Advent Calendars

It's the most wonderful time of the year! Christmas time. I love the music, the decorations and the joyful spirit. This year I wanted to make Advent calendars for my family and friends. But, as we all know the holidays can get a little overwhelming with sweets - cookies and candy especially. So, I used gum to mark the days leading up to Christmas. I traced the cardboard sleeves of gum on festive paper, cut and glued them together. Then, using a piece of card stock, made a "book" to hold them. I attached a little piece of Velcro to hold the book shut. Each piece of gum is numbered 1 through 24. Here are a few of my calendars.

Beauty Grab Bag Party

This past weekend, during our first snow storm of the season, I hosted a brunch and beauty grab bag party. Each guest brought their favorite beauty product to show to the group. Then we played the stealing game and everyone went home with a new treat (and a wealth of knowledge on new products to try). Such fun! In addition to the beauty product exchange, I wanted to treat the guests with "bag of relaxation" - it contained homemade bath salts, a candle and chocolates. Below is the a picture of the bath salts.




I used crescent rolls to make mini cinnamon rolls and chocolate stuffed croissants.

And two types of quiche: Swiss & tomato and Spinach & smoked Gouda

Bath Salt Recipe: 3 cups Epsom salt, 2 cuts sea salt, 1 cup baking soda, essential oils

Deep Dish Pizza

I love pizza. There, I said it. I could eat pizza every day. I'm always looking for a new dough recipe, a new style of pizza. My latest adventure led me to deep dish pizza. With a deep dish pizza stone from World Market, I created a very delicious pizza treat.

This dough recipe called for 1 cup of mashed potatoes. Sounds weird, right? Well it made for a chewy crust that was absolutely delicious. Here's the recipe:

1 medium potato - peeled, boiled and mashed
3 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp yeast
1 3/4 tsp salt
1 cup warm water
1/2 tsp sugar
2 tbsp olive oil

Proof the yeast in the warm water and sugar for 10 minutes. Combine the flour and salt (I use my food processor with dough blade). Add yeast mixture and pulse. Add potato and olive oil, combine till a dough forms. Add more flour if necessary to form a workable dough. Turn out on floured surface and knead 5 minutes. Place dough in lightly oiled bowl, cover with towel and let rise in warm place till doubled in size. (In the winter, I place a bowl of boiling water on the lowest rack of the oven and put the bowl of covered dough on the rack above it. Don't turn on the oven, just let the steam from the water do all the work.) Punch down and turn out on floured surface. Divide in two.

To make a 10" deep dish pizza: Preheat pizza stone at 425 F. Roll out one half of dough to slightly larger than 10 inches. Remove stone from oven, brush with olive oil and sprinkle with corn meal. Carefully place dough in stone and press up sides. Prick crust with fork to prevent air pockets. Bake 5-7 minutes. Remove from oven, add sauce, cheese and toppings. Bake 10-15 minutes or under cheese starts to brown and bubble.

What's great about this dough is that it can be made the night before so you can be eating deep dish pizza in 30 minutes and the dough can even be frozen for a future use.

Learning to make German Spaetzle

I recently spent a long weekend visiting my grandparents in Folsom, California. My grandmother, Sally, took the opportunity to teach me how to make traditional German Spaetzle. If you're not familiar, it's basically noodles that are served with meat and gravy. Very hearty. It seems the key to this recipe is having strong men around to beat the noodle mixture. Below is a photo of the dough, beaten till shiny.



Once the dough is prepared, it is spooned into the Spaetzle maker.



Fill till about 2/3 full.

Meanwhile, bring a pot of water to a rolling boil. Press dough through Spaetzle maker into boiling water. Let noodles puff up a bit and remove to a bowl of warm water to rinse until finally putting in a casserole dish for serving.

While this did take a bit of work, the noodles turned out great and the whole family enjoyed this delicious meal. Below is a video of my father teaching me his Spaetzle making technique.