My camera got a lot of action this weekend, both in the iHeartFaces Atlanta Photo Walk and in the kitchen. Friday was National Doughnut Day, and although my family snickered and insisted it wasn’t a real holiday, I thought it was a mighty fine excuse to try Rachel’s doughnut holes recipe.
Saturday night we had homemade pizza. I have pizza crust recipes that take some time before the dough rises, but this recipe that I downloaded from ’06 is ready in a snap. I love seeing bloggers like Sandra that started about the same time as I did and are still here. 🙂 My husband is diabetic and I try not to make my crust too thick, so I take the recipe for a single pizza times one-and-a-half for two pizzas.
The first pizza was barbecue chicken (am I the only one who wants to put a “q” in barbecue? It’s not there. Trust me.), and the second was a white pizza with fresh grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, fresh pressed garlic, and sliced tomatoes from our local produce stand.
[I’m inserting a note here about the Parmigiano-Reggiano: I know it’s crazy expensive—I think I pay over $12 a pound—but it’s a very dense, hard cheese and lasts a good while, both in freshness and use. We grate it for pizza toppings, over pasta, and mostly in Alfredo sauce, where it truly shines.]
What was cooking in your kitchen this weekend?
These both look delicious, Dawn. We love making homemade pizzas. One trick to get the dough to rise quickly {about 30 minutes} is to put it in the oven with a damp dish cloth over the top. The oven shouldn’t be any hotter than about 200 degrees. It will just rise up so perfectly!
Robyn, that’s good to know. It sounds like I could make any crust recipe work quickly. 🙂
I was telling Michael, last night, about how you reminded me about Rachel’s doughnut holes. Guess who’s making them this week!?
I actually bought 3 more cans of biscuit dough today. We ate 3 cans of them this weekend. You get 40 doughnut holes per can. 🙂
OH that looks soooo good! We like making home made pizzas too. I usually make mine with spinach and grilled chicken. The boys like plain ol’ pepperoni.
Amy, what kind of spinach do you use (fresh, frozen, creamed)? I love spinach pizza, but I’ve never made it.
You have a wondeful blog. I met you today at the Bread Art Project!
I will definitely be digging into archives.
http://www.safehomehappymom.com
Dawn,
Your pizzas look so scrumptious! We have homemade pizza *almost* every Friday night. I would love to get your recipes for these.
For the barbecued chicken pizza, I had a bag of precooked grilled chicken strips in the freezer, so I heated them in the microwave, chopped them up, and added barbecue sauce. I only had a tiny bit of mozzarella so I put it under the chicken. If I put mozzarella on top, I add it in the last few minutes because it burns so easily.
Sometimes I cook frozen chicken breasts, chop up and cook a small onion (shhhh, don’t tell my kids), and add barbecue sauce. I’ll freeze what I don’t use for next time.
Sometimes I just throw on all remotely applicable cheeses that I can find -mozzarella, Parmigiano-Reggiano, even cheddar – and add fresh garlic. We make more white pizza, although I do have a killer tomato sauce recipe from the New Basics cookbook.
I’m not sure if I cooked anything all weekend! We had Pinewood Derby at church Friday night along with a potluck. Then a World Cup Soccer party at a friend’s house on Saturday, followed by a lake wedding Saturday late afternoon. 🙂
And it was the best eatin’ we had in a looong time. Food always tastes better when someone else is cooking… which means, of course, that food must always taste good to my kids and husband. So long as there aren’t any veggies, silly picky eaters.
We make our donut holes with biscuit dough too. Mmmmm…