Favorite Pizza Dough

2 1/4 tsp Yeast (Active Dry)

2 1/2 tsp sugar

1 1/2 cup warm water

4 1/4 cup Flour

1 1/2 tsp salt

Dissolve sugar in warm water. Gently stir in yeast. Let stand until foamy, about 10 minutes. 

In separate bowl, combine 3 cups flour and salt. Mix well and add yeast mixture. Add more flour as needed. Knead for 7-8 minutes.  Divide dough into two balls and let it rise for about 2 hours in a covered bowl. 

Bake at 425 degrees for 15-20 minutes.

Makes 2 crusts.

Biscuits and Dinner Rolls

Baking used to scare me. I always thought any recipe with flour or yeast (especially yeast) was a disaster waiting to happen in the kitchen. Maybe I'm thinking to the time Carol and I tried to make pancakes and somehow we ended up with thick, hard pancakes. It was horrible. Emily and Cat would tease me saying how I can't make pancakes and somehow I generalized that to all things related to baking. I finally realized that it's not as bad as it seems.

Here are two recipes that I like to use. I found the biscuit recipe here. A friend gave me the dinner rolls recipe.

Easy, Flaky Buttery Biscuits

3 cups Flour

4 1/2 tsp Baking Powder

2 tbsp sugar

3/4 tsp cream of tartar

1/2 tsp salt

3/4 cup Butter, cold

1 eggs, slightly beaten

1 cup milk

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Mix Dry ingredients together. Cut in cold butter, until it is pea-sized. Mix egg and milk and pour into dry mix. Stir together with a fork. Combine all the dry mix with the wet mixture until it forms a soft ball. Turn out onto a floured counter. Pat down until 3/4" thick (NOTE: rolling will keep it from being flaky). Cut biscuits out and place on an ungreased pan.

Bake for 10-15 minutes.

**These freeze really well. So I like to save some of the dough since we hardly ever eat a whole batch.

Dinner Rolls

1 1/8 cup warm water

2 Tbsp milk

2 tbsp butter, melted

4 tbsp sugar

3 cups flour

1 1/2 tsp salt

2 tsp yeast

In a large bowl dissolve sugar in warm water. Add milk and melted butter. Add yeast and stir briefly. Let it sit for about 10 minutes until frothy.

In separate bowl mix salt and flour. Stir in the water with yeast. Knead dough and let it rest for 20 minutes. Roll dough out on a lightly floured surface. Cut dough with biscuit cutter or whatever (I use a cup) and dip into melted butter. Fold each circle in half (well, not quite in half...it's more like 2/3 where the top overlaps the bottom) and place closely together in 8x8 pan.

Bake for 15-20 minutes at 375 degrees.

Amazing Breadsticks

My friend gave me her breadsticks recipe and it's wonderful!

1 1/2 cups warm water

2 tbsp. sugar

1 tbsp yeast

1/2 cup dry milk

1/2 tsp salt

3 cups flour

1 stick of butter, melted

Garlic salt

Parmesan cheese

In a large bowl dissolve sugar in water. Add yeast and stir briefly. Stir in dry milk, salt and 3 cups flour. Knead 3 minutes adding more flour as needed. Let it rise for about 20-30 minutes.

Roll dough out on a lightly floured surface. Cut dough into 1 inch strips and dip into melted butter. Place strips closely together in the pan. Sprinkle garlic salt and Parmesan cheese liberally.

Let rise it again for 10-15 minutes. Bake for 15-20 minutes at 350 degrees.

Lemon Poppyseed Bread

This recipe is phenomenal! I originally got it from allrecipes.com (my favorite place to look for recipes because they're tested and rated!) but added my own changes. I label this as a dessert, because even though it's often eaten at breakfast, let's not fool ourselves- it's LOADED with sugar. Probably why it's so CRAZY delicious. My friend came over today and we made it together. I also made it for Avery's morning birthday party.

The Beginning

It all started when Bonnie asked me for two recipes. These were the two that I gave her. The potato soup is really good. I plan on making some Friday actually. It's great for leftovers (and I'm not really a leftovers kind of person, but I'm trying to get over that). The banana bread is my Grandma Lemon's recipe. I love it! Especially when it's fresh from the oven and slathered with lots of butter.

Potato Soup

Ingredients*
4-6 medium-sized potatoes (I like red potatoes best, but you can use whatever you have)
1/2 bell pepper, chopped
1/4 onion, chopped
1 cup cubed cured ham or beef kielbasa(we tend to use beef kielbasa)**
2 cups chicken broth
1 tbsp flour
3/4 cup half-and-half

Boil potatoes. Drain 3/4 of the water and use the remaining water as part of the stock. Add chicken broth and keep over medium-low heat.

In a separate pan, sauté onions, bell peppers and ham. Stir in flour until it evenly coats the sauté mixture. Add to this to chicken broth and potatoes and pour in half and half. Add black pepper, seasoning salt, and cayenne pepper to taste.

* Proportions depend on how much you like onions, bell peppers, etc. Feel free to adjust to your own family preferences.

** Mike tells me that it's not really beef kielbasa, but just in case you're confused I have a package of Hillshire Farm beef smoked sausage sitting in my fridge waiting to be used.
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Grandma's Banana Bread

Ingredients
1/2 cup of shortening (or butter)
2 eggs
2 cups flour
3/4 tsp salt
1 cup mashed bananas (about 2-3 bananas)
3/4 cup white sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup buttermilk (buttermilk = 1 tsp vinegar + 1 cup milk)

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
Add flour, baking soda, and salt. In a separate bowl, cream shortening, sugar, and eggs until smooth. Add bananas and then flour mixture. Slowly stir in buttermilk until combined.
Bake for 45 minutes to 1 hour.

**Makes 2-3 loafs of banana bread