It's all in the Pizza Dough!

Finally a dough that turned out. No more box mixes for us, this is a great start to making the perfect Italian pizza or in my case New York style, it reminded me of home.

Italian pizza dough, 2 pizzas*

2-3 cups flour (start with 2 add more if dough is sticky)

2 tsp salt

1 packet of dried yeast 

1 1/3 cups lukewarm water

spices (optional)

1 tablespoon olive oil (optional)

Mix flour and salt in a mixing bowl. Then add the yeast to the water stirring until it's dissolved. Knead the dough until elastic. Cut the dough into two and shape to round balls. Put the dough balls back in the mixing bowl, sprinkle with flour and cover. Place somewhere warm and let it rise for 60-90 minutes.

it makes a great base dough for pizza and I would recommend adding your own spices to taste, it will be rather bland other wise.

makes 2 medium round or one large rectangle. The thinner the better with this dough.

Shape the dough into round pizzas. Add the toppings you like and bake in 420-450 degree oven, for 10-15 minutes.

~Enjoy! 



*recipe adapted from here.

Caramel toffee chip cookies & mint ice cream

These have to be the most beautiful and delicious cookies I have ever baked! Why else would I have ban all eating, smelling or drooling until the photographs were taken. There has to be documentation for such perfection. I think I can even smell them through the computer. Seriously!

Want the recipe? I must share it's to good to keep a secret.

 Caramel toffee chip cookie Recipe:

1 3/4 sticks softened butter

1 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup granulated white sugar

2 1/4 cups flour

1 whole large egg

 1 egg yolk

1 Tablespoon baking soda

1 teaspoon table salt

1 1/2 Tablespoons whole milk

1 teaspoon vanilla/bourbon extract

1 cup dark chocolate chips

1/4 Heath Bar toffee chips

5 caramel filled dark chocolates cut in half (Nestle Treasures will work)

Mix the first 3 ingredients in your stand mixer until well blended, then add flour, salt, baking soda, vanilla and blend (I always add the eggs second to last right before the chocolate chips). Add eggs and the remaining ingredients until well incorporated. 

Pre-heat oven to 365 degrees

Spoon onto a baking sheet

bake in oven for 8-9 minutes or until golden brown

then EAT!

Peppermint Ice Cream Recipe:

4 cups whole milk

1 cup granulated white sugar

1 teaspoon peppermint extract

1/4 cup York peppermint patty mini bites (they look like M&Ms)

7 peppermint patties broken into pieces and frozen

mix milk, sugar and peppermint extract for 20 minutes in your ice cream maker then add remaining ingredients mixing until the ice cream is well set and ready to eat.

**For Sandwiches freeze ice cream overnight.**

Ryn's Back!

I 'll be adding new recipes weekly and sharing links to my fun food finds you can find me most of the time over here blogging over my morning cup of joe at
    The Hippy Chick's Nest.

Food Fridays: French Toast Bread Pudding

Click on over to the Happy Life for this awesome recipe.

French toast Bread Pudding

Want more recipes???

Jump over to my other blog every Friday for fun and healthy recipes with a twist the kiddos will love!

The secret to making yummy cheese sauce

I love my grandmother's cheese sauce it has to be the simplest yet yummiest recipe there is. Now I'm a cheeseoholic, if that's even a word. I have a deep love for cheese so much so that I hope to one day live on a cheese farm making my very own.

So here's the scoop on the secret recipe… ketchup and mustard and boy does it make it taste GOOOOOD!

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons butter
1/2 flour
2-4 cups milk
1 cup cheese (cheddar and or velveeta)
1 tablespoon ketchup
1 tablespoon mustard (I prefer yellow but spicy will work if you want to kick it up a notch)

salt to taste

pepper to taste (optional)

Directions:
melt 2 tablespoons of butter in a sauce pan then add the 1/2 cup of flour over high heat mix then and slowly stir in milk. I never measure the milk so first add 2 cups stir constantly keeping it over high heat until it bubbles then reduce to a medium temp stirring constantly until it thickens if it's to thick add more milk then add chunks of cheese let melt as you keep stirring if you stop stirring the sauce will burn. Then add the salt, pepper,  ketchup and mustard keep stir until the sauce is fully incorporated reduce heat to simmer and stir occasionally until you are ready to serve.
My favorite is poured over broccoli and cauliflower. The Ketchup and mustard give it a nice orange color since we use white cheddar cheese my grandmother always used velveeta and chunk cheddar.

Enjoy!

New recipes coming soon…

Starting in November I'll be blogging again but this time it will be everything from homemade crackers to my secret cookie recipe and a few cupcakes mix in. See you soon!