Sourdough Breadzza Semi-Disaster

Looks delicious, no?? Keep reading.

Once upon a time a baker on Fisherman's Wharf in San Fransisco started making sourdough bread.  There was something about the San Fransisco air that made the sourdough starter particularly awesome.  Eventually, it became a franchised, much-better-than-fast-food restaurant, and one of the most recent franchises opened on my neighborhood a few years ago.  My neighborhood NOT being on Fisherman's Wharf, with it's groovy sourdough yeast spores naturally zooming through the air or whatevs, so they fly in the sourdough "mother" weekly. On an airplane and stuff.

Crazy.

Crazy GOOD.

Anyway, the restaurant has a promo thingie, where if you check in on your smart phone on each visit, you earn a free loaf of bread per month for the first six months or something.  I dunno.  I didn't pay that much attention.  I heard "free bread" and was all in.  

So, I take my little guy (who finished 6th grade today, btw, so not that little, really) and his bestie there for lunch as a little end of the school year treat.  And guess what?  Today was a free loaf day for me, so, SCORE!

And, it's Friday, which just means PIZZA around here.  Often I make it from scratch (dough included), sometimes we order in, sometimes we go out to one of our favorite pizza places.  But something about my free loaf of sourdough made me a little giddy this afternoon, and I remembered that much of the USA eats French bread pizza, so why the heck not sourdough bead pizza?

Only problem was, 6 year old Miss Thing has an extremely loose, owie front tooth (as in it's sort of grotesque, even) and there was no way she was going to be able to bite though the super thick, crusty-crust that this bread is famous for.  Hmmm.  What to do?

Instead of the traditional French Bread Pizza sliced horizontally down the middle... Slice it in thick pieces like it was bread (cause, it IS!) and go from there...

But! Then I thought that maybe the sauce would make the bread all googy and soggy, and that wasn't appealing in the slightest.  So I hatched a plan.  Turns out that it was a good one.

I have this method of making a crostini-ish garlic bread, wherein I slice up a baguette, brush each slice with Olive Oil, sprinkle with garlic powder (yeah, that's totally cheating. Don't care) and basil, then top it off with fresh grated Parmesian Reggiano or Romano.  Then I put it under the broiler for just a few minutes-- careful or it will burn... and quickly-- et viola! Mi famiglia's favorite garlic bread.  The top of my garlic bread is toasted and crusty... Awesome.

So, huh.  Maybe if I made it like my garlic bread and THEN added the pizza sauce and toppings it would fend off the soggies?

Oh em gee, it totally did, youse guys.  And, since I placed it on the bottom rack for the second cooking, the bottom got crispy too, which is nothing to sneeze at, either. 

In truth, I was the only one who liked it.  I used tomato *paste* instead of sauce, hoping that would be thicker and less likely to sog it all up, and my husband said that that was too "bright" tasting (I beg to differ).  And then, Miss Thing also has a canker sore in addition to her terribly wiggly tooth, so not only couldn't she bite into it, she couldn't chew it, either (I made her oatmeal), and my son, halfway through his first piece sided with daddy and made himself some Ramen noodles (don't judge me.  Sometimes it's the only thing he WILL eat).

So, bummer.  

Honest to Pete, though, it WAS good.  And the method was inspired, even if no one liked the sauce, and complained about the cheese coverage or (rather) lack thereof.  Personally, I would eat pizza withOUT cheese, so I thought it was nice of me to include a little at ALL, really...  I think there were a few other complaints thrown in there, too, but I stopped listening at some point, as I'm prone to do.  Sigh. 

I swear every time I try to do something different from my five or six meals that I KNOW 3 out of 4 of them will happily eat, they get all revolutionary on me.  And then they wonder why I'm all grumpy about it and stuff.  I am so tired of always making the same things.  I know Miss Thing will grow out of it (mostly, it's her causing a scene these days while my eldest is suddenly eating Thai food where he couldn't handle a little black pepper on his baked potato a year ago), but, ugh.

Am I alone in generally refusing to cook a second "special" meal for a little one (I did make her oatmeal tonight, because she was obviously in pain and not just being stubborn)?  I was always expected to not only eat what was on my plate, but to do so without complaining, or that would be that, end of conversation, to my room, hungry and too bad so sad, thanks for playing.  

Discuss.

I'm going to give a piece to Andy.  He'll eat it.

She is SIX...

  ...How did THAT happen???

Well, it did.  And of course, there was a party.  We RAN to the park, clucking like chickens for some reason (six year olds!) where we found paper bags and paints all set up for making paper bag hats.  Top right, is Miss M digging into the paint for her hat.  Paper Bag Hats are so easy and fun!  

PAPER BAG HATS:  Use a standard grocery bag, *carefully* turn it inside out (remove handles, if necessary), and sloppily roll the edges up to form the hat. Rolling too tightly makes the hat too big and crushes the paper, so make your rolls big and bunchy.   Messiness is no problem with this project, and it doesn't have to be perfect.  For really little kids, I've found that "pegging" the bag, (like we did the ankles of our jeans in the 90's, remember?  We were super-bad!) works really well.  Give the kids lots of colors to choose from, and make SURE the paint is washable! Go play some games while the paint dries and wear your creations proudly!

Top, right, you can see my son sneaking up on me to jam one on my head and the (blurry) result in bottom right.  Bottom left are two much bigger boys (my son and his BFF) in their Minecraft inspired creations.  If you have any computer geeks in your house, or are one yourself, you may recognize a Minecraft Pig and a Creeper painted on their hats/masks.  Those two are h.i.l.a.r.i.o.u.s. and I'm pretty sure that they are the Mutt and Jeff of the 21st Century.  Also in this collage is a cutie patootie from down the street playing with a hula hoop.  I could just eat him up.

While the paint on the paper bag hats was drying, there was a scavenger hunt based on things the kids could find at the park.  

SCAVENGER HUNT:  I made a quick trip to the park a few days before the party to see what could be found and took pictures (most of the kids aren't readers just yet), and photoshopped the pictures onto card stock (see bottom left image).  Then, I just pasted the scavenger hunt cards onto treat bags, so that a.) the kids would have somewhere to out their "finds" and b.) so that the cards wouldn't be lost.  The kids found as many things as they could, and brought the bags back to me for prizes/party favors (we returned the "finds" to the wild).  I also had them write their names on the bag so they could keep it to fill with piñata candy and more party favors later.  

Of course, the punch balloon favors were immediately blown up and (mostly) popped.  Hey! It's not a party until the balloons pop!

There were healthy(ish) treats to be had, and these two partygoers had quite a rousing conversation about how delicious/disgusting tomatoes are.  That sweet little boy was popping cherry tomatoes in his mouth like candy.  I heart him.  

You might notice the cupcakes, bottom left... Yes, they are UNfrosted... You'll see why in a minute.  The cupcake stand, I threw together with some hot glue, candlesticks and serving platters/plates that I had on hand.  I did this last year, too... Except that, LAST year, the hot glue separated easily after the party.  This time, I think I might have used a little too much hot glue! HAHAHA!  Cupcake Stand for LIFE!  

After the kids made their hats, had a couple of sack races and played for a while, I started assembling the DIY CUPCAKE BAR.  I thought it was a stroke of genius, and the kids LOVED it.  So, no, the plain, unfrosted cupcakes didn't look so party-perfect on the cupcake stand.... But, I knew if I frosted them beforehand, the frosting would harden, and the toppings wouldn't stick.  

DIY CUPCAKE BAR:  If you want to try this at your next party, I HIGHLY recommend it!  First, I filled two cupcake trays with different toppings (I used mini marshmallows, mini M&Ms, crushed chocolate sandwich cookies, gummy worms and different colored sprinkles).  Then, I gave each kid a little cocktail spoon and told them they could top their cupcakes however they wanted, but to please take one only little spoon of each topping so that everyone could have what they wanted (gummy Worms being the exception... everyone got a gummy worm).  I frosted each cupcake on the fly as I handed them out to the kids, and then the kids got to work on the toppings.  

The sprinkles were flying, the gummies were slurped, crushed cookie bits raining down... SUPER FUN!  It totally worked! But, I'm really glad that I covered the tables with parcel paper!  GAH!

Of course, the BEST PART about decorating your own cupcake is EATING IT!

Look at those happy faces!  I do believe my son was making a Minecraft cupcake, naturally (bottom right). Looks like a dirt block, reminiscent of his birthday cake last year.

And there was still time to play... And also get covered in paint!  Hahaha! Sorry, mom... But it SHOULD come out in the wash.... In the same picture, you can see our painted hats drying on garden stakes.  I had actually made sweet little coffee filter flower and streamers toppers for the garden stakes, knowing I wouldn't have a lot of time to decorate the park, and I figured I could just poke decorated stakes in the ground to gussy up the park a little (coffee filter flowers were based on the ones I made last year).  That was easy, too.  And, it made a durn good spot for the hats to dry!

The big boys had a go at some sort of hybrid sack race/three-legged race of their own.... Which worked out exactly as I suspected it would.  BOMP!

My husband has a new camera (HE took all these photos, btw... I was kinda busy!) and got to playing with the filters.  These are a little dark, but the ATTITUDE is totally visible.  Oh.my.WORD.  Is she six or sixTEEN???

I had also made a cake for the grown ups, but as it turned out, nearly everyone just dropped their kids off at the party (!) so I saved it for later and Miss M blew out her candle that night.  

Happy Birthday, Baby.  You are just my kinda girl.

Overrun by Art....

Three days worth of Art by my five year old.

Help! I'm drowning in magic markers and paper!!!

But in a good way, of course.

Hope your week sends you skies as blue as the ones in Miss M's World.

20 Minute Dinner - Parmesan Crusted Chicken

Busy little Bees over here. We've been doing things like touring the Middle School (GAH!), having year-end potlucks at pre-school (with pony rides!), working on new music, getting ready for an ArtWalk this Sunday, setting up a Not-So"Easy Set" pool in the backyard, etc, etc, etc...

But we still have to eat.

And so, I present to you, my go-to, favorite Quick Dinner, and my kid's overall favorite meal, hands-down.

It's something my mother started, and I tweaked (I added the Basil and the butter), and it never fails.  SO EASY.  Promise.

I'm going to apologize in advance for the fuzzy pictures.  It is apparently difficult to take pictures with an iPhone while your hands are covered in chicken goo and olive oil. and you are trying to hurryhurryhurry to feed hungry kids.  Lesson learned.

Julianna's Parmesan/Pecorino Crusted Chicken

Chicken breasts or Chicken Tenders
Freshly Grated Parmesan or Pecorino Cheese (I prefer Pecorino)*
Basil
Butter
Olive Oil

Grate the Cheese onto a large plate, Like SO.  I've generally use almost a whole cup of grated cheese for two, large chicken breasts.  Now is not the time to skimp.  If you have a rotary grater like mine, it's just one lump of cheese cut to fit into the well/holding tank/cheese receptacle of the grater. 

Sprinkle on the Basil and mix it into the cheese your hands. Set plate aside. 

Add 2 Tbls EACH of butter and Olive Oil to a heavy pan on the stove.  Turn the heat to HIGH.  You want a HOT pan for this to work.

Cut larger chicken pieces in half -- they will cook more evenly and also more easily fit in the pan.

Pound out the Chicken inside some freezer paper (easy clean-up).  Take it easy, though.  Pounded chicken shreds are harder to cook.  I usually just pound them until they are about and even 1/4" thick.

Dredge/Pat the chicken pieces in the cheese mixture.  I don't dip the chicken in anything.  The cheese will stick.

Is your pan HOT?  Good. 

Arrange the chicken pieces in the pan to fit.  Cook about 3-4 minutes per side until golden and cheesy-crusty in the HOT pan. (I keep saying "HOT" because at lower temps, the cheese just melts and drips off the chicken.  That's not the point AT ALL...)

Serve with pasta, throw together a Salad, cut up some fruit, and this, my friends, is DINNER. 

Of course, if your kids are like mine, they will not eat salad, but they WILL eat cut up veggies.  This is Evan's plate.




*This will NOT work with the stuff in a Green Can!  Don't even THINK about it! 

Hand Made Dog Toys....

Since I DO have a dresser-ful of fabric....

...and since poor Andy's toy basket is down to decimated
bits of dismembered stuffies and assorted strings of
former rope chew toys.... I pulled out my trusty Husqvarna
this morning and made him a few new toys.

I made him several different ones, but the bone is his favorite.

Can you tell?

Look at that HAPPY!

Mmmmmm... stuffing.

But it's not long for this world, I'm afraid.

So the real question is... Is it worth it to make your own dog toys?  Have you ever?

MineCraft Cake Fit for a Ten-Year Old

April is a cake month around here. 

Miss M has her birthday in early April, and Genius Pants has his at the end.  Of course, with each Birthday, there must be a small family celebration on the actual day, followed by a birthday party on the next available weekend.

Are you counting?  Because, that's like, Four Cakes, already...

Adding to that, Miss M also requires that a slew of cupcakes accompany her to school on her actual day.

That makes five cakes.  At LEAST.

FIVE cakes.

Yesterday afternoon, I made the fifth cake of the month - a very simple cake for a simple gathering of our closest friends, just as the boy, himself requested.  It's my absolute favorite chocolate cake, and is  a one bowl, one spoon affair.  Crazy simple. 

The original recipe is specifically for a single layer, to be dusted with confectioner's sugar (which I often make for a quick after-dinner-need-some-chocolate sort of thing). 

This cake is also VEGAN.  No kidding.  you would never in a million years know from the dense, chocolate-y goodness.  Next time you need a chocolate fix, I PROMISE this will do 'ya. 

Or, you can do as I did last week, and double the recipe and make this Minecraft Cake for your ten year old's small, family gathering.

TEN?????  HOW IS HE TEN, ALREADY???  DOUBLE-DIGITS = AARRRRGGGHHHH!

He ever-so-adorably showed me what the "Cake" in Minecraft looks like (who knew?!?!), but honestly, it would have required fondant to best emulate the pixelated squares.  I'm not a huge fan of fondant, so I decided to make him a Minecraft Dirt Block Cake instead. 

He was cool with that.

So, I'm planning this cake in my head, thinking I'll crush chocolate creme-filled cookies for the dirt, and maybe crushed vanilla wafers with green food coloring for the grass on top...

In the end, I had to make a quick run to the dollar store for something.... Imagine my surprise when the very first thing I see as I walk in was a 12" x 12' square of green, plastic turf.

HUH.

Well, Well, Well.  That oughta do it.

SO-- I made the Minecraft Cake with the Vegan Chocolate Cake recipe, Hershey's Perfectly Chocolate, Chocolate Frosting*, crushed Chocolate Creme-Filled Cookies for the "Dirt", crushed and green food-colored Vanilla Wafers for the grass and.... a piece of that Green Plastic Turf square from the dollar store.   

NOTE:  I DID separate the plastic turf and the cake with a piece of wax paper, and I washed the plastic with dish soap and water beforehand.  It's entirely possible we will all die of some sort of horrific plastic poisoning, but it was totally worth it.

Underneath the plastic grass, it STILL looked like a Dirt Block.
And those crushed cookies were totally edible, if slightly gritty. 
C'MON! It's a DIRT BLOCK CAKE! Just bringing the realism!

He liked it, anway.

So did She.

There was also Home Made Pizza, per his request....

And at the end of the day, my sink looked like this.

THIS is Andy--- The Culprit behind THE GREAT MAGAZINE MASSACRE.

I just thought I'd include a picture of my mangy, gangly, 6 month-old  shelter mutt for your viewing pleasure. 

He's still in trouble.

  

Nah.  I'm just kidding.  He's totally not.

*see the bottom of the linked recipe... or look at the back of your Hershey's Cocoa container.  It's always there.  AND, it really is the best and the easiest, I think.  I don't even melt the butter.  I usually just beat it all together in my butterfly-bedecked Kitchen Mixer.  Totally works.

Happy Valentine's Day, Take 2...

Seems I wasn't quite done with the love today.

Besides, what's Valentines Day for, if not to make goodies for your sweet'umses?

Happy Valentine's Day!

I've been busy busy busy with the "Do Art Daily" project, but had a bit of time to make these for my daughter's preschool class....

Happy Valentine's Day!

In Memoriam

Diwali with my brave and kind friend, Radhika.

I wrote this for you to give you hope. I wrote this for you as I was unable to do anything else. I wrote this for you so that you would know how much you mean to me. I wrote this for you so that I will never forget. I wrote this for you because I love you.

October is for Pumpkin Cookies

Time for Pumpkin Cookies!

October may well be my favorite month. When I was a kid in Ohio, the walk home from the school bus stop at the end of my street was filled with colored leaves, the lovely, earthy smell of fall in the air, and on the best kind of day, the divine aroma of pumpkin cookies baking when I stepped into the house.

October was a favorite time in our house for the usual costume-y, candy-filled reasons, but we had an added bonus.

My mother (the saint) was born on Halloween.

Which meant October held not only bonfires and hay rides, but also a traditional pumpkin shaped cake, made in a bunt pan, with a half-banana "stem" stuck in the middle, and covered in bright orange seven-minute frosting.  I have never, ever liked seven-minute frosting, but tradition is tradition is tradition.

I imagine this was my Mom's Birthday Party - circa 1978.
Mom is lovely as usual.  And, get a load of that mustache on my dad! 

My brother & I scooping out Pumpkins for our Jack O' Lanterns,
October, 1978. I'm not going to do the math for you, but I was
5 in this picture.  I COULD have photoshopped the red out of these
pics... and, in fact, I DID give it a shot.... but I like them better this way.

On Halloween night, after we got home from Trick or Treating, Mom ALWAYS told us that we couldn't eat much candy, because we HAD to go to bed, as she had to grab her black hat, climb on her broomstick and fly to the big meeting at midnight.

We thought she was a real, honest to goodness Witch.

A GOOD Witch. But, a Witch.

Well it makes sense, doesn't it? Halloween Birthday? A love of all things Halloween-y? You see?

We were convinced.

She even has a bit of a nose.

A bit. Not a huge, pointy nose, but a bit of a nose.

She knows it. She won't mind me telling you.

Minus the witchy wart.

My mother LOVES Halloween, as one who is born on such a fun day would.

This morning, little girl and I "face-timed" with her, and Mom aimed her iPad at her vast collection of decorative witches and pumpkins for Miss M to see. She showed us a witch made from a gourd, a witch made of a shell, a beautiful hand-made crafty witch, and the witch marionette that I made her eons ago with a BRIGHT green polymer clay face and giant pink lips. It was pretty funny to see that thing again.
After we disconnected from "The Facetime", all I could think of was making Pumpkin Cookies.

So I did.

And now, you can too.

These Pumpkin Cookies are a cake-like cookie, with Oatmeal, Cinnamon and Chocolate Chips. And if you think that doesn't sound like a good idea, watch the video (below) of my Jack-the-Dog barking at the oven for his share. He didn't get one (chocolate chips). But! He DID get a dog biscuit. I'm not a bad dog-mother.

I imagine that this recipe came from the back of a Libby's Pumpkin can, but I don't know that for a fact. What I DO know for a fact, is that they are delicious.

Also: Be forewarned that this recipe makes TEN DOZEN. I freeze half of it. You can do that. Scoop them onto a cookie sheet, as if to bake, then slide them into your freezer until frozen. Once they are frozen enough to handle, put them in a freezer bag until you need to pop a few in the oven for fresh-baked cookies without all the fuss. Mmmmmmmmm.

PUMPKIN COOKIES

4 c. Flour

2 c. Oats

2 tsp. Baking Soda

2 tsp. Cinnamon

1 tsp. Salt

1 1/2 c. Butter or Margarine

2 c. Brown Sugar

1 egg

1 tsp. vanilla

1 Can Pumpkin (16oz)

2 (or more!) c. Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips

Mix Flour, Oats, Baking Soda, Cinnamon and Salt in a large bowl and set aside.

Cream Butter, Brown Sugar until light and fluffy.

Add the Egg and Vanilla to the creamed mixture and beat well.

Alternate adding the canned Pumpkin and Dry Ingredients to the Creamed mixture.

Stir in the Chocolate Chips.

Drop by Tablespoonfuls (I use a cookie scoop) onto lightly greased cookie sheets.

Bake at 350 degrees (F) for 20-25 minutes.


Immediately ride the school bus home and grab a few with a glass of milk.

Or just lay down in front of the oven and BARK until Momma gives you one.

Freeze the extras!

(You need Flash to see the video of Jack Barking for his cookies)

BARK until you get one!

OH!  I'm also doing something I saw on Pinterest with Plastic Snakes, a Grapevine Wreath and some Black Spray Paint.  Stay Tuned....

I LOVE HALLOWEEN!