Unfortunately, I didn’t get the shot I wanted, but I plan to go back and keep trying. Practice makes perfect.

I did get some good pictures of the kitty just hanging out though, enjoy…

School started up again and I’ve been taking photos left and right, up and down, and even from the inside of the refrigerator! I’ve been having a blast, but my time seems to escape into the ether. So blogging has had to take a back seat.

As part of one of my photography projects, we went to watch a friend of ours run in a half marathon. My taste-tester was on puppy duty, and I captured a few cute moments of Sweetie.

Here she is asking to go meet that cute boy…

Her and the cute boy… he really liked her too!

And here she is showing off her yoga moves to the cute boy (and checking to see if he’s watching )…

My apologies… posting will be random for awhile, perhaps more so this semester because I’m taking three classes. I’ll write when I can.

Lately, I’ve been getting that old feeling again, the desire to play with dough. And somewhere in the back of my mind I remembered that little bottle of Fiori di Sicilia. This weekend I felt like making pancakes and thought the citrus extract would be a nice change of pace.

I used the recipe I usually use from seitan beats your meat (online pancake recipe). I substituted the Fiori di Sicilia for the vanilla extract, using only half of what it called for (ie. 1 tsp vanilla extract –> 1/2 tsp Fiori di Sicilia).

While making the pancake batter, I had that moment when you hesitate, you know just before you put in a new-to-you ingredient you think to yourself, “will I ruin this whole batch with this one ingredient?” I smelled the Fiori di Sicilia one last time, and decided that I would go for it. I tasted the batter and it was good with just a hint of citrus… I then had my taste-tester taste the batter and he agreed that it was good. Whew!

While the pancakes were cooking the smell reminded me of shortbread cookies. But the actual taste of the pancakes, topped with maple syrup, reminded my taste-tester of orange sweet rolls and I had to agree. These were awesome, and I’m not embarrassed to say that I ate half of that stack.

Oh and that electric skillet, that my in-laws gave me years ago, is the best thing for pancakes. I could make 6 pancakes at once!

YUM!

Now to find more recipes to incorporate the Fiori di Sicilia into. Any ideas?

Until next time…
~nic

When I made that set of caloznes, I had enough dough to make two more. If you’ve been reading this blog long, then you know that we have a special love of olives. I wouldn’t say we are addicted, but we definitely love the brine-y stuff. I used to make a ‘yummy bread’ (it’s been a little while) that incorporated this love of olives, so I decided to make that olive goodness this time as the filling.

I love recipes that incorporate stuff already in your pantry, this is definitely one of those kinds of recipes. I used (clockwise) marinated artichoke hearts, capers, green olives, banana peppers, kalamata olives, and mission (black) olives. I sliced/chopped them into pizza-topping sizes.

I decided to make one big calzone that I would then divide between the two of us, it seemed easier than trying to divide out the filling ingredients. This ‘big’ calzone took 14-15 minutes to get to golden (as opposed to only 12 min when there were two).

We had just a bit of pizza sauce left from the night before (heh, we love our sauce)… so I combined the leftover pizza sauce with about 1/2 a jar of spaghetti sauce (I like sockarooni).

YUM!

Not to let the fun end there, the next night I decided to make yet another batch of this crust. This time I made it a focaccia, and serve it with a big-ass salad. I rolled the dough out into a big pizza shape, then I added some olive oil, which I rubbed around evenly with my fingers. I topped it off with basil (dried), oregano, marjoram, garlic powder, salt and pepper (the salt and pepper really make this good!). I baked it in a 425°F oven for 14-15 minutes.

The salad consisted of romaine (chopped), baby spinach, broccoli slaw, cucumbers, celery, carrots, red bell pepper, and grape tomatoes (seeded). Topped with mixed nuts and balsamic vinaigrette. The broccoli slaw worked out great, and added even more vitamins to my dinner .

YUM!

Finally, I decided to take my camera and a helper (my taste-tester) with me on a walk…

First there was the ‘bark’ to stop fidgeting with the camera and let’s go already!

Then there was the waiting, while my taste-tester took up the dog food that I remembered was in my trunk. Heh.

Finally, we were on the walk… I kept running ahead and trying to take pictures of her running towards me…

Then it happened. I finally got the shot.

Enjoy!

It turns out, I was putting it off for no reason. I recently purchased a different kind of yeast, pizza crust yeast. According to the package, it could be made in about 15 minutes or so. Now that I can get on board with.

So today, I decided that I would indeed make a pizza… or rather a couple of calzones.

It really did take absolutely no time at all to make the dough. In fact, I made it and put it in the fridge for an hour because I wasn’t ready to eat yet.

When I was ready to start dinner, I took the dough out of the fridge to let it get back to room temperature, and then started to assemble what I would put in the calzones. Normally, I make a killer zucchini calzone, but I was craving black olives and decided to make it more of a ‘veggie works’ calzone.

My filling ingredients included: onion, garlic, zucchini, grape tomatoes (seeded), bell pepper (not pictured), mushrooms, and black olives. I seasoned/sauteed the filling with marjoram, basil, oregano, salt & pepper, and olive oil. For the sauce, I used a can of pizza sauce, yum.

I only used 1/2 the dough to make the two calzones. Which means, I’ll be able to make more later with other fillings.

I baked the calzone in a preheated 425°F oven on a pizza stone for 12 minutes.

Yum!

I don’t have any wisdom to impart, as I’m sure you are well aware, on your birthday you generally feel the same as you did day before.

I didn’t have a list of must-dos before I turned 40. And to be quite honest it kind of snuck up on me, all of a sudden 40 was only a few months away, then a few weeks, and now it’s here. Well actually, I guess it technically was yesterday, although it will be a reality for the next 364 days.

Celebrations started early, we pretty much considered the weekend my birthday, and honestly the whole month is mine. We had take-out, ate lots of chocolate, watched movies, and we even made it to the beach. It was a fun weekend.

I’ve been thinking about a scene from a really funny show from the UK called ‘Coupling’ lately. Check out times 3:32-4:16 and 4:58-6:01… Enjoy!

Until next time…
~nic

We decided to go to the beach and take in the sites. Enjoy!