Saturday, January 16, 2010

When there are clouds in the sky...

Its a gloomyish Saturday, but we have not had the rain they predicted making it the perfect lazy day (after a 8.5 mile run)! Who can name the song my post title is from? : )
We have noticed lately that our formerly inside puppy (Ellie) is now spending great amounts of time outside by herself while we are home. She has found joy in chewing on sticks in the yard, a side effect being that she often smells like tree sap. Now she has chosen many different sticks to chew on: fat ones, skinny ones, ect, but her stick of choice today greatly amused me:
it was huge, a tree basically.

On the kitchen front, I have two new recipes to share with you.
Thursday night, my good friends, Meagan and Dinah, came over to make pizza Sage style. My in-laws always make wonderful personal pizzas, so we decided to carry on the Sage way.
Meagan's pizza

Dinah's pizza
My yummy pizza

and Cody's (he chose not to have his picture taken with it)
Pizza Dough
4.5 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. salt
1/4 cup of olive oil
2 packages yeast
1.5 cups warm water
2 tsp. brown sugar
Measure 1/2 cup of warm water in a measuring cup and stir in 2 tsp. brown sugar. Dissolve the 2 packages of yeast in this mixture and allow to set for about 5 minutes. Sift 4 cups of the flour with salt in a bowl. Add olive oil, 1 cup of the warm water and then the yeast mixture. Mix all together and knead this dough for about 8 minutes. Can dust with flour so it will not be too sticky. Rub a clean bowl with olive oil, put the dough in this, cover, and allow to rise in a warm place for about 1.5 hours. It's ready to make pizza!

I made the pizza dough the night before, covered it with saran and put it in the fridge. When I got home from school I let it rise on the counter uncovered for 1.5 hours. We preheated the oven to 450 and put our cast iron skillets in. When we were ready to make pizzas, the skillets came out one by one, were brushed with a little bit of olive oil, added a small ball of dough rolled out and then brushed it with olive oil and minced garlic and pizza sauce (of course as well as yummy toppings: mozarella and parm. cheese, canadian bacon, pepperoni, onions, peppers, jalepenos).

Friday night we had our friends Hannah and Alex up for baked Spaghetti:
Baked Spaghetti
Ingredients
* 3/4 pound lean ground beef (I used Venison)
* 1 (25 ounce) jar spaghetti sauce
* 1 pound spaghetti
* 1 cup shredded mild Cheddar cheese (we used parm, italian mix and a little bit of Mexican mix)
Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). In large skillet, cook hamburger until brown. Mix spaghetti sauce into skillet. Reduce heat and simmer.
2. Meanwhile, bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Mix in pasta and cook for 8 to 10 minutes or until al dente; drain.
3. Mix together spaghetti and meat mixture, pour into 9x13 pan. Top with cheese and bake for 30 minutes, or until heated through and cheese is bubbly. (We layered: spaghetti, meat mixture, cheese, spaghetti, meat mixture, cheese)

I also made a salad last night mimicing the house salad that I had at Peli Peli a few weeks ago.
Raspberry Vinaigrette
Iceberg Lettuce (they used field greens and baby spinach, but I used what I had)
Blueberries
Strawberries (sliced)
Carrot Shavings
Onions
Carmelized Pecans - I couldn't find any to buy already carmelized them, so I bought pecans and carmelized them at home:
I went ahead and did the whole bag so
1 1/2 Cup Pecans
1 1/2 Tbs Butter
3 Tbs Sugar
Melt butter in small skillet over medium-high heat. Add sugar and nuts. Stir constantly until sugar loses grainy appearance (mine took about 4 minutes). Pour nuts onto sheet of aluminum foil and let cool for 15 minutes.

I hope everyone enjoys the weekend! I'm looking forward to having Monday off! : )

4 comments:

Unknown said...

SB, I love your blog! And this is weird, but I totally know Meagan. She worked out at Sky Ranch, and we were in the same mentor group! I think, why does it feel so long ago? That baked spaghetti looks so yummy, I want to give it a try!

The Sages said...

What a small world that you know Meagan!! I was just checking out your blog yesterday : )

katie + bret said...

Yumm girl - That bake sounds fab!

What happened to Cody's poor pizza?!

The Sages said...

Nothing. Its exactly like he wanted it, he just had no desire to have his picture taken with pizza : )