Veggie Pizzas

I have had so much fun cooking with all the fresh veggies and herbs from our garden this summer. Last night I made the most delicious pizza pies. My daughter and I made the crust from scratch. We prefer to make crusts that are partly wholewheat flour. I like it because it gives the crust a lovely nutty flavor. The extra fiber in the diet can't hurt either, I suppose.




Here is my pizza crust recipe in case you want to try it:

2 cups regular flour
2 cups wholewheat flour
2 Tsp corn meal
1 tsp salt
1 1/4 - 1 1/2 cup warm water
2 1/2 tsp yeast
1/4 olive oil

mix together by hand or in food processor until you have a lovely stretchy dough. If too sticky add more flour. If too dry add a bit more warm water...let it rise for about an hour

punch the dough down and knead by hand, then roll out into individual pizzas, I get about four 12 inch pizzas from this amount of dough

topping option number 1


make some seasoned tomato pulp by cutting up fresh tomatoes from the garden (or use canned tomatoes) chopped up finely, add a couple pinches of salt, 3 Tsp olive oil, clove of garlic minced
spread this on your rolled pizza dough, top with some shredded mozzarella cheese, and freshly grated Parmesan cheese, sprinkle a bit more salt on top

bake this in oven at temperature of 450 degree until edges turn brown and cheese begins to brown
take out and sprinkle with pieces of prosciutto, and top with fresh arugula and more grated Parmesan.

Topping option number 2


brush rolled out pizza crusts with some olive oil
top with goat cheese chunks, kalamata olives, banana peppers, and some fire roasted red peppers
finish off with grated mozzarella cheese on top

bake in oven at 450 until edges turn brown - about 10- 12 minutes per pizza pie

this recipe will feed a family of 4 plus leave you with some nice leftovers for lunch the next day.

Alton Brown Live

Here is a photo of my sweet basket of wool for wet felting. I have got to go out and get me a pair of rubber gloves. As soon as it warms up...

Even Alton Brown complained about the weather here. Our family went to see Alton Brown Live last night at the UCCC. If you are FB friends with me you probably saw the photo. If not, you didn't miss much. Since cameras are illegal at such events, you know, I took just one of those dumb phone pictures before the show started.

It sure was an awesome show. If the man ever comes near where you live you should definitely go see him on stage. I think for someone who is a big TV celebrity he was a really nice guy. He actually appeared human. And he knows how to tell a good tale.

I very much enjoyed the 10 lessons about food he shared - 10 things he is sure about that are sure about food. Haeh? Lesson one seemed to be a no-brainer. Alton Brown said he is sure that chickens don't have fingers. Now that was one funny story about his daughter having a sleep-over party and him serving fried chicken feet to a bunch of five-year-old girls - since that was the closest he could find to a chicken finger. Yum!

Did you know that the man plays the guitar, saxophone, and can sing? We probably won't buy the CD but the whole family was smitten by the humor. I think my favorite part of the evening was his song about the Easy Bake. In this song he told the story of growing up as a little boy in the 1960s and wanting an Easy Bake oven for Christmas. His parents and Santa cruelly denied him. But look at him now! Dreams do come true. OMG that giant Mega Bake oven he built himself complete with steering wheel and stairwell was to die for. May all our dreams come true for us some day! Go Alton!

Memories of Cooking

I think cooking together as a family is so much fun. I also find it important that we teach our children how to cook as they are getting older. I don't want them to go off to college and feel as helpless in the kitchen as some of my roommates in Berlin were. Honestly, there was this guy, who cooked pasta and cracked a raw egg on top it stirred it around, threw some ketchup on it - and called that a meal. Really dude? But most of the time he'd beg food off of other people, his excuse being that he didn't know how to cook.

I am very glad my mother taught me a thing or two. I still wish I had learned more from her and asked her more questions about cooking when she was around. But now that she is gone all I have left is the memories of the meals we cooked together as I was growing up. Pretty much every weekend was spent cooking and baking with my mother. I hope I can pass on some of those skills to my children and hopefully answer all their questions.

We cook together as a family as often as we can. Have you ever heard of Naan? It's a type of flatbread from India. Not exactly a German food and something I would have cooked with my mom but we decided to give it a try the other day. I had made it once before during a visit with my oldest sister in Germany. Do you sense a theme here?

If you want to try the Naan recipe we used, you can find  it on the NaturalKids team blog. I hope you try it. At first glance it may look a bit complicated and like a lot of work. But I promise it's not that hard and your kids will love making it. We served it on the side with a chicken curry dish. It was really delicious and there was none left over.

Awesome Red Lentil Soup

Finally winter has arrived in Colorado. I was afraid it would never happen. While the rest of the nation appears to have been buried in the white stuff – we have had all but two inches of snow in our town. Our family loves to eat soup when the cold hits. Nothing beats a nice bowl of soup when you come in from a day of playing in the snow. So I sure am glad that the time has come to make one of our favorite soups. Not only is it tasty and nutritious, it also has a pretty color from the red lentils. It looks super served in pretty white bowl! Unfortunately I didn't snap a picture last time I made it. I promise you will love this great vegetarian dish that does not take very many ingredients and is easy to make!

You need:

3 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
1 big onion diced
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1-2 tablespoons of tomato paste
1 teaspoon of ground cumin
¼ teaspoon of salt or more to taste
¼ teaspoon of ground black pepper
6 -8 cups of low salt chicken or vegetable stock
1 cup of red lentils
2 carrots, peeled and diced
lemon or lime juice
fresh cilantro

1. Put olive oil in a large pot to coat the bottom of the pot. Preserve the rest of the olive oil for drizzling over the soup later. Heat the olive oil in the pot until it is very hot. Add the diced onions and the garlic. Saute until golden and soft, for about 4 minutes.

2. Add tomato paste and spices to the pot and stir in with the onion and garlic. Saute for another 2 minutes.

3. Add the stock, lentils, and dices carrots. Bring to a boil and turn down the heat. Then cover the pot and simmer over medium low heat until the lentils and carrots have softened. This takes about 30 minutes. Add more salt and pepper if need be.

4. Puree about half of the soup with an immersion or regular blender. You don’t want to puree all of it unless you like your soup very smooth. We prefer more of chunky type of soup.

5. Right before serving the soup pour in the lemon juice, drizzle with olive oil, and sprinkle some cilantro on top.

6. Serve with crusty bread.