leaves (homegrown): FREE

Total cost per quart: $2.44

I believe that store-bought pickles are about $3 -$4 for a 24-ounce jar. The lowest sale price that I've seen for pickle spears is $2.50 each. Since a quart jar is 32 ounces, that would cost approximately $3.33 per quart. So, I saved a little bit of money and now have a year's supply of locally grown, mostly organic pickles (I did not buy organic vinegar or mustard seed). Next year, I'll save even more when I recycle those canning jars. Maybe it was worth it to completely trash my kitchen for a day?

Farmers' Market Find: Basil and Purple Potatoes

I forgot to mention the best finds from the farmers' market this week! Here ya go:

I've been waiting all summer for some decent basil. I refuse to buy the little $3 plastic container of 5 shrimpy basil leaves at King Soopers. Last year, I came home from the very last day of the summer's farmers' markets with two HUGE bunches of fresh basil. They were gorgeous! I left them in the fridge for a weekend away, intending to make pesto when I got home, only to come back to a brown slimy mess. I read that basil and other fresh herbs are in season in August in Colorado Springs, so I've been scouring every market stand for the last few weeks. One farmer mentioned that all of his basil was destroyed by hail this year. Finally, this week, one stand had some beautiful basil. I bought two bunches ($2 each) and stocked my freezer with some bright green pesto. If you read as many cooking magazines as I do, you already know to freeze pesto in ice cube trays, then pop the cubes out into freezer bags so you can remove as much or as little as you'd like throughout the winter.

Have you ever had a purple potato? I hadn't! Maybe it was blue. Whatever the color, it was definitely tasty! I bought a basket of six large potatoes (russet potato size) for $3. I was surprised to find that the inside is just as colorful as the skin! Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable Miracle mentions that these blue potatoes contain the same antioxidants that give blueberries their claim to fame as a Superfood in addition to the typical potassium and whatnot found in a regular potato.

I made my mom's "Tortilla de Patatas" recipe from her time living in Spain. It's not an exact science: dice one large potato, cook it in vegetable oil in an 8" skillet, then drain off the oil. Crack 6 eggs into a bowl, stir with a fork, then add the potato and some salt and stir. Pour it all back into your skillet and cook until done (like a frittata). Baby is eating her third serving as I type this! Thanks for the recipe, mom!

Locavore Aspirations

I realize that half of this post is in black text and that November was left off the chart, and I'm sorry, but it's past my bedtime and I'm not a perfectionist!

Starting a couple weeks ago, my grocery shopping errand became a bit more pleasant. I've been able to completely skip the produce department. No, my garden is not quite providing our family with all of our vegetables (nor will it ever). And no, I'm not raising Baby as a carnivore. Instead, I've been shopping with more of a "locavore" attitude: trying to find local sources for some of our food. It turns out that fresh produce is a great place to start. Look at how plentiful the month of August is in Colorado Springs:

Chart courtesy of the Colorado Farm and Art Market website.

I've been reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver and am feeling inspired to seek out locally grown foods. Those winter fauxmatoes at the grocery store with their hard, pink flesh don't even compare to a fresh red tomatoes picked off the vine this morning. I'm starting to reconnect with the seasons; it sounds obvious, but it's easy to forget that strawberries need to travel quite a distance to arrive in Colorado in January.

Anyway, this is a roundabout way of getting to my point; I've been visiting the farmers' markets every week and I'd love to pass on the treasures I find to you. Maybe I'll share a recipe I've tried using local, seasonal ingredients. I'll pass along the recipes I use for home preserved treats like salsa, jams, and pasta sauce. Or I might just feature a couple of really great deals I found that week. I hope to encourage other Colorado Springs folks to support our local farmers by buying some produce directly. Here is a schedule published by the Gazette.

MONDAYS
• Homegrown on Tejon
10 a.m.-1 p.m., June 15-Oct. 12
300 block of North Tejon Street
636-2852
• Memorial Park
7 a.m.-1 p.m., June 22-Oct. 5.
Pikes Peak Avenue and Union Boulevard
574-1283

TUESDAYS
• Fountain Farmers Market
3-7 p.m., June 16-Sept. 29
City Hall, Ohio and Main Streets
447-8637

WEDNESDAYS
• Colorado Farm & Art Market
3-7 p.m., June 10-Oct. 7.
America the Beautiful Park, 126 Cimino Drive
farmandartmarket.com, 640-6154
• Manitou Springs Midweek
4-8 p.m., June 10-Aug. 26.
Soda Springs Park, 1000 Manitou Ave., Manitou Springs
80829.com, 358-7845
• Monument
Noon-6 p.m. June 10-Oct. 14.
Sundance Mountain Lodge, 1865 Woodmoor Drive
213-3323

THURSDAYS
• Memorial Park
7 a.m.-1 p.m., June 22-Oct. 5.
Corner of Pikes Peak Avenue and Union Boulevard
574-1283

FRIDAYS
• Woodland Park
7 a.m.-1 p.m., June 12-Sept. 25.
The corner of Center and Henrietta streets
woodlandparkfarmersmarket .com, 687-9053 or 689-3133

SATURDAYS
• Colorado Farm & Art Market
9 a.m.-1 p.m., June 13-Oct. 10.
The Margarita at PineCreek, 7350 Pine Creek Road
farmandartmarket.com, 640-6154
• Doherty High School
7 a.m. to 1 p.m., June 27-Oct. 3
4515 Barnes Road
574-1283
• Monument
8 a.m.-1 p.m., June 6-Oct. 10.
481 Colorado 105 (behind Starbucks)
213-3323
• Old Colorado City
7 a.m.-1:30 p.m., June 6-Oct. 31.
24th Street and West Colorado Avenue
574-1283
• Briargate
8 a.m.-noon, June 13-Sept. 26.
Briargate Parkway and Chapel Hills Drive (Salsa Brava parking lot)
210-9229, briargatefarmersmarket.com
• Heritage Farmers' Market
9 a.m.-11:30 a.m. June 13-Sept. 26
East parking lot at Cheyenne Mountain Junior High School
1200 W. Cheyenne Mountain Road
632-7000

SUNDAYS
• Palmer Lake
10 a.m.- 2 p.m., July 5-Oct. 11
On the lake at the gazebo in Palmer Lake 213-3323

Last week, I came home with a variety of veggies but was really impressed by the Torpedo Pepper Sausage from Torpedo Farms in Pueblo. I grilled them to accompany whole wheat hot dog buns one night, and tossed the leftovers in a Cheesy Sausage Pasta Bake the next day.

Today I discovered some Rocky Ford cantaloupes for $1 each along with the ingredients for a (hopefully delicious) banana pepper relish. I'll give it a try and if it's as good as I hope it is, I'll be sure to pass along the recipe.

Perfect Pizza Dough Recipe

Pizza is so cheap that if you're going to put forth the effort to make it at home, it'd better be good. Over the years, I've tried half a dozen different recipes, always resorting back to trusty Papa Murphy's. If you bake it in your own oven, that counts as cooking, right?

Finally, I found the perfect pizza dough recipe. It would be inconsiderate of me not to share it. Thank you, Joe at Culinary in the Country! I actually changed a few things about his recipe, but the basic essence is the same. Check out his original recipe for instructions using a food processor rather than a breadmaker.

An individual-sized (half recipe) BBQ chicken pizza I made for Baby and me one night that Nick wasn't eating with us. I know, I need to work on shaping it so the crust isn't lopsided. Please don't judge it based on my poor photography skills :)

Recently, my pizza was put to the ultimate test: Halo Night. Nick gets together with a group of guys every Wednesday to play Halo (a video game, for those lucky enough not to know what that is). They all take turns hosting it, except Nick. He was the only one with a pathetic little TV that just wasn't good enough for Halo, apparently. Finally, Nick got his dream TV, so we had the group over at our house last week for the first time. I made one pepperoni, one BBQ chicken, and one veggie supreme pizza. These guys are used to Little Caesars, so I was a bit nervous about sneaking in whole wheat flour, but they didn't even notice. They loved the pizzas! Of course, I also made a delicious salad with lettuce from my garden, which not one of them even touched. Must be a gamer thing.

Whole Wheat Pizza Dough

(adapted from Culinary in the Country, which was adapted from Eating Well)

1 1/2 cups white whole wheat flour*

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

2 1/4 teaspoons yeast

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon honey

3/4 cup warm water

1 tablespoon olive oil

2 teaspoons vital wheat gluten

Combine water and yeast in bread machine; let sit for a couple minutes. Add remaining ingredients. Set bread machine to Dough Only setting and let knead, rise, and punch down (approximately 1 1/2 hours, or until timer beeps). Stretch and/or roll dough out onto a baking sheet or pizza stone, cover with a kitchen towel, and let rise until it reaches desired thickness (none for thin crust, 30 minutes for thick crust). Top with sauce, cheese, and toppings and bake at 450 degrees for 12-15 minutes.

*I used freshly ground white whole wheat flour, so if you plan to use the regular red whole wheat flour more commonly found at the grocery store, you may want to use 50/50 whole wheat and all-purpose.

Bon Appetit!

Our Favorite Recipe for Nick's Birthday

Happy Birthday, Sweetie!

The dinner I made to celebrate Nick's 30th birthday was so good that I just have to pass it on. It may not be "light" but was fun for a special occasion. I found this recipe in the Gazette on 1/7/09 in their "Take 5" column, submitted by Lynn Blase. It would be pretty difficult to make something that's not delicious with these 5 ingredients.

I even took a picture of all the ingredients like a fancy foodie blogger :)

I use Saag brand chicken sausage for this dish; they have a few varieties, and I believe the one I normally choose is Asiago-fennel flavored or something like that (they were out this time so I used plain chicken sausage). I also used penne pasta, because that's what I had, and gorgonzola cheese.

Apple-Sausage Rigatoni

Yield: 4 Servings

6 ounces dry rigatoni (about 2 cups)

12 ounces cooked smoked sausage, halved lengthwise and cut into 1-inch pieces

3 Golden Delicious apples, cored and cut into 1/2-inch slices

1/2 cup whipping cream

1/2 cup crumbled gorgonzola, feta or blue cheese

Procedure:

1. Cook pasta according to package directions; drain.

2. While pasta is cooking, cook sausage in skillet until lightly browned. Add apples and cook, stirring occasionally, until apples are lightly golden, about 10-12 minutes. Stir in cooked pasta, whipping cream and cheese. Heat through.

Also, I don't typically like broccoli, but this roasted broccoli was soooo amazing! I found the recipe on The Amateur Gourmet and simplified it a bit (I guess that means that I'm even worse than amateur when it comes to cooking). Basically, I tossed the broccoli florets with olive oil, salt, pepper, and sliced garlic and roasted it at 425 degrees for about 25 minutes. I added some lemon juice after it was done. Even Nick gave his approval; pretty impressive for something green!

I made a carrot cake with cream cheese frosting for dessert, and Baby gobbled down her little piece in about two seconds and started frantically signing for "more" when her mouth was still as full of cake as it could possibly be. I didn't get a picture of today's cake but here is one from a wedding we attended a couple weeks ago, just for fun!

With Grandma, eyeing that cake. Isn't it cute how they had individual wedding cakes at each table?