Artisan Bread

Aaron checked out this book* and here's his 3rd batch.

I want to wolf whistle at these loaves - they're just gorgeous, right?

The first was just as pretty, the second was a whole wheat recipe.


*Yes, Aaron does all the good cooking here ... pretty much, anyway. But he doesn't think to blog it now, does he?
Nope, that's where I'm a viking.

this week for dinner

I have taken a new approach to cooking: I plan out a weekly menu (inspired by this blogger who I met once), buy groceries accordingly, and make meals. I love it. Yes, I'm slowly becoming my Mom. But...Now we eat foods we've never made before, I consult cookbooks and food blogs more, food rarely goes bad in the fridge, and it's never stressful because I have meals planned out. I can also prep various stages of the meal whenever I have a minute throughout the day since cooking in one, long stretch is practically impossible with baby. One of my latest was dinner crepes:


We put spinach, cheese, tomatoes, basil, and grilled onion in them. Avocado would have been good. Yummy. I made fish tacos for the first time yesterday, but have also been mixing in some old classics. One I took a picture of, but can't find, is cabbage salad. My Ukrainian friend whips this up now and then and I love it. It's just cabbage chopped fairly skinny (not chopped all up, just chopped long and thin off the head), grated or shredded carrot, pine nuts, olive oil, salt, and pepper. It is really tasty, refreshingly cool on hot days, very light and thus an excellent between meal snack, and probably not very fattening.

Ignore what it says just below, this was posted by Jenn N, not Kris J.

Pizza Perfection

Dude.

We just ate the best pizza.













(Mind you I'm no food photographer - so just trust me that it tasted better than it looks here).

We are all full and happy and our house smells amazing.

Now you know we love pizza, and make it often, but Aaron checked out this book from the library called American Pie: My Search for the Perfect Pizza. Sounds awesome, right?

This guy traveled the world searching for the best pizza secrets. There are tons of different crust and sauce recipes. Tonight we tried one and holy cow.














It is as good as The Pie pizza.

I know, that's saying a lot, and we weren't expecting such spectacular results. But it's true.

And we've got leftovers for lunch. Yeah, buddy.

Next up we're going to try the grilled pizza recipe. We already like grilling pizza, so that'll be fun - and won't heat up the house in the summer.













And now to go enjoy smelling my pizzeria house again.... mmmmmmm.

sun dried tomato and basil hummus

kari made the delicious falafel, and i made the hummus: basil, and sun dried tomato. you probably all have your own recipes/brands you swear by, but if not, here's my recipe:

2 cups chickpeas (i cook dried ones in a crockpot with salt and water)
1 cup water
2 handfuls fresh basil leaves, or 1/2 cup sun dried tomatoes
1 tsp. salt
fresh ground pepper
3 Tbs. extra virgin olive oil
2 Tbs. tahini
5 cloves garlic, pressed

puree in a food processor. you may want to taste as you go and adjust seasonings/ingredients to your own taste.