Pizza dough for days!

My main mission when it comes to cooking is multi tasking. What can I prepare in bulk with multiple purposes? 

I love pizza and so I decided to try to make the dough myself. Jeff is usually incharge of making the dough. He has taught me that bread of any kind is made more by feel than a recipe. In taking that advice I actually added 1/2 cup more water than written in the recipe and it came together way better than it ever has for me in the past.

After about two hours it doubled in size!

I cut off a little dough ball for Aubrey to prepare her personal size pizza. This was so much fun for her. She got to decide the toppings and rolled it out all by herself. 

This kind of independence in the kitchen really encourages kids to think about ingredients.

She chose to make a sauceless pizza with pepperoni and cheese.

There was absolutely no pizza left over!

Aubrey graduated her wee college program at church and we had a special night with her to celebrate. Our little girl is heading to kindergarten this fall and we can't even believe we are in this stage of life but we are loving every minute of it!

Two days later;

With pizza dough in the fridge ready to be created into a delicious masterpiece I got to thinking that I wanted Asian flavours and I wanted pizza. Hmmm what to do? I ran my idea past Jeff and he thought it would work.

He made me a peanut sauce and prepped my veggies.

Carrots, red onion, celery, bok choy, mushroom, green onion, and red pepper.

Mozerella cheese

He suggested once it came out of the oven to sprinkle with toasted sesame seeds and a bit more of the sauce. 

I put it back in the oven for about three minutes after adding those toppings. My friend I had over suggested adding shrimp to this pizza. Uh ya! That would of been so delicious; next time for sure!

I had brought home bok choy for Aubrey to try. Once in a while I'll bring a "new" food item home to integrate into out regular repertoire. She loved it! We sure do have fun with food!

Retirement party: mini dessert buffet

I love a good party especially when I'm incharge of planning the dessert portion of the menu! My mom has recently retired so we decided to throw her a party to thank her. She has worked as a nurse for the past 42 years as well as raised us four kids. If that doesn't deserve a party I don't know what does!

I decided to go with a dessert buffet; I like a little taste of multiple things. When planning a dessert buffet; go with variety and things you do well.  I decided to go with two new recipes; that can work out but doesn't always!

I chose four items for the buffet. Macaroons, carrot cake with cream cheese icing, double chocolate cookies and marshmallows dipped in caramel and chocolate. The nice thing about the recipes I chose was that I was able to bake ahead and freeze. That is important to note when hosting a big crowd. I have learned from experience to not over extend yourself. I knew with two kids I wouldn't be able to count on "day of" baking. I only left two tasks for the day of; icing the mini cupcakes and dipping the marshmallows. 

I baked these macaroons  5 days before and froze them in an airtight container.

I will definitly keep this macaroon recipe; I did however use unsweetened coconut and I liked that they weren't too sweet.

I froze marshmallows on lollipop sticks and then dipped them in homemade caramel and then froze them again. This I did two days before and left them uncovered in the freezer.

Since I was going with a mini theme I bought a scoop to use for the cookies to make them uniform.  I can't  rely on myself to make everything the same. 

The day of the party all I had to do for the cookies was put them in the vases. 

As for the marshmallows all I had to do was dip them in chocolate. At the last minute I decided to just drizzle the chocolate on them.  Jeff had warned me that dipping them would be too much chocolate but I still gave it a try and discovered that yes drizzling was way prettier.

And Tada!

It was a great success!

Everyone loved the variety of the dessert buffet although the hit was the marshmallows with not even one left! Another thing people were talking about was the fact that I extremely look like my mom. Well that is a great compliment! If I can only go through my life with the grace she does I will have done something right. She has such a love for people, sincere kindness and a faith that  can't be shaken.  We are so excited to be apart of this next chapter of her life. 

*mom with her new employers!

Peanutty sesame noodles; highlights recipe

Before bed last night I was reading Aubrey's highlights magazine with her. As soon as she saw the recipe for peanutty noodles she knew she wanted to make it. We texted her hon Hurley and invited him for lunch. 

So as Aubrey's sous chef I cooked the noodles; we used her favourite ramen noodles instead of spaghetti. I toasted the sesame seeds and  chopped the green onions. I peeled the cucumber and decided to scoop the seeds out so they'd stay crunchy. I then chopped the cucumber into crescents. I also cooked up some sausage to chop up and serve on top to provide some protein. This would of been delicious with chicken as well.

Aubrey was keeping a close eye on me making sure I was doing my job!

Once my work was done I called Aubrey to make the sauce.

She combined:

1/2c peanut butter

2 tbsp brown sugar

3 tbsp soya sauce

1 tbsp sesame oil

2 tbsp cider vinegar

1/4 cup water

Aubrey tasted the sauce before we poured it over the noodles.

I put this back on the heat just to warm it slightly.

We divided the noodles into four bowls and then Aubrey garnished them.

Lunch is served!

It was actually delicious! Cucumber and sesame are a great combination. Next time I would serve it with chicken and we probably could of made it with three packages of noodles; there was more than enough sauce.

Can you tell that she loved it?

All of the kids loved it and there was not a noodle left! This was a hit and I would highly reccommend this recipe.