em + the kitchen - pizza dough.

Growing up, we always got to choose a meal for our birthday dinner. It could be aaaanything we wanted and to this day, this is what I choose. My mom's homemade pizza is perfect in only the way that a mom could make it. In fact, as I was making the dough, I found myself performing little idiosyncrasies that I only did because I could recall my mom doing the same when I was a kid: I removed my engagement ring (because I have one of those now!) to knead the dough, I covered it with an old dish towel my great-grandmother had embroidered, and I used the leftover dough to make breadsticks because you just sort of have to. My mom did those things and now I do, too.

This dough is relatively quick and easy for a bread. It only needs an hour to rise before it's ready to go. And it's easy to customize to your tastes. Love garlic/oregano/other Italian spice? Add it to the dough! Fuhgetaboutit.

You may, of course, top it however you like. This time I just made sun-dried tomato, Pepperoni and Canadian bacon because it's what I had on hand, but I've made it before with pesto as my sauce or even a white pizza. You really can't go wrong.

Homemade Pizza Dough
(makes 4 pizzas, or 3 + breadsticks)

Ingredients:
1&1/2 cups warm water (if it's too hot, it will kill the yeast and you'll end up with unleavened bread -- I speak from experience...)
2 tsp sugar
1 package active yeast (or 2&1/4 tsp)
1 stick butter, melted but not hot
1 tsp salt
4&1/2 to 5 cups white flour

Mix all ingredients except flour together in bowl with dough hook attached.
Add flour into mixing bowl by 1/4 cup until an elastic ball forms. You want it to be sticky, but able to fall off the dough hook when you lift the head of the mixer. It should stick and pull away from your fingers, not stick completely to them.
Once you've achieved the right consistency, either knead with your hands (adding flour as necessary) or with the dough hook.
Let rise for one hour, topped with a damp cloth.
After an hour, punch the dough down and let rise for another 10-15 minutes.

In the meantime, preheat the oven to 425*.
Sprinkle flour on your countertop, rolling pin, and hands. Lift dough out of bowl and separate into 4 equal parts. Roll out each piece until flat enough to fit a 9" pizza pan or pizza stone.
Decorate! And bake for 12 minutes or until cheese on top is bubbly.

What's going on your pizza??

-e.

happy momma's day.

I find it sort of ironic that when I was in high school and college and broke as a joke, I was always trying to think of the perfect give to buy for my parents for birthdays and holidays. Now that I'm a real grown up (or something like that) and make good money, I find that I'm much more inclined to hand make the gifts I give.
Sort of backwards, but maybe it's just that I discovered that these gifts mean a little bit more coming from my hands.

Because I love to bake, I tend to make sweets and treats for gifts. For my dad's birthday last year, I made a lemon chess pie. It was bangin'.

This year for Mother's Day, I went the same route. Not necessarily baking, but definitely a sweet treat for my mom to munch on. I saw these trail mix bites on Pinterest and knew immediately that she would love them. This is for the woman who dips her bananas in Hershey's chocolate syrup. She loves dark chocolate. And the trail mix? I've never been a fan, but my mom used to make some awesome gorp when she was my Girl Scout leader and she still loves to snack on the sweet/salty mixture when she's hiking, climbing mountains, and generally just being Wonder Woman.

These bites are so easy and pretty and portable!
They're perfect.
Much like my momma.

Trail Mix Bites
(this made about 24 bites for me)

Ingredients:
1 dark chocolate bar, 3.5-4 oz (I used 70%)
A handful of your favorite trail mix
--I wandered around Central Market's bulk section of trail mixes until I found one I thought fit what I was looking for. Because I don't eat much trail mix, I didn't want a whole bag for myself. This way, I controlled what I bought, which was about 1/4 lb of trail mix and it was exactly enough.

Prepare a cookie sheet with a silicone mat or parchment paper.
Place coarsely chopped chocolate in a microwave safe bowl. Microwave in small bursts of 30 seconds, stirring in between until chocolate is completely melted.
Using a spoon, pour dollops of the melted chocolate onto your Silpat, about an inch apart. Mine were each 1-2 inches in diameter.
Place pieces of the trail mix in whatever combination you like on each chocolate round.
Place in freezer until completely hardened (about an hour to an hour and a half).

Enjoy. Hug your mom a little extra today. I know I will. :)

-e.

levi emerson.

It's been a while.
Lots of life has happened in between my last post and now.
Including, but not limited to, my new nephew! I am completely in love with the new man in my life.

In fact, I'm just going to let the pictures speak for themselves.
I apologize in advance for the sheer volume. Sorry, not sorry.

 

 

 

I just love every last part of him!

I can't promise that every post from here on out won't be him, but I'll try my best.

aunt e.

 

baby on the way.

My sister and her husband, Justin, are about 35 weeks into their pregnancy with my nephew, Levi. The whole family is completely over the moon about the idea of this sweet new family member. Last weekend, we threw Annelise two showers (one for family, one for friends) and both were huge successes!
I had to share some pictures because the themes were just too cute! (Though, excuse the quality. You guessed it! I forgot my camera...)

Levi's nursery is monster themed, so we ran with that for the first shower.

I made cake balls with candy eyes and toasted coconut hair, sandwiches with cheese teeth and olive eyes, and my cousin made cupcakes with googly eyes attached.

 

We also cut mouth-shaped holes in shoe boxes to use as utensil holders. It's hilarious how much character you can add to inanimate object by simply adding eyeballs.

The centerpiece was a somewhat non-traditional diaper cake made with cloth diapers. My sister has decided to take a very natural approach to raising her child and has some really great ideas. She has a blog, here, if you're interested in tips or seeing how things are working for her!


The second shower was Texas themed because, if you know anything about Annelise, you know she's Tex-obsessed. This shower was rustic and adorable.

We had a giant mason jar drink dispenser serving iced tea and lemonade, two bundt cakes, cowboy caviar, pecan treats, and watermelon slices.

 The house was also decorated with baby's breath and sunflowers. So fresh and sweet!

Although I'm already dreading being called Auntie Em (Justin has promised this will be the first thing he's going to teach Levi), I cannot WAIT for this sweet boy to be born!
-e.