Spring blooms

What a wonderful spring!  It's been such a blessing to enjoy unseasonably warm weather after such a rough winter.  I can't believe how fast my garden is growing!

 

The tulips I planted last November are starting to bloom.

The radishes I planted two weeks ago are also popping up.

And look who decided to join me in the garden: my neighbor's cat, Levi.

Now I'm off to enjoy another beautiful day!

HBin5: Pizza

I strayed from this week's Healthy Bread in 5 assignment.  I'm not really interested in trying gluten-free recipes; thankfully, neither my husband nor I have glutten allergies. I thought this would be a good week to try the olive oil pizza crust recipes in the "Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day" cookbook, which I bought at the same time as HBin5.

The whole reason I decided to splurge on a baking stone was so I could make restaurant-quality pizza at home.  We don't have a pizza delivery place in my town, so we have to make do with ingredients we can find in our little grocery store.

I'm happy to report that the ABin5 pizza dough turned out amazing!  I had a little trouble rolling it out to 1/4-inch thickness as was recommended in the book.  I don't have enough counter space to roll dough easily.  And when I tried to slide my first pizza off the peel onto the stone, an edge of the pizza rolled under, and then the cheese ended up sticking to the stone, so I couldn't get the pizza easily off the stone. But after some wiggling with a spatula, the pizza finally came off the stone.  And it looked beautiful!

 

I ended up making two medium-size pizzas - a pepperoni and a "taco" with seasoned ground beef, lettuce, tomato and doritos added after baking.  My husband ended up eating nearly an entire pizza by himself.

Again, I can't get over how easy these pizzas are.  The last time I made pizza dough this fall I accidentally let rise for too long, and I had to mix up another batch last minute.  It's so much easier just to mix the dough in a bucket and then let it rise in the fridge.  These no-knead recipes are terrific!

Please visit Big Black Dog to see how the other bloggers fared with their gluten-free recipes.

Birthday treats!

Hello everyone!  It's an absolutely gorgeous day outside.  The birds are chirping, the neighbor's orange tabby cat is lounging in our yard and I'm basking in the glow of my birthday!

I received wonderful birthday gifts from my family.  My sister gave me a silicone pie shield, a pineapple corer, a fancy new pie server and a tube of Colgate. (She's just weeks away from getting her dental hygenist license.)

My sister said these pie servers are flying off the shelves at her mother-in-law's gift shop in Carroll.  You push the handle, and the pie slides off the server.

And my husband completely surprised me with a new food mill!  I can't wait to start using it this spring to make strawberry jam.  It will especially come in handy when I'm making apple butter in the fall.  Last year, it took me all day to peel, slice, cook, mash and strain the apples just to make 8 half pints of apple butter. 

I'd also like to make my first attempt at homemade ketchup this summer, so this food mill is a must!  I couldn't ask for a better birthday!