My Family's Favorite Pizza Crust

This dough is the no-knead artisan bread dough that was really popular about 10 years ago. It is really simple and fast to assemble. This recipe and technique has never failed me. The crust always turns out with a great yeasty flavor and aroma, along with a perfect crunchy on the outside, and chewy on the inside texture. 

Let's get started!

 Dough Recipe

3 cups warm water

1 1/2 TBS. yeast

1 1/2 TBS. course or kosher salt

6 1/2 cups unbleached flour

In a large bowl (at least 4 quarts) combine all the ingredients. Stir until a shaggy dough forms, 5 minutes is all it should take.

Shaggy dough. Stop stirring.

Cover loosely and rest at room temperature for 2-5 hours. 

After the rest you have a bowlful of sticky dough.

At this point the dough can be used for pizza or put into the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks.

Make sure you start preheating your oven well and in advance, like 30 minutes. Set your oven to 500° F. and place an overturned iron skillet on the middle rack. A stoneware pizza pan can be used instead of an iron skillet.

Preheat oven and iron skillet.

Sprinkle flour over the dough. With floured hands pinch off a lump of dough, about the size of a grapefruit. Working quickly, tuck under the raw edges and plop your lump of dough on a little pile of flour.

Lump of dough on pile of flour.

This dough is almost too wet to use a rolling pin to shape. After the dough has been refrigerated it is much easier to manage. Once the dough is chilled you can probably use a rolling pin.

 I use my hands to shape the dough (most of the time) in this manner:

Flatten the lump into a disc. Lift the dough by the edge let the weight of the disc stretch the dough. Rotate the disc so that it starts to make a circle. Lay it down on the flour frequently to solve any stickiness. Continue to stretch and manipulate the dough until you end up with the desired shape. 

It is really easy to stretch a hole in the dough, so just be warned.

Transfer your dough to a pizza pan and add toppings.

Ready to bake!

Place your pizza pan on top of the hot upside down iron skillet in the oven. Bake 7-10 minutes.

Music I Have Been Enjoying Lately

I am a musical person! I have had some musically dry time periods in my life when I either didn't have a piano or radio or didn't take any time to play or at the very least sing. I definitely missed music during those spells. Music just brings light and life to a dimension of my personality. I am sure I am not alone in this feeling. Somethings are just expressed best through music! I thought I would take this opportunity to share some of the piano pieces that I have been enjoying lately. Along with some auditory versions so that you can enjoy them, too.

Raindrop Prelude by Chopin 

Vanished Days by Grieg

Epilogue by Heller

And, Moonlight Sonata mvt. 1 by Beethoven.

I don't really take time to learn new songs these days, but someday I dream of adding a few to my repertoire. I really love Jesu, Joy Of Man's Desiring by Bach. I chose this piece for my bridal processional when Mr. In The Mid-west and I got married. It would be so nice to play it for myself.

May Sheep Safely Graze, also, by Bach

And, I have always wanted to be able to play Liebestraum by List. It doesn't have the same appeal that it used to for me, but I'd still like to be able to play it someday.

Do enjoy any of these songs? Do you have any favorite songs to share? Maybe we can have a conversation about music in the comments section!

My Favorite Italian Sausage Recipe

 I found this recipe from Sufficient Acres.com back when it was Queen of the Red Double Wide blog. That was years ago! This sausage recipe is one of the best I have tasted. I want to add it to my collection of recipes here on my blog because it is a staple in my kitchen. 

I have mixed this spice blend into ground turkey, ground beef, ground pork, and ground deer. If you want "real" Italian Sausage it is best to use pork with a high percentage of fat.

Italian Sausage Seasoning

1 tsp. Ground Pepper

2 tsp. Dried Parsley

1 1/2 tsp. Italian Seasoning

1 tsp. Garlic Powder

1/2 tsp. Red Pepper Flakes

1/2 tsp. Fennel Seeds

1/2 tsp. Paprika (Smoked Paprika is really good)

1 tsp. Minced, Dried Onions (I used 1/4 c. fresh minced onions if I don't have the dried version)

1 1/2 tsp. Sea Salt

Mix all of the ingredients together. Stir into 2 pounds of ground meat. Refrigerate 2-24 hours before cooking.

Some of you may remember that I also shared a Breakfast Sausage Recipe several years ago. It was also a recipe from Sufficient Acres.com. You can see the original recipe for Breakfast Sausage HERE or my version HERE.

New Year's Eve Hats!

 Happy New Year 2021! We wore paper crowns at our celebration. I designed my crown with sewing in mind. I used yarn to make stitches on the border. I glued on some buttons and pictures of quilt blocks.

Why do I make hats for New Year's Eve?  This tradition started 3 years ago when we were home by ourselves for New Year's Eve. We were not going anywhere or having anyone over to our house. On top of that Mr. In The Mid-west was working that night. I wanted our supper to be a little festive. I thought if I made paper party hats for everyone we would have more fun! :) And it was more fun! It is a tradition I would like to keep.

The First New Year's Hats

Last year I learned about fascinators. Fascinator definition: a woman's light, decorative headpiece consisting of feathers, flowers, beads, etc. attached to a comb or hair clip. They are so pretty! I wish I could incorporate them into daily attire. For New Year's Eve 2020 I made a GIGANTIC fascinator out of a paper flower. If anyone would like a good tutorial on how to make paper flowers HERE is one I recommend.

Do you have any fun New Year's traditions? Tell me what they are in the comments section!

Bread Crumb Cookie Recipe

This recipe comes from The Tightwad Gazette. It is on page 130 in my book and contributed by Ruth Palmer of Utah.

I had a variety of crumbs in my fridge last week. Some pound cake crumbs, muffin crumbs and banana bread that was going stale.  I thought it would be a good time to try this recipe for Bread Crumb Cookies.

Various Crumbs

Bread Crumb Cookies

1 1/4 cups flour

1 1/4 cups sugar

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. baking powder

1/3 cup cocoa powder

1/3 cup milk

1 egg

2/3 cup melted shortening (I substituted 1/3 cup melted butter and 1/3 cup oil)

2 cups bread crumbs

Mix the dry ingredients together. Add the milk, egg, and shortening. Stir in the crumbs.

Drop by spoonfuls on baking sheets. Bake at 350° F. for 15 minutes. Cool on rack. Yield 25-30 cookies.
 

Ruth Palmer adds that she has had good success substituting applesauce for 1/2 the shortening in this recipe.

My family enjoyed these cookies. When I asked Mr. In The Mid-west how he liked them he said, "They're good. They don't taste recycled." Haha! 

This is a recipe that reminds me of my grandma Jan. One year she brought us a bunch of frozen logs of cookie dough that she had made. Whenever we baked a batch of these cookies it was always a surprise. If she had bits of coffee cake or other interesting crumbs, into the cookie dough they went! We never knew what to expect! They did taste pretty good, though. :) I would describe my grandma, with affection, as a true tightwad. I could tell many such stories, and maybe someday I will.

Flannel Tissues For My Family

 My "tissue" rag basket has been needing attention for quite some time. We have used cloths in place of paper kleenex for several years. Most of our tissue cloths were literally rags, pieces of old cut up shirts. When I read Lessons From Madame Chic by Laura Scott earlier this year I was "convicted" of the condition of my kleenex rags. (She talks of always being presentable and using nice things everyday instead of saving them for a special occasion.)

This week I was cutting out and serging a bunch of nice flannel tissues for other people. As I was looking through my flannel stash I came across this lightweight plaid. I decided that I should put effort into something nice for my own family.

I made a stack of 20 new flannel tissues for us. 

Here is a Before picture,

And an After picture.

Much better! 

You can see most of the old rags were badly stained. They are headed out to the shop to be used as grease rags now.

It feels really good to put some care towards making something nice for my own family. Do you know what I mean? Are there special things you do for your family to show your love and care? I am sure there are more than you can list. As a stay-at-home wife isn't that practically the definition of the job? Sometimes I get into a routine and do chores out of habit instead of love. My work is so much more rewarding, though, when I do it out of love. Love for the Lord and love for my family. 

1 Corinthians 13:3 

And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.

Pattern Review Website Recommendation

I have been wanting, for a long time, to sew a shirt dress (to be honest, a whole wardrobe of shirt dresses) for myself.

I was contemplating the Simplicity 8014 or the McCall's 6696. Both are really cute! I fell down a rabbit whole on the web as I went from blog to blog reading reviews on these patterns. There were even video reviews on YouTube!

https://sewing.patternreview.com/

I discovered this pattern review website. It is nice to be able to see how a particular pattern turns out for others, as well as, hear what other seamstresses liked or didn't like about the construction techniques. 

I used to think of myself as a pretty good seamstress. Coming across this community of pattern reviewer's has humbled me. I am an amateur next to these ladies. It is very exciting for me to learn that there is so much room for growth and improvement of my own skills. 

If you have ever been interested in buying a sewing pattern I highly recommend you read some reviews on this site. Sewing patterns can be expensive. It is nice to know more about the pattern you're interested in buying. The more information you have ahead of time, the more likely you are to be satisfied with your purchase. 

Another really helpful thing to do is search the pattern brand and number with a search engine online. There are a lot of blogs dedicated to sewing and reviewing patterns. They can be very informative!

Paricutin!

Job 37:5 

God thundereth marvellously with his voice; great things doeth he, which we cannot comprehend.

Less than 80 years ago there lived a farmer in the small village of Paricutin, Mexico. He had a problem area in his field where the earth was dipped down and crops never grew well. He had tried to fill in the soil at that place, but it always sunk down. On February 20, 1943 a crack opened up there and fire-y ash and cinders started spitting out of the ground! A volcano was born! The man and his wife fled the field in fear. They and the people of the village watched that day and through the night as the explosive out bursts of lava and burning particles built a mountain before their very eyes! In the first 24 hours the volcano grew to 50 meters high. At the end of a week there was a 100 meter volcano in Paricutin. What did they name the volcano? Paricutin! 

My five year old son is interested in learning about volcanoes. This is a picture he drew of the Earth with lava flowing to the volcanos on Earth's surface. :)

I was fascinated by this story when I read about it earlier this year in February. I was reading a childrens picture book about volcanoes. One page in the book mentioned Paricutin. It basically said that a farmer noticed a crack in his field in 1943 and now a mountain is there. I was amazed! How could a mountain grow that fast, and so recently, and I never had been told about it? I looked on the internet for information. I found a blog post with a lot of neat pictures and other information about Paricutin. You can read it HERE. (Be warned there is some millions of years garbage on that page, but there are also a lot of links for further reading on the subject.) The pictures are unreal! The mountain looks so out of place that it almost looks fake!

I watched a short, black and white video with some actual footage of Paricutin when it was active.

This is the one I saw:

https://youtu.be/I2r7RTQ6SNk

Paricutin was active for around 10 years. Reaching it's final hight of 425 meters (about 1394 feet) in 1952.

I don't understand very much about plate tectonics. This story has spurred me to learn more on the subject. I am finding it to be very interesting! I am still not sure what circumstances made the Paricutin volcano erupt like it did. I thought it was a really neat story, though, and wanted to tell my readers about it.  

Have you heard about Paricutin before? Are you amazed by the story like I am? I hope you enjoyed reading this post!