Foodie Friday: Everything Pizza

Pizza is delicious. It's wonderful. It's so covered in grease when you order it, and it's always not quite the same from frozen. So why not make it all yourself? It's not as daunting of a task as it may sound, making pizza crust and sauce. Here is a delightful recipe that I can suggest knowing that you will love it, because I have made it several, several times, and every slice was fantastic.

I bought some chicken & mozzarella with Italian seasoning sausage and sliced that up with a tomato topping. Below you find the recipe for the pizza I made, minus the sausage. It makes 6 large or 8 small slices. Enjoy!


Pizza Crust

You will need:

• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 cup warm  water (about 100F)
• 1/3 cup granulated sugar
• 1 package active dry yeast
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 tbsp Italian seasoning
• 2 tbsp butter

1. Mix flour, sugar, and yeast in large mixing bowl
2. Add seasoning and warm water (about 100 degrees Fahrenheit)
3. Mix fully until dough becomes smooth
4. Cover with plastic wrap and place in microwave or another warm spot in kitchen (try your microwave, but don't turn it on) for 30 minutes and allow it to rise to about twice its original size
5. While crust dough is rising, prepare the sauce (below)
6. Prepare a clean, floured surface such as a large cutting board or countertop on which to work the dough
7. Preheat oven to 400F
8. Place the risen dough on the clean countertop and knead about 10 times
9. Begin to shape the dough with your hands
10. Flatten the dough with a rolling pin until it is about ½” thick
11. Transfer dough to a pizza pan (greased) or stone to top pizza
12. Top with pizza sauce (recipe below), cheese, and desired toppings
13. Melt butter and brush onto exposed crust
14. Bake pizza for 15 minutes or until crust is golden brown and cheese is bubbling

Pizza Sauce & Tomato Topping
You will need:

• 15oz (1 can) diced tomatoes
• 6 oz (1 can) tomato paste
• 2 medium/large cloves garlic 
• ½ tbsp oregano
• ½ tbsp thyme
• ½ tbsp basil
• ½ tbsp parsley(substitute spices for 2 tbsp Italian seasoning if desired)  
• + ¼ tbsp Italian seasoning (for tomato topping)

1.  Put tomato paste into medium mixing bowl 
2. Strain tomato juice from diced tomatoes into mixing bowl 
3. Save ¼ cup tomato chunks in small mixing bowl for tomato topping
4. Finely chop or blend rest of tomato chunks and add to mixing bowl
5. Peel and press garlic and add to mixing bowl
6. Stir in spices until well mixed
7. Do not cook on stove 
8. Place directly on prepared pizza crust 
9. Now for the tomato topping! Take 1/4 cup tomato chunks set aside and add 1/4 tbsp Italian seasoning
10. Add 1 tbsp olive oil
11. Add 1 tsp garlic powder
12. Do no cook on stove
13. Place on top of pizza after cheese and other toppings have been added

 Some other ideas:

• Make the edge of the dough thinner and place cheese sticks on it. Roll the dough around it, using a little bit of water to mesh the crust together. Now you have stuffed crust pizza!
• You can leave out the spices in the crust, use a Bar-be-que sauce with some monterrey jack cheese. Delicious!
• Skip the sauce altogether and just do a butter garlic mixture and sprinkle some cheese over it. Now you have cheesy garlic bread.

Craft Tuesday: Cloth Bookmark

 
This cloth bookmark is sweet, simple, and a great package topper. This would be a wonderful present for friends and family for Valentine's Day. It's a great project to do with fun fabric from the remnants bin at the craft store or with scraps you have at home! I made a couple and gave them to my sister and my best friend and they loved them! I have already decided to make more for some other wonderful people.

I originally stumbled upon this when I was looking for some kind of cute way to embellish a cloth bookmark on Pinterest. I found Little Birdie Secrets' how-to suggesting them as a teacher gift. What a great idea!

These do require sewing, but it is really very little, very simple sewing. Cutting out, sewing, and assembling each bookmark probably took me about 45 minutes. A big chunk of the time was spent making the cloth flower though.

You will need:

• 2 coordinating pieces of cloth
• Featherweight fusible interfacing
• One button
• Thread
• Scissors
• Hot glue gun

Start by choosing the fabric you would like to make your bookmark and which you would like to be the flower. Cut a 4.5x8" piece of the bookmark pattern. Cut the same size of fusible interfacing and follow the directions that came with your interfacing to attach the two together. Trim any excess fabric or interfacing from the edges. It's okay if you have to trim a bit off, I have made the fabric size a little larger with this in mind.

Fold your fabric in half, interfacing side out and fabric in. Now, using any color thread, sew the bookmark together using standard 3/8" seam size. Sew the bookmark up, leaving one short end open and the edge perpendicular to it should be sewn until about 1/4" to the open end. After you sew the bookmark (don't forget to backstitch!), clip the corner and turn the bookmark right side out through the short end you left unstitched.

Now it's time to press your bookmark and prepare to do a topstitch, which will close up the end you left open. When you press your bookmark, turn in the fabric on the open end about 1/4". Pressing the fabric down will mean that you don't need to pin in, which would be difficult with such a small piece. Plus, it will make the edge much cleaner! After pressing your bookmark, put a topstitch on it. If you want to use a decorative stitch, feel free too. This topstitch is mostly decorative except for the small part where it seals the end.

Hooray! You made the bookmark. Now time for the flower to go on top. Plug in your hot glue gun to heat up! Next, take a piece of fabric, folded in half (like it is right off the bolt, with the two rough ends together) and cut a strip about 1/2" wide right off the end, from the fold down to the rough edge. Unfold. At one end, tie a knot, and place a dab of glue on it. Begin twisting the fabric and wrapping the twisted fabric around the knot. I wrapped mine very tightly, doing a dab of glue every 1/2" or so. Experiment with how tight or loose you want to make the fabric for the flower. Once the flower is the size you would like, or when you only have about 1" of fabric left, take the spare fabric and hot glue it on to the bottom of the flower. Doing this will keep your flower from unraveling or losing its shape, so don't be afraid to put a fair amount of glue (as long as it doesn't seep out of the sides).

Next, you have the option of hot gluing your button down to the center of the flower, or hand-sewing it through the center. On the bookmark with the brown flower, I sewed the button on (you can see the thread). On the bookmark with the blue flower, I glued it on (no thread). Other then the visible thread there was no big difference, other than that the sewn on button is less likely to fall off. After you attached your button, hot glue your flower to your bookmark with a circle of glue and you are finished.

Whether you are making this for yourself or a loved one, I hope you have fun!

Foodie Friday: Cream Cheese Danish

Cream cheese danishes are delicious. I had never thought of making my own, and when I stumbled upon this recipe I decided to give it a go. It was delicious and so simple because the crust is made out of crescent rolls!

This recipe makes 8 servings. I baked it in my 9x13" pan and it was the perfect size to cut into 8 pieces. You could cut the recipe in half, do it in an 8x8" pan and have 4 large or 6 small servings. Make sure you refrigerate it if you aren't serving it within an hour or two of baking it. I think the danish is delicious cold, but Jason said he liked it warm!

You will need:

• Danish:
• 2 8oz packages of cream cheese softened
• 2 8-count packages of crescent rolls (I used butter flake)
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 egg yolk
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 tsp lemon juice
• Glaze:
• 1 cup confectioners sugar
• 1 tbsp butter
• 1 tsp vanilla 
• 1/4 cup milk (or less)

1. Preheat oven to 350F
2. Grease 9x13 pan and place 8 crescent rolls (1 package) on bottom, un-separated
3. In a large bowl, beat together the rest of the danish ingredients and spread over crescent rolls
4. Open second can of crescent rolls and break off 4 rolls individually. I usually let the dough stretch out a little and then place it over the cream cheese mixture however you see fit/pretty
5. Bake for 30 minutes, or until the filling isn't completely jiggly and the crescent rolls are golden brown
6. While cooling, make the glaze by melting your butter and then whisk the rest of the glaze ingredients together
7. Drizzle over the danish and serve once it's cooled

Have some fun with it! Try using the crescent roll dough and reshaping it, maybe cutting it with a cookie cutter, to decorate the top of your danish!

Craft Tuesday: Tackling Crayon Art

This project was fun. Awesome, super fun. Almost therapeutic because of the simplicity of it all, and all the colors are just so crazy and cool.

Alright, so I have seen this crayon art ALL over Pinterest. It is awesome and everyone wants to do it. There are two methods to do doing it that I know of: 1)Hot glue the peeled crayons and use a blow dryer to melt them. 2)Run crayons through your hot glue gun.

My friend Brittnee and I decide to tackle this project together, in a two-part adventure. This is part-one. We opted to try the hot glue gun method first because we figured it would give us more control over the colors and where we place them. Plus, at the end we wouldn't have crayon chunks hot glued onto our canvases.

Well, it didn't go as smoothly as we thought and I definitely have some suggestions for you if you are going to try the hot glue method. First of all, use a new glue gun (or a glue gun with no glue in it) that you are using ONLY for crayons, because this WILL get messy and you will probably never be able to use your glue gun for regular gluing again (unless you really, really clean it well). I bought a new hot glue gun the day after I did this project. I will probably be able to salvage my other one, but I use mine for LOTS of stuff, and I need nice, clean one for all the other projects I do. Second, you really have to test out the waters to see what heat setting you want to use and how your glue gun will be most effective when it comes to pushing these crayons through.

Wax melting out the side means burnt fingers :(

Our biggest problem was that my glue gun wouldn't "grab" onto the crayons to push them through, so we had to push them through with another crayon. Then the wax ended up melting out the side AND through the glue gun hole, so it was a little...leaky. This got messy and frustrating. Perhaps if you use a glue gun that uses the small glue sticks this problem would be solved. If you are buying a cheap little glue gun specifically for this project (which is not a bad idea at all) then I would recommend you try that kind.

Okay, now that I have told you all the ways that ours was difficult let me show you how awesome, and INCREDIBLY FUN this project was. Seriously. Most fun I have had doing a craft in a while. Of course, it could be because I had company this time!

You will need:

• Crayons. Lots of crayons
• Hot glue gun (that you are willing to part ways with)
• Canvas(es)
• Heavy drop cloth you don't mind getting melted wax on
• Patience

We had two 7x14" canvases. The first canvas we used as an experiment canvas. We tested the different ways the wax melted and got used to "waxing." Of course, you could use a heavy piece of cardstock or cardboard to practice on, but our canvas came in a two-pack, so we figured, why not?

By laying the canvas flat and holding the gun perpendicular we were able to achieve a very cool splatter look. It was fun and stress relieving to just have at it. Then of course, we messed up our awesome painting by experimenting with the dripping effect, which is what we all see and love all over the internet (especially Pinterest).

While holding the canvas at various angles (we laid the end of the canvas on top of our upright crayon box) and pushing the crayon wax out at the top end of the canvas, we got that sought-after drip look. Hooray!

Now that we knew our way around this project, it was time to start the second canvas. Our goal was to create a tree - a weeping willow to be exact.

First, we used a light blue crayon to quickly mark of which areas we wanted to be background, tree trunk, and branches. We used several shades of blue in the splatter technique to create the background, a sky actually. While that wax was still hot we used a blue crayon and spread it out and mixed it up. Ended up pretty neat I think.

Next we began the tree trunk. Using about 8 crayons in various shades of brown we ran the crayon through the gun, moving it from side to side of the designated trunk space. When we had finished with all of the crayons, I used the hot tip of the hot glue gun to "carve" a heart in my tree trunk. Using the tip of the gun to remelt the wax is a great trick. If you have a big clump somewhere and you want to break it up, that's a great way to go about it.

Next, we flipped the canvas over so that the other end of the canvas was now propped up. We began dripping the greens out next so that the wax dripped towards the tree trunk. It took me about 2 crayons of green to flush all the brown out and then on top of that I used about 4 more. In other words, every single green and brown crayon went into this piece, and several of the blues too. Of course, we could have chosen to do reds & oranges and made the tree an autumn tree. (Hmm. Maybe I'll do that for my next one!) I tried to fill in as much of the white space as possible, but wasn't able to.

All in all, we were very pleased with how this crayon art (or "waxing") turned out. Though I burned my finger on hot wax, I think it was well worth it!

If you do attempt this, please be careful not to burn yourself and make sure you have something to protect the surface you are working on. Wax does come up, but this wax is HOT and could do heat damage.