ANNOUNCING:

Straight from the Brick Oven

Did you make pizza tonight?

We did!

3 cheers for simplicity and pepperoni

If you should chance to get a little bored with pizza, if that's even a possibility...growing up we had Little Ceasar's Pizza every Friday night.  Same flavors.  Same breadsticks.  Never boring.  But, it might happen at your house.  As the main chef here, I got a little bored rolling out the same circle of dough, week in and week out.  So, change it up!  Roll a new shape!

Last week, we ventured into Stromboli!

molto delizioso!

Just make a rectangle (pictured top) fill it and roll it like a cinnamon roll.  Cut some vents into the top of the dough, and bake it into these yummy rolls!

A favorite for Fridays, or any day is Calzones!

Pinch off small rounds of dough, roll into 3 inch circles, or have your little helpers roll them into circles...they love it!  Fill, fold over, pinch sides together, and seal with a fork.  Do a better job than I did or you will lose that tasty filling right out the sides!

Tips for filling: keep your sauce for dipping.  It really doesn't stay in the calzone during baking and will make a mess of your pizza stone, baking sheet, or even oven!  We like a mix of shredded mozzarella, parmesan, choice of meat, like crumbled sausage or pepperoni, and some veggies, like peppers or spinach.  Find the right flavor combos, mix in a bowl, and scoop 1/4 c or so into the middle of your dough circle.  You can not go wrong!

Alrighty then.  This somehow became a cooking blog.  I am a foodie.  But, this blog wasn't a minute ago.  I don't know what happened.  Forgive me.  Go pretend like you are chef with your own brick oven and make delicious pizza or calzones or stomboli.  Eat.  Then all will be forgiven.

Spring is...

for hopping on your bike

having a friendly race

and gearing up for summer!

Oh summer,  You are our best season!  

Abbey & Landen say: yeah for no homework!  no waking up early!    

Layne says:  yeah for no driving the kids to school in my jammies!  

no missing naps to do school pick-up! and hooray for playmates home all day!

Mom says:  hallelujah no homework!  no making school lunches!  

no carpools, carpool lines, or carpool kids filling up my car!  

We might be getting ahead of ourselves here.  4 more weeks of school left...boo!

But, we are gearing up none-the-less.  We'll be ready when you show your sunshiney face.

Pop Tarts from Scratch

Abbey had her first pop tart a couple of weeks ago.  I definitely didn't buy it.  It must have been her junk-food eating father.  Landen and Layne were dying to try one, but there just happened to be one silver package left, and Abbey eats breakfast the earliest around here, so she gobbled it up. 

And so I did what any fair mom would do.  Well, any mom that wouldn't be caught dead buying a box of pop tarts.  I looked up a recipe online.  Landen and Layne would get their pop tarts.  I mean really, once upon a time everything was made in home kitchens from flour and sugar and eggs.  Maybe even pop tarts.  Funny how the best thing that ever happened was sliced bread, and now we have gone back to baking bread at home and slicing it with our butter knives.  Trends.  Making it all from scratch is a trend I can get on board with.  Skinny jeans are another story.

I have to say, these were pretty yummy!  And assembling the fun little pastry packages was really fun.

Abbey loved them.  Royal always says, "good."  Whether it's a p&j sandwich or homemade pop tarts...they're good.  He did eat like 5.  I guess good was good.  Landen and Layne, the two I went to all this trouble for, were a little skeptical.  Layne wanted icing, and then sprinkles.  And then, I'm not sure she was thrilled with the whole deal after all!

My favorite food critic.  This girl loves just about everything I can create.  If it doesn't involve onions or hard-to-chew red meat, she is my number one fan.  She wants to be a chef one day.  So do I.

For a fun Saturday morning treat, make some pop tarts.  No toaster needed.

I'll give you the link to the recipe I followed from Smitten Kitchen, if you promise not to compare her beautiful tarts to mine.  I have 3 kids that want to help.  And even if I don't let them help, they are breathing over the top of me breaking my concentration.

http://smittenkitchen.com/2010/04/homemade-pop-tarts/  

Friday Night Pizza

We make pizzas on Friday nights.

 It all started with Friday Night Movie Night.  The kids love it.  We would (yes, most of this is past tense) pick up a new movie, from Costco or Redbox, depending on the remaining numbers in the entertainment budget, eat pizza, pop some popcorn, lay out the blankets and pillows, turn down the lights, and make our family room a movie theatre.  Sometimes I even made a batch of gourmet popcorn, like white chocolate drizzled popcorn, or nutty caramel popcorn.  Then, as time went on, we got a little slacker about the whole thing.  We might skip the blankets and pillows because it was a big mess to clean up.  The lights would stay on so the adults in the family could get something done while the kids were occupied.  We would forget to pick up a movie, so we would dig through the old favorites and find one we hadn't watched in a while.  And then, forget the gourmet popcorn, we wouldn't even have a standby bag of Orville Redenbachers lying around, so we would go without!

Somewhere in there, as the coolest movie nights ever slipped away, the dinners picked up.  We would order pizzas many Friday nights.  Our favorite pizza establishment is Papa John's and they don't deliver to my house, so Royal would have to pick it up on his way home from work.  Nothing for me to complain about, unless he wasn't leaving work until later and pizza turned into a bedtime snack for the kids.  So, I made a batch of pizza dough and Friday night dinners never looked so delicious!  We throw on fresh mozzarella, our favorite toppings, and fill the house with that fresh Italian aroma.  In the summer, we grill it, and fill the neighborhood with that aroma.

I never cared to make my own pizza because a) you can pick it up anywhere and b) it takes time for dough to rise! But, it couldn't be easier to make, or more tasty, and you just have to think a little bit ahead.

The kids love pepperoni.  I love classic margherita.  I picked up a nice basil plant at Trader Joe's and planted it in the backyard so fresh basil is just steps away.

Want some?  Go make homemade pizza!  Make it every Friday night!  Throw on a movie for the kids and go have some fun with homemade pizza dough and any topping you can dream up!

Pizza Dough

1 packet active dry yeast

1 Tbsp sugar

1 c warm water (110 degrees)

2 1/4 c flour

2 Tbsp olive oil

good-sized pinch of kosher salt

Mix together yeast, sugar and water in the bowl of a stand mixer.  Let stand a few minutes until foamy.  Add the rest of the ingredients and using flat beater or dough hook, mix on low a minute or two.  I like to throw it on the counter with some flour and hand knead a few times to create a nice smooth ball.  Throw it into a greased bowl, cover and let rise an hour.  My kitchen in the summer takes 45 minutes...a cooler kitchen might take a little over an hour.  It will easily double in size.  

Roll out on a well-floured surface.  Top it with pizza sauce, cheeses, and your favorite toppings.  Bake on a pizza stone in a 425 oven for 10 minutes.  I have a few homemade pizza sauces I love, but my family votes for the bottled kind.  Contandina makes a decent one.  Or, Trader Joe's.

Mom Performance

It was all about moms.  The giant letters that spelled Happy Mother's Day.  The portraits carefully painted on the back of the letters, somewhat resembling each kindergartener's mom.  The tables decorated with flowers and treats and drinks, all for the moms.  The handmade gifts presented.

It's super cute and very entertaining.  The students and the moms alike.  I love to look around at the audience and take in their reactions.  It's a packed room of moms, all done up, in their motherly, yet still hip and young-looking, best.  There's video cameras, point and shoots, and SLR's that weigh more than their kindergartener, in action.  There's the gushy moms who bat their eyelashes and pull their mouths into an emotional smile.  There's the moms with tears down their cheeks, that can hardly hold in laughter because her child has flipped his poster 12 times and still doesn't have it on the right side!  My favorites are the moms whose child has been entrusted with the most important SOLO part of the song.  As her child comes to the front, alone, and begins belting out his solo lines, the room turns to her.  She bears the look of complete astonishment because these parts are usually kept a secret, for this very reason.  Then, as her eyebrows remain mid-forhead, the corners of her mouth turn up and her face beams happiness and joy and positive pride.  The tricky part is not faltering from this enormous proud grin when the soloist continues to belt out the most off-key noise you have ever heard while fiddling with the belt loops on his pants.  But, she doesn't. falter.

I know many of those moms look at her with envy, wishing her child was right for the part.  But not me. I look at the boy in the front, belting loudly, and his proud mama smiling, and feel complete relief.  Thank goodness Landen didn't have to learn all those lines.  Thank goodness Landen, with all his musical talents, isn't singing alone.  And as for the fiddling, it would be our luck that his pants would land on the ground!  Most of all, thank goodness, my over-joyous, proud mom character was not tested.  I would have failed.  I have been told that my face tells it ALL.  I giggle, cringe, squint, belly-laugh, smirk, lips-purse, nose-scrunch, eyebrow-raise, nod, head-tilt, smile, frown, lip-bite...all in the same sentence.

There should be acting classes for moms.  How to not break character.  Especially when other moms are watching!

Hanging with the Girls

on Friday the 13th.
Nothing scary here.  Unless you consider the heartbreaking potential here.  Boys, be afraid.

the party...birthday girl Ashley front and center

It was a blast.  I'm really only a couple of decades too old to hand with these girls.  And, I made it on the invite list.  I gave a few manicures.  Ate my way through the candy table.  And took a lot of pictures.  I had great models to work with and a fun line-up of activities to photograph!

It was a glamorous night of hair, make-up, manicures, and a fun photo shoot. 

Happy birthday cute Ashley!  Thanks for letting me join in and be 14 again!

Company on the West Coast

Uncle Ryan and Aunt Whitney came for a visit to the west coast, so we met at Spectrum for some dinner and meandering, and of course a carousel ride.  It was so fun to see them and catch up on all the stories. 

Landen and Layne get a ride

getting closer as the sun goes down

riding the carousel

The kids talked Uncle Ryan into a ride on the carousel.  He found the most stable object to ride on!  No going up and down and all around for him!  We MacLaurins have weak stomachs!

Goodnights and goodbyes came too quickly.  I think we are just going to have to make a trip out to the Big Apple next.  Slum it in the Upper West Side.  Eat a million slices of real pizza.  Truck around to a dozen famous bakeries.  Stroll through Central Park.  Such a drag.  I think we'll leave tomorrow!  

Mother's Day

I came down to breakfast and saw this special treat:

Abbey was so concerned that Royal was out of town and she wouldn't be able to make me breakfast in bed!  So, she got creative and surprised me with cute table setting...to eat my Eggo Waffle Cereal!

I wore this beauty to church:

My first time wearing a lei!  Courtesy of the YW camp fundraiser.  It was quite a fashion statement.

I read all these adorable notes:

My wall of fame!  I had to display this fantastic artwork.  And this way, these adoring messages make my days brighter.  Especially the ones of yelling and crusty looks and stamping feet.  They need brightening.  

I made this breakfast-for-dinner feast for my special day!

You know when you have breakfast for dinner?  And sometimes your breakfast tastes more like a dessert?  It was Mother's Day and I had to cook!  So, we had desserty-breakfast for dinner!  There's cream cheese in between those slices of french toast, under the strawberries and bananas.  We only get away with this when Royal is missing at the dinner table.   So, we took full advantage.

Royal came home just in time to put the kids to bed.  We missed him, and I'm thinking there would have been a few more perks if he was home, but the kids did a great job making my day extra-special all on their own!