Come here my little pretty...

The garden is soaking up last week's rain and this weekend's sunshine, making all kinds of pretties : )

Homemade Pizza Dough and Pizza

The easiest pizza dough recipe I have used, crispy and bread like at the same time.

Crust:

3 cups all purpose flour

1 envelope Fleischmann's RapidRise Yeast

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup water

2 tablespoons olive oil

1/2 teaspoon sugar

Combine 1 cup of the flour with yeast and salt in large bowl.

Heat water and oil to 120-130 degress.  Gradually add to the flour mixture and whisk until ingredients smooth.  Add remaining flour to make soft dough.  Turn out on to a floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic. 

Let rest 10 minutes.

Roll out dough.  Place on pizza pan brushed with olive oil.

Toppings:

3/4 cup Tomato based pizza sauce 

Crimp the edges of your pizza crust with finger tips.  Smooth your pizza sauce over your crust.  Try to avoid "race tracks" so you will not have the dreaded bubbles in your crust/pizza.

 

Add on top of sauce- chopped onions, green peppers, mushroom slices and fresh basil.

Tonight's choice of toppings also included pepperoni, fresh pineapple and crispy bacon.

Final topping of shredded mozzarella and provolone cheeses.  Bake @450 degrees for 10 minutes and then reduce tempature to 375 degress for another 10-15 minutes until cheese is golden and crust bottom is brown and golden.

Enjoy!

Banana Bread

A popular request from the Boiz in my house...

Grandma's Banana Bread : )

Ingredients:

2 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup butter

3/4 cup brown sugar

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 bananas

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

All ingredients in the bowl except bananas, begin mixer.

In go the bananas to be mixed in until creamy.

Yum-creamy!

Into the greased pan.

Bake @350 degrees for approximately 1 hour.

Cool a bit and enjoy!

Driftwood Hen and Chicks Planter

The easiest and fastest planting I have ever done : ) 

My favorite part of this project is collecting the driftwood...

Start with a piece of driftwood that has a few crevices for soil and plants to grab on to. 
I drilled into the driftwood to give a bit more area for succulents to grab on to.

My Hen and Chicks plant is multiplying like crazy, so they become my transplants to the driftwood.

Come Sail Away

My ode to childhood summers filled with beaches and water and of course, driftwood.  Gotta love driftwood : )  baskets of it, driftwood planters, and driftwood boats...

 "Just right" driftwood boat and mast.  Some scrap fabric and maybe string...

 The mast goes up!

Come Sail Away

Black Raspberry Cobbler

Can you smell that?  The aroma of summer? 

Black Raspberry Cobbler wafting through the house...

INGREDIENTS:

2  1/2 cups of fresh black raspberries
1 cup sugar

1 cup all purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup milk

1/2 cup butter, melted

whip cream or ice cream if desired

 In bowl, stir together berries and sugar.  Let stand until fruit syrup forms, about 20 minutes. 

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

 In large bowl, sift together (I whisk instead of sifting) flour, baking powder, salt.

 Whisk in milk and then melted butter.

 Pour into UNGREASED 8x8 pan.

 Spoon berry mixture over batter.

 Bake 45 to 55 minutes until dough rises and is golden colored.

Black Raspberry Ice Cream and warm cobbler go together perfectly!

Whoo?

Ahhh...Martha, Martha, Martha.  I have an idea board and deep in the abyss of ideas I found a lonely photo of a felt owl with a note clipped to it reading, "Martha Stewart's craft."  No directions, no pattern, and so here goes a Martha wannabe craft for me : )

 Felt squares, Styrofoam ball, wiggle eyes and hot glue gun will get things started here.

 Layer feathers with cut out felt feathers.

 Add ears, nose, eyes and feet...And whoo is ready for a debut!

Whoo loves ya : )