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    Showing posts with label pizza. Show all posts
    Showing posts with label pizza. Show all posts

  1. Happy 3rd Birthday Aria!

    Tuesday, February 18, 2014

    Aria's 3rd birthday was February 7th! I can't believe she's three years already!
    For breakfast we had Birthday Pancakes, Aria loves helping me out in the kitchen so I let her help me mix the batter - I used this recipe. The pancakes themselves aren't actually that sweet, I didn't want to have "icing" on them though. I diced up some strawberries with a couple tablespoons of sugar and set it aside in a bowl so it could start releasing its juice.









    Aria ate all the strawberries first, then ate her pancakes. No shocker there. She would happily survive on nothing but strawberries and cheese if she could.


    For dinner we had homemade pizza! I made a double batch of homemade dough which came out to 3 large pizzas and 2 small. Above is a feta/goat cheese pizza, half with pesto sauce and half with marinara. We also had pepperoni pizzas and a meatlover's pizza (below).



    For Aria's cake I made a chocolate layer cake with a fresh strawberry filling and pink buttercream frosting. The cake is ad odd rectangle shape because my round cake pans are in storage at the moment, so I used a 9x13 pan and then cut it in half to create the layers.

    I was excited to try out the rose piping design on the outside of the cake and I'm glad it turned out as good as it did. I had some troubles with the buttercream breaking because the kitchen was too hot - so I had to keep re-beating the frosting on high and chilling the cake in the fridge every few minutes.






    Aria was super proud of herself for blowing out all the candles and kept talking about it for several days afterwards.




     ^^After eating Aria played with some of her new toys with her cousin Josie.
    They were making soup. :)

    Happy Birthday Aria!





    Posted by Katrina at 8:41 PM | Labels: , , , , , , | 0 comments | |

  2. Buffalo Chicken Pizza

    Thursday, March 14, 2013

    in 

    I'm a huge fan of Buffalo Chicken Pizza. It all started when I went to Houghton College. I worked in the downstairs cafe/snack shop that served wraps, hamburgers, fries, chicken wings, pizza, milkshakes and a few other unhealthy college staples. While the food was not all that fresh and pretty much everything came frozen or jarred, it did start my buffalo chicken pizza obsession. When I first heard about it I thought that it was super gross, until I tried it. Where had been this deliciousness been all my life?! 

    Since I worked in the snack shop, I could customize anything I made for myself to the way I liked it. So now that I'm living in my own home with a family and I have all the ingredients to make it all from scratch it's just that more delicious. 

    Ever since I found a bread machine at a yard sale for $5, I've been using it to make my pizza dough. But I'll be putting in my recipe to make it by hand, which is slightly different, because I know that not everyone has a bread machine - and this is how I used to make my pizza dough before.


    Buffalo Chicken Pizza

    Pizza Dough (makes 2 medium round crusts)
    - 3 1/2 cups flour
    - 1 1/2 cups warm water
    - 2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast
    - 2 tsp salt
    - 1 tsp sugar
    - 2 TB oil

    Toppings
    - one chicken breast
    - salt and pepper
    - mozzerella and parmesan cheese
    - Frank's Red Hot Buffalo Sauce
    - Blue Cheese dressing, preferably with chunks


    Pizza Dough
    Combine yeast, warm water and sugar in a bowl and wait for yeast to activate, roughly 10 minutes.
    Add in oil, salt, and flour (cup by cup) while mixing with a mixer with a dough hook attachment. 
    When the dough becomes thick enough, knead by hand for at least 5 minutes (can also be done with a dough hook). 
    Let it rise in an oiled bowl covered with a dishcloth for 1 1/2 hours.
    It's now ready to shape and make into pizzas.

    Pizza Assembly and toppings
    Preheat oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit.
    While the dough is rising, you can make the chicken and buffalo sauce.
    To make the chicken, simply season with salt and pepper, cut into bite sized pieces and cook in a skillet until done. Set aside.
    Make the buffalo sauce by combining the blue cheese dressing and Frank's Buffalo sauce in a 2:1 ratio (I like mine pretty spicy, feel free to add more or less blue cheese dressing to either tone it down or increase spiciness.) 
    Shape half of the pizza dough into a circle or square (depending on your preference or shape of your pan), and prick the dough with the tines of a fork to keep it from puffing too much. Leave about a inch around the edge of the dough for the crust. Dust the pan with a thin layer of cornmeal to keep the dough from sticking to  it and put the dough in the oven for 5 -10 minutes until mostly cooked though but not browned.
    Once the dough has been pre-baked, take it out and re-prick the dough with a fork. Top with the buffalo sauce, cooked chicken and mozzarella cheese. Bake until the cheese is melted and the crust is golden brown.
    Top the finished pizza with Parmesan cheese if you wish. Let cool for about 10 minutes before cutting into slices.

    Enjoy!


    Posted by Katrina at 5:47 PM | Labels: , , , | 0 comments | |