HOMEMADE PIZZA NIGHT + DELISH NO YEAST DOUGH RECIPE

I need to talk to y'all about pizza. My family could have pizza night once a week (and often times, we do haha). Anybody else? I guess it's pretty fitting that we moved to the pizza capital of the US - Chicago. Deep dish pizza really is all that it's talked up to be, guys. If you are ever in the Chicago area you n e e d to try Lou Malnati's or Geno's East for some amazing Chicago style pizza. It's so different than your regular pizzas out there. But that's not what this post is about. ;) It's about the fantastic pizza you can make at home!

I have made homemade pizzas in the past that were just average. Too much plain-tasting sauce. The crust was soggy in the middle. Not a whole lot of flavor. But THIS pizza was way way tastier and so easy, and definitely not average! My husband (who is a big pizza l o v e r) could not stop raving about my homemade pizza on Friday night. That's the best feeling as a wife!! And I do have to admit, I was really surprised myself because I have always been a canned pizza crust kind of girl but this was BETTER. 

What was so different about this pizza, you ask? 

The first thing we loved more about this pizza was the dough! 1) You don't need yeast!!! (so many praise hands), 2) it was fluffy and fully baked in the middle, 3) golden crispy on the bottom (not burnt or white/underbaked), and 4) it didn't taste like flavorless cardboard (as homemade dough sometimes does). Also, you don't have to pre-bake the dough before putting toppings on which is just another plus.

The second thing we loved was the sauce and it was so simple to put together. It was the most delicious, flavorful companion to that perfect dough. Here's how to make it!

HOMEMADE PIZZA SAUCE

Ingredients

1 jar of marinara sauce 

1 tsp salt

1 tsp pepper

1 tsp garlic powder

1 tsp oregano

1 tsp Italian seasoning

Directions

1. Bring all ingredients to a simmer in a sauce pan. 

Note: I actually had about 1/4 cup of sauce left over that I didn't put on the pizza. My husband likes to have a marinara dipping sauce so it worked perfectly to have some left over! Just use your own judgement on whether to use it all or not based on the size of your pizza - be generous with covering the dough minus about 1 inch around the edges, but as a general rule less is more here. 

NO YEAST PIZZA DOUGH RECIPE

Ingredients

2 1/4 cup all purpose flour

1 tbsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1 cup milk (plus 2 tbsp more if your dough seems too dry to combine)

1/4 cup room temp/softened unsalted butter  

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Prepare baking sheet or pizza pan with nonstick spray.

2. Combine all dough ingredients in a bowl and mix until dough ball forms. I like to use my hands to crumble up the butter into pea-sized crumbles of butter + dough. (This is something I learned from my mother-in-law when making homemade biscuits. ;)

3. Roll dough ball out onto a floured surface with a rolling pin. This dough can be quite sticky at first! I rolled mine to be about 1/4 inch thick. (I didn't have the prettiest edges on this pizza, but I'll make that better next time!)

4. Move dough onto prepared baking sheet or pizza pan. Now it's time to add your pizza sauce, cheese, and toppings. 

*For toppings I used my homemade pizza sauce, a blend of Mexican and mozzarella shredded cheese, diced onions, green peppers, and pepperonis.*

5. Bake for 15 minutes until underneath dough is golden brown. 

And that's it! This recipe has officially been added to our favorites list and I can't wait to try it with other toppings. Stock up on your favorite pizza toppings and get this pizza cooking on your next Friday night, guys. You won't be disappointed!

Emily 

Christmas Cookies + BEST Icing for Decorating

I love love love to bake. When I was living at home with my parents, the idea of baking always sounded fun but since no one in my family was an avid baker, we didn't usually keep a ton of baking ingredients on hand. So I would always talk myself out of trying to bake something new. 

When I got married, though, I quickly grew to love and look forward to baking. Mostly because I was baking for my husband, now! It was also pretty resourceful too, because those brown bananas needed to be put to good use, right? In the last few years baking has become something I do regularly and love to do. And when you have two boys under your roof, they will never EVER resent having a Mom who loves to bake! 

Finding a fun set of cookie cutters at Dollar Tree the other day was really what made me want to decorate Christmas cookies, so that's what we did this past Thursday. This was the first time Charlie got to "help" use cookie cutters and he was ALL about it. Not so much the cookie cutting, but definitely the squishing of dough and sneaking handfulls into his mouth faster than we could catch. Seriously, try baking with a one year old soon...you will be amazed at how fast they are at making a mess and sneak-eating.

The gingerbread mix we used was wonderfully prepared by the one and only Betty Crocker. They turned out more like a soft baked cookie than a crunchy gingersnap.While I usually love to make my other favorite cookies homemade, I definitely appreciated the ease of a pre-made mix since we were going all out for our cookie decorating shebang with a toddler included.

BUTTERCREAM JUST LIKE ROYAL ICING 

Royal icing is all the hype right now, but I'm still a little weirded out about using a raw egg like that, and feeding it to my little one. So we made a batch of buttercream and it ended up being the most royal-icing like buttercream I have EVER seen. You'll notice on my cookies (especially the Grandma Snowman) how the frosting smoothed out similar to royal icing. So if you are looking for the royal icing effect with a classic buttercream taste, I would definitely recommend this recipe.

Ingredients:

3 cups powdered sugar

1/3 cup butter, softened

1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1-2 tablespoons milk


Directions:

1. Start by mixing 2 cups of the powdered sugar and softened butter with a mixer. (You will add in the third cup of powdered sugar later.)

2. Add the vanilla extract and 1-2 tablespoons of milk to the mixture and incorporate with the mixer again.

3. Add in the last cup of powdered sugar, little by little, mixing after each addition. If the mixture is becoming super thick, do not add anymore of the powdered sugar. It's okay if you don't use all of the last cup of powdered sugar. In order to achieve a "royal icing-like" consistency, you will want the frosting to be slightly thinner than normal buttercream would be. I found that using the mixer for a minute or two also allowed for a smoother texture on the icing.

4. Once the consistency is right, add in food color of your choice for decorating!

My plate

Husband's plate

I hope you all get a chance to do some cookie decorating this year! We cut and baked the cookies together as a family, but once Charlie was in bed for the night we had a cookie decorating "date" at the kitchen table and it's one of my favorite holiday memories so far this year. It doesn't have to be fancy (I used Dollar Tree items and pre-made mix! ;), it only has to be fun!


Merry Christmas, friends!

Putt Putt & Chocolate Chip Cookies

Starting off Memorial Day weekend (also anniversary weekend) with some fun! 

The great thing about our anniversary being on May 30th is that it will usually fall on or around Memorial Day! The year we got married there were 5 weekends in May and our wedding weekend was actually the last weekend, the weekend after Memorial Day weekend. This year our anniversary falls on Memorial Day, so we get a day off to spend together! I'll keep ya posted on what we do that day. :)

I think my nesting kicked in last week. I've been really planning painting baby furniture for the nursery (which I will be starting next week!) and cleaning out closet space for baby items to have more room. The first closet I cleaned out had a huge tote of kitchen items and dishes that my Aunt Barbara gave me before we got married. Since she passed away in January, I have been so thankful for all of the thoughtful things she gave me for married life. One of the things in the tote was a really adorable blue cake stand and topper! Keep reading for pictures/how it was used below.

Friday night:
Kicking off the summer with our first game of putt putt! Y'all might think that this is just something you do on vacation at those cheesy mini golf courses, but not this family. We are hashtag #blessed with a great putt putt course right near our parents' houses. Some people have season passes to Six Flags, and then there's us who always has a three game ticket in our wallet. Sometimes I'm really good and beat my husband (how I measure a putt putt victory), and other times I completely embarrass myself, ha! This weekend was definitely the latter of those two, but that's okay. I still gotta get warmed up for the putt putt season, ya know? We are just getting started.

Saturday: 
Our day consisted of rest and cookies. I tried a new "best chocolate chip cookie" recipe from Williams-Sonoma's website that I saw on Pinterest.  The only thing I changed in this recipe was the amount of chocolate chips and sugar. By the time I mixed all the dough together and was ready to add the chocolate chips, I thought there was NO WAY I was about to add 2.5 cups of chocolate chips to the tiny amount of dough! I only did a little over a cup of chocolate chips and it turned out just fine. I also left out one of the tablespoons of sugar and I'm glad I did because they were sweet enough. Also, I totally took their advice and scooped the cookie balls out with an ice cream scoop. Yep, never going back to the regular spoon again.

Let's talk about baking and being pregnant. I thought I was going to die the first time I baked something knowing I couldn't lick the utensils because of the raw eggs it contained. I don't think I had ever baked anything and not been anxious to lick the spoon. But alas, I have restrained myself during this pregnancy. My husband doesn't like to lick the spoon ever! He would rather wait for the treat to finish baking before taking a first bite. Not-pregnant me always thought that was so weird! But you know what? I've kinda enjoyed saving the first taste for the finished product. (That's something I never thought I would say.) I don't feel as sickly sweeted out before I even get to the cookies. Maybe I'll keep up the habit even after Baby comes!

Husband was a huge fan of these cookies, so I will definitely be keeping this recipe in my back pocket.

Hope you all have a great Memorial Day weekend with lots of good food and family time!
-Em

recipe: fruit pizza & cream cheese frosting + cliff jumping

Some things you just can't go wrong with. Pizza is one of them. Am I right or am I right?

And a FRUIT pizza is no exception.  I made this for my birthday at Rough River on Saturday! It's super duper easy to make. It has a chocolate chip cookie as the "crust," homemade cream cheese frosting, and a beautiful display of all of your favorite fruits. If you're like me, you'll also need like a gallon of milk to go along with it. 

The only baking that you have to do is the cookie crust. As simple as that. I cheated a little and used pre-made cookie roll but shh don't tell. Start by flattening it out onto a greased cookie sheet or pizza pan and bake according to the directions.

Once the cookie has cooled, spread the cream cheese frosting on top and decorate with your favorite fruit toppings. I chose strawberries, grapes, bananas, and mandarin oranges. It was delicious!

Here's how I made the frosting! (The best part in my opinion.) FYI - This recipe makes quite a lot. I only used half of it on the pizza. Adjust accordingly....or not and keep the rest in your fridge with a spoon close by. Just sayin'. 

Homemade Cream Cheese Frosting 
Ingredients:
2 pkg cream cheese
1/4 c milk
1 stick unsalted butter
2 tsp vanilla extract
4 c powdered sugar

Directions:
Soften cream cheese and melt butter.
Add cream cheese, butter, milk, vanilla extract and mix together.
Pour in half of powdered sugar, mix.
Add remaining powdered sugar and mix until perfectly creamy!


Here are some pictures from my birthday at the lake! We jumped off of a cliff,  y'all. 

Before the jump!

We ended up jumping closer to that log. Ahh!

We jumped!

This one was just so cute, I had to post it.