I’m not completely over the edge or anything, but it’s been a hard week and today was the worst of it. I cried 10 times today, literally, Eric counted. He’s working 2 am shifts while his supervisor is on vacation, I’m having trouble sleeping, we have a ridiculously busy week, and it’s overwhelming on both of us.

At 7pm we decided to cut our losses and head to bed. I couldn’t sleep, so decided to get up and do some cooking. I’ve been stocking up on soups in the freezer, and decided to make another one. I still had some stringy pumpkin guts and didn’t want to just make more bread, I felt like something healthier. I’d often seen pictures of soup inside a pumpkin, and decided I wanted to try it. I had a small pumpkin I got on sale at Safeway for $.60 today and thought I may as well try to make soup with the stringy guts!

The best time to cut onions is when you’re already crying

It turned out great and I have a good sense of accomplishment now. Plus, it’s vegetarian, which we aren’t, but meat is expensive so it’s great to come up with some tasty dishes that don’t need it.

To make pumpkin gut puree: I put the pumpkin guts in a sauce pan and put it on the stove on med-high. I stirred it every once in a while for about 15 minutes until it was one big soft clump. Then I put it in a food processor until pureed. (I hugged the food processor in my furry robe so it’d make less noise to wake up Eric). I tasted it and thought it was a little bitter so added 1/4 teaspoon of sugar. Perfect!

Chunky Pumpkin Corn Chowder

Ingredients

1 large red onion
3 large carrots
1/4 cup olive oil
10 tsp organic vegetable bullion powder
10 cups water (or 10 cups vegetable stock and omit bullion)
3 small red potatoes
1/4 tsp black pepper
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1 red bell pepper
1 can corn (drained)
1 cup pumpkin gut puree (see above)

Instructions

Dice the onion, carrots, potatoes and bell pepper. pour olive oil into a large pot, saute onion and carrots on med-high for 10 minutes.

Mix bullion with water and add to pot. Add potatoes, black pepper, cayenne and cloves. Let boil for 25 minutes stirring occasionally.

Add bell pepper, corn and pumpkin gut puree. Mix well and simmer another 10 minutes.

Pour into a cleaned out pumpkin. Garnish with toasted pumpkin seeds and fresh basil leaves.

UPDATE: I’ve entered this post in the Art You Eat contest!

Spicy Sausage Pasta

Food we’ve been blessed with:

-Lots of leftovers from my High School girls’ Bible Study! I was able to use them for pasta, stir fry, more pizza, and more!

-still had some baby red potatoes from our date. They were so cheap at the corn maze!

I recently joined a group called the Daring Baker’s Challenge. It’s pretty cool. Each month there is a different challenge to bake with a basic recipe and things you can do to make it your own. October’s was pizza, they gave us the dough recipe and we came up with the sauce and toppings. It happened to work out that October was the month that I was having 10 High School girls over for a make your own pizza night, so I made a triple recipe in order to have plenty of dough. We also had to have a picture of us tossing the dough. This is the best picture of me tossing the dough, mainly because I was really bad at it and kept tearing or folding the dough, and told Eric I was satisfied with a blurry one.

Pizza Dough (taken from “The Bread Baker’s Apprentice” by Peter Reinhart)
makes 6 9-12 inch pizzas

Ingredients:
4 1/2 Cups Unbleached high-gluten (%14) bread flour or all purpose flour, chilled (mine wasn’t chilled but my apartment was cold)
1 3/4 Tsp Salt
1 Tsp Instant yeast
1/4 Cup Olive oil
1 3/4 Cups Water, ice cold
1 Tb sugar
cornmeal for dusting

DAY ONE

Method: 1. Mix together the flour, salt and instant yeast n the bowl of your stand mixer. 2. Add the oil, sugar and cold water and mix well (with the paddle attachment, on low speed) in order to form a sticky ball of dough.

Switch to the dough hook and mix on medium speed for 5-7 minutes.The dough should clear the sides of the bowl but stick to the bottom of the bowl. If the dough is too wet, sprinkle in a little more flour, so that it clears the sides. If, on the contrary, it clears the bottom of the bowl, dribble in a teaspoon or two of cold water.

The finished dough should be springy, elastic, and sticky, not just tacky

3. Flour a work surface or counter. Line a jelly pan with baking paper/parchment. Lightly oil the paper. 4. With the help of a metal or plastic dough scraper, cut the dough into 6 equal pieces or I did 8-10 pieces for personal sized pizzas.

NOTE: To avoid the dough from sticking to the scraper, dip the scraper into water between cuts.
5. Sprinkle some flour over the dough. Make sure your hands are dry and then flour them. Gently round each piece into a ball. NOTE: If the dough sticks to your hands, then dip your hands into the flour again. 6. Transfer the dough balls to the lined jelly pan and mist them generously with spray oil. Slip the pan into plastic bag or enclose in plastic food wrap. 7. Put the pan into the refrigerator and let the dough rest overnight or for up to thee days.

NOTE: You can store the dough balls in a zippered freezer bag if you want to save some of the dough for any future baking. In that case, pour some oil(a few tablespooons only) in a medium bowl and dip each dough ball into the oil, so that it is completely covered in oil. Then put each ball into a separate bag. Store the bags in the freezer for no longer than 3 months. The day before you plan to make pizza, remember to transfer the dough balls from the freezer to the refrigerator. (I wrapped them in saran wrap which seemed to work too and is cheaper)

DAY TWO

8. On the day you plan to eat pizza, exactly 2 hours before you make it, remove the desired number of dough balls from the refrigerator. Dust the counter with flour and spray lightly with oil. Place the dough balls on a floured surface and sprinkle them with flour. Dust your hands with flour and delicately press the dough into disks about 1/2 inch/1.3 cm thick and 5 inches/12.7 cm in diameter. Sprinkle with flour and mist with oil. Loosely cover the dough rounds with plastic wrap and then allow to rest for 2 hours.

9. At least 45 minutes before making the pizza, place a baking stone on the lower third of the oven. Preheat the oven as hot as possible (500° F)

NOTE: If you do not have a baking stone, then use the back of a cookie sheet. Do not preheat the pan.

10. Generously sprinkle the back of a jelly pan with semolina/durum flour or cornmeal. Flour your hands (palms, backs and knuckles). Take 1 piece of dough by lifting it with a pastry scraper. Lay the dough across your fists in a very delicate way and carefully stretch it by bouncing it in a circular motion on your hands, and by giving it a little stretch with each bounce. Once the dough has expanded outward, move to a full toss.

NOTE: Make only one pizza at a time.
During the tossing process, if the dough tends to stick to your hands, lay it down on the floured counter and reflour your hands, then continue the tossing and shaping.
In case you would be having trouble tossing the dough or if the dough never wants to expand and always springs back, let it rest for approximately 5-20 minutes in order for the gluten to relax fully,then try again.
You can also resort to using a rolling pin, although it isn’t as effective as the toss method.

11. When the dough has the shape you want (about 9-12 inches/23-30 cm in diameter – for a 6 ounces/180g piece of dough), place it on the back of the jelly pan, making sure there is enough semolina/durum flour or cornmeal to allow it to slide and not stick to the pan.

12. Lightly top it with sweet or savory toppings of your choice.

NOTE: Remember that the best pizzas are topped not too generously. No more than 3 or 4 toppings (including sauce and cheese) are sufficient.

13. Slide the garnished pizza onto the stone in the oven or bake directly on the jelly pan. Close the door and bake for abour 5-8 minutes.

14. Take the pizza out of the oven and transfer it to a cutting board or your plate. In order to allow the cheese to set a little, wait 3-5 minutes before slicing or serving.

For this pizza I used a basil tomato sauce, sauteed onions and garlic, sliced fresh roma tomatoes, feta cheese and a tiny bit of freshly grated parmesan. The flavors of the sauteed onions and garlic were amazing and came out so great. We love feta and it came out really incredible.

I also wanted to make a dessert pizza and it was an experiment that turned out incredibly. I brushed the dough with melted butter and sprinkled it with cinnamon sugar. I cored, peeled and sliced an apple, then mixed it with a sauce made of

1/8 cup whipping cream
1 TBS vanilla extract
1 1/2 TBS sugar
1 TBS flour

I spread the apples on the pizza and poured some of the leftover sauce over the top. Yum!!!!!! It was amazing!
The final pizza was a little more classic, the fresh ingredients were incredible and we gobbled it up. I used a tiny bit of marinara sauce, layered fresh tomato slices sprinkled with parmesan cheese, then baby spinach and sprinkled that with feta. Next I topped it with slices of red bell pepper and red onion and finally some fresh mozzarella.

I’ve tried several different combinations and sauces when I had the girls over and another day with Eric’s sister (lots of ingredients to use up!) but these were the ones I took pictures of.

It was a really fun challenge and my tummy is very happy with the results.

Today is the 2 year anniversary of when Eric proposed to me. He took me out to breakfast (which we’ve never done before) at the Sun Break Cafe, and then took me walking along Redondo beach where he proposed.

Then when we came home our dear neighbor who was recently widowed stopped us to talk about what God taught her today and asked if she could show us the scrapbook she was working on to honor her husband. We of course said yes and shared tears and laughter with her as she showed us their life together.

I’m feeling very sentimental so here’s a wedding photo I think this was the moment where we got so excited we kissed early and Paul “scolded” us and said it wasn’t time for that yet! Everyone was laughing, it was great.

I love zucchini, it’s great in stir fry, breaded, raw and in pasta. But I wanted to try something different, so I did some searching and found a recipe for zucchini gratin. The only problem with this recipe is that it takes a lot of dishes. I had a couple zucchinis still from our friend Becky, but I was putting off making this dish until I felt I could validate using so many dishes.

On the day I decided I just needed to make it, so I got home from work and found a spotless kitchen. The dishes were all washed, the counters cleared, things even reorganized for more space! My wonderful husband spent the whole afternoon cleaning and reorganizing the kitchen so that I could have a better working area. He really thought it out and I was so touched.

So that was confirmation that it was time to make the zucchini gratin. I changed some things to work with what I had, and let me tell you, this dish was absolutely worth the clean up. It was so delicious, and even better as leftovers. I think it’s officially my favorite vegetable dish.

I served it with a simple baked salmon with vidalia dressing, some sharp cheddar, and fresh mango.

Ingredients

1/3 cup long-grain white rice
1 large zucchini, sliced crosswise 1/8 inch thick
6 1/2 tablespoons olive oil, divided
1-2 large beef steak tomatoes, cut in half then sliced crosswise 1/8 inch thick
1 red onion, halved lengthwise and thinly sliced
3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon chopped thyme
1/2 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano, divided

Instructions

Preheat oven to 450°F with racks in upper and lower thirds.

Cook rice according to package instructions.

While rice cooks, toss zucchini with 1 tablespoon oil and 1/2 teaspoon salt in a shallow baking pan. Toss tomatoes with 1/2 tablespoon oil and 1/4 teaspoon salt in another baking pan.

Roast zucchini in upper third of oven and tomatoes in lower third, turning vegetables once halfway through roasting, until tender and light golden, about 10 minutes for tomatoes; 20 minutes for zucchini. Leave oven on.

Meanwhile, cook onion and garlic with 1/2 teaspoon salt in 2 tablespoons oil in a large heavy skillet, covered, over medium high, stirring constantly, until very tender, about 5 minutes.

Stir together onion mixture, cooked rice, eggs, thyme, 1/4 cup cheese, 1 tablespoon oil, 1/4 teaspoon salt, and 1/2 teaspoon pepper. Spread half of rice mixture in a shallow 2-quart baking dish, then top with half of zucchini. Spread remaining rice mixture over zucchini, then top with remaining zucchini. Top with tomatoes and drizzle with remaining 2 tablespoons oil, then sprinkle with remaining 1/4 cup cheese.

Bake in upper third of oven until set and golden brown, about 20 minutes.