Anyone Else Feel Like Winter Has Overstayed Its Welcome?

I have had a busy few weeks and am late getting my blog posted. I hope you have missed me just a little bit. Here we go…………………………..

Recipes

Lazy Pierogi in the Slow Cooker

2 cans of Cream of Mushroom soup

1 pound Kielbasa

1 pound sauerkraut

one onion diced

one pound rotini

1/2 to one stick butter

1 small can of mushrooms

1 cup water

Put everything in the crockpot. I cooked on low for as long as it took to cook the pasta. Everything else is already cooked.

Cold Rise Pizza Dough (alsothecrumbsplease,com)

• 2 cups bread flour, spooned and leveled
• ▢1 teaspoon salt
• ▢¼ teaspoon instant dry yeast
• ▢¾ cup water
• ▢2-3 tablespoon olive oil

• In a large mixing bowl, mix the flour, salt, and yeast. Then add the water and stir with a spatula until it comes together and a shaggy dough forms.
• Pour a little olive oil in the palm of your hand and knead the dough for a few minutes until it’s smooth and releases from the bowl.
• Transfer the dough to a well-oiled container, also oil the top of the dough, lightly press the dough into the bottom of the container, cover, and let rest for 30 minutes at room temperature. Then transfer to the refrigerator until it has doubled in size.
• Once the size has doubled, usually after about 24 hours, lightly oil your hand, grab one side of the dough, stretch it up, and fold it onto itself. Turn the bowl by 90° and stretch it and fold it again. Repeat two more times. Then turn the dough upside down and lightly press the dough into the bottom of the container. Cover and chill for 2-4 days.
• On baking day, preheat the oven and pizza steel to 482°F (250°C) for 45-60 minutes. Place the baking steel in the top third of the oven. Remove the dough 1 hour before baking from the refrigerator and let rest in the container for 30 minutes.
• Then carefully remove the dough from the container with a dough scraper and place it on a work surface. Cut the dough in half and preshape both halves into rounds using a bench knife with as few moves as possible. Holding the bench knife at a shallow angle with the work surface, push the bench knife under the dough and from you away starting at 6 o’clock and make a fluid rotation up to 12 o’clock and push the dough back toward you to tighten the dough and shape it into a round ball. If the dough sticks to the bench knife, then flour the bench knife a little. Then flour the tops of the dough balls and cover with a dry and clean kitchen towel for 20 minutes.
• In the meantime, cover a pizza peel with semolina flour and set aside.
• Flour the work surface and the dough generously and turn the balls over with the bench knife. Lift one dough ball up and place it on your knuckles. Make two fists and stretch the dough and as the dough expands, gradually open your fists and sprout and stretch your fingers. Then place the dough back on the floured work surface and stretch with your fingers. Let gravity help you stretch the dough. Use enough flour to avoid sticking. Then lift the dough from two opposite sides and transfer it to the prepared pizza peel and shape it into an even round shape if necessary.
• Top with San Marzano pizza sauce, mozzarella cheese, your favorite toppings, transfer the pizza to the oven and bake for 6-7 minutes.* If your oven has a broiler setting, turn it on after 3 minutes. While the first pizza is baking, prepare the second. Then remove the baked pizza with the pizza peel and bake the second. Serve immediately and enjoy.

Pumpkin Bread (thegeneticcfhef.com)

• 1 can pumpkin puree 15 ounce – I use Libby’s
• 4 large eggs room temperature
• 1 cup neutral oil I use extra virgin olive oil
• 1 tablespoon bourbon or vanilla
• 1 ½ cups sugar
• 1 cup dark brown sugar packed
• 3 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• ½ teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon fine salt
• 2 tablespoons Pumpkin Spice I use my homemade pumpkin spice
• 3 tablespoons sugar divided
• oil or baking spray for preparing pans

• Preheat oven to 350°.
• Grease 2 (9×5) loaf pans with oil or baking spray. I use stoneware or nonstick metal pans. Sprinkle each pan with 1 tablespoon of sugar.
• In a large bowl whisk the pumpkin, eggs, oil, vanilla or bourbon, and sugars until thoroughly combined.
• In another bowl, whisk the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and pumpkin spice, combining well.
• Add the dry ingredients to the wet. Slowly add it in while whisking to incorporate. Once it is mostly incorporated, stir for 50 strokes.
• Pour batter evenly into the loaf pans.
• Sprinkle the tops of each loaf evenly with remaining sugar.
• Bake for 60 – 65 minutes or until a toothpick inserted at center of loaf comes out clean.
• Remove from oven and turn them onto a rack to cool. Just be careful – they are hot!

*This is the first time I made a pumpkin bread with brown sugar and pumpkin pie spice. Boy did it make it really pop. So moist. So flavorful!

Bundtwich (pillsbury.com)

Fo the bread you get two rolls of french bread dough. You will find it in the cooler where the biscuits and cinnamon rolls are. To make the giant bundtwich you just remove the dough from the package and do not unroll it. Place the roll in one half of a greased bundt pan. Do the same with the second package but place it on the other half of the bundt pan. With your hands pinch both ends of the rolls together to form one ring. I added everything bagel seasoning to the top of the dough. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 to 33 minutes until bread is golden brown. Allow the bread to cool and using a bread knife cut the ring in half creating the top and bottom of your bundtwich. You can fill it with just about anything. I did cold cuts, cheese, lettuce. If making a cold bundtwich like I did, just provided your guests with mayo or mustard, etc.

Dog Cupcakes

My one dog just had her 6th birthday. She celebrated with her 2 sisters by having a cupcake.

3 Tablespoons pumpkin puree
3 Tablespoons peanut butter
3 Tablespoons oats
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
3 Tablespoons whipping cream
optional

1. PREHEAT oven to 350 degrees F. Place 1 or 2 paper liners into a muffin pan. Recipe makes one
   large cupcake or 2 medium sized cupcakes.
2. WHISK together pumpkin, peanut butter, and oats in the bottom of a small bowl.
3. MIX in the egg and baking powder until incorporated.
4. BAKE for 20-25 minutes until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.
5. COOL completely and frost if desired

*This recipe is for one single cupcake. I tripled it for my 3 dogs.

Craftiness

Pocket Hug

For my friends I made some pocket hugs for Valentine’s Day.

This is the link for the pattern.

https://zamiguz.com/wp-json/mv-create/v1/creations/84/print?ajax=true

Valentine Tree

I used a styrofoam cone, chenille pink yarn, little hearts and a heart on a pick all from Dollar Tree for this project. The tedious part of this project is hot gluing the yarn around the cone. After that it is just a few seconds to hot glue the hearts on and poke the heart on a stick into the top of the tree.

Hacks

If you are still using dryer fabric softener sheets go get yourself some dryer balls. I bought mine at TJMaxx (and you thought I only shopped at DT). I had home made ones made with tennis balls years ago and quit using them because they were so loud. The ones I just bought are not loud at all and I love them.

Garden Pot as a String Holder (countryliving.com)

Scan the barcodes with these apps.

ShopSavvy which will show you the lowes price at top retailers as well as comparisons for other sellers across the internet.

MyNetDiary which takes all the info on the packaging of a food item and assigns a food grade to it from A to D based on nutritional value.

Yuka which analyzes ingredients in food and body care products and flags potential allergens, endocrine disruptors, pollutants, carcinogens and skin irritants. If a product scores low for health or nutrition it will give you other suggestions.

I hope you enjoyed this post and hopefully something useful. See you next month. ( I promise won’t be more than a month. lol)