More of the trip

Okay, maybe I'll never get it all up. But here's me, trying, at least.

Most of our three weeks out in Delaware we spent with Rob's family. We did a lot of hanging out, some cooking, and lots of playing with Rob's new birthday present from his family - Rock Band. It's fun - I like it more than I thought I would. And it should come in the mail today (hopefully), so we'll be playing much more of that again soon.

Aside from that family time, we took a little time to visit some of my friends. One weekend we went to DC and Wilmington/Newark and gracious friends of mine from college (thanks again Cindy & Bryan) put us up on Friday night, and Saturday we spent the evening with some friends from our old ward in DE. It was a great time catching up with people, introducing them all to Guy, and just visiting.

While we were in DC, after meeting other friends for breakfast on Saturday morning, we went to the Smithsonian for a few hours before heading North again.


Saturday morning at IHOP - Guy thinks he's so ready for "real" food that he tried to eat pictures of it.


Bryan & Cindy and their cute boys - they actually introduced us to teething tablets -- I actually just got some for Guy yesterday, and they are seeming to work pretty well - yea!

Guy's first time playing in the rain (with his cousin, Kori)- when it wasn't hot and muggy, it seemed to be raining. It was fun to watch Guy's reactions to the thunder and lightning


He had a great time, that is until he was down on the ground - I think that scared him a little

Some of our visit out East

Friday, August 7th, Rob, Guy, and I flew out to Philly, coming to visit Rob's family. We were there for about 3 weeks. Here are a few photos of our visit to start out my record keeping. Guy did really well on the airplane - both ways. He slept for the first 2.5 hours on the way, and on the way back, the best treat ever was that there were extra seats around, so the flight attendant invited the lady in our row to move and give us all more room. What a treat that was! Guy slept well on the way home, too.

One morning I borrowed my father-in-law's awesome camera and snapped some fun photos of Guy. Recently he's started sitting up on his own, and he's already got pretty good balance.

Calzone Recipe

Here's our recipe for calzones (or as much of one as we've got)

Pizza Dough (for 2-3 pizzas)

1 T yeast in 1/4 cup warm water (proof with a little bit of sugar, too)

Combine in your mixer:
1/4 c. olive oil
1 tsp salt
1 T sugar
1 c. very warm water

Add one cup of flour to above and mix.

Add the bubbling yeast and mix.

Add 3 cups of flour to make a good STIFF dough.

Knead well. If by hand - for about 10 min; by machine - about 8 (and really, it does take that long to mix it well).

Let dough rise in a warm spot in a greased bowl for an hour to 1.5 hours (or until the dough is doubled).

For the calzones . . . this dough recipe makes four very good sized calzones. A tip about rolling out the dough - make sure it's pretty thin. We tried it thick the first time, and thin the second time - we both thought it tasted better the second time.

For calzone stuffing . . . Rob and I like doing them so much because we like very different stuff. It's kind of fun to build your own, and everyone can put whatever then want in it.

We put in:
Ricotta cheese
Mozarella cheese
pepperoni
sausage
green peppers
onions
mushrooms
minced garlic
salt and pepper

In a small bowl (on the side), beat 1 egg and 1 T water together

There are two ways of putting it all together - Rob layered his like a pizza, I mixed mine in a bowl (wanted to make sure the garlic was spread evenly).

After you put the toppings on - use the egg and water mix around the edges of the calzone. Then fold the dough over and pinch the edges together (to keep the moisture inside). If you want to mark them on top (to identify who they go to), do so now.

Brush the entire top of the calzone with the egg/water mixture, too.

Bake at 425 for 10-15 min (until golden brown)

After baking - We topped ours with spaghetti sauce from a bottle (yeah, we cheated), and some parmesan cheese)

A tip - while putting them together - we rolled the dough, then put it 1/2 on the pan it was cooked on (with the other 1/2 flowing off the side) - this was so we didn't have to transfer it to the pan after it was made. And you can use a pizza pan or a cookie sheet for baking.

Enjoy!!!

. . . so it seems many of my recipes come from my sister, Bethany (the pizza dough on this one comes from her, too). Thanks!

Cake Tips

I'm not a huge cake fan, but I like decorating them. Rob loves, them - so I am experimenting more with them and finding stuff we both like (as if I need the help finding good treats).

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If you like baking, hopefully these help. Oh, and soon I'll post my favorite chocolate cake recipe - it's kind of my catch all - and I don't think it's failed me yet.

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I'm a big fan of using dry cake mix, from a box, then I just add to it. There's actually a book called The Cake Doctor, and what it does is "doctor" cake mixes. That's where my favorite chocolate cake recipe comes from (via my sister, Bethany-thanks!), and it's where my quest to bake good cakes began.

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So, back to the tips:

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Every cake can use a little extra pudding - for a chocolate cake, add chocolate pudding - for every other cake, I add vanilla (unless you can find an box of instant pudding that matches your cake flavor). I just add a small box of pudding, and no changes need to be made to the mixing or baking instructions.

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Also - I add milk instead of water (to any mix)- makes things a little creamier. It's good.

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A baking tip (making decorating easier) - to make even cake tops

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When you bake with round cake pans . . . you know how they always round out on top, too? Well . . . if you get an old towel and tear off two strips (the long way), making them as wide as the cake pan is tall - - - wet the towels, then secure them around the cake pan with either a safety pin or even a push pin (won't melt in the oven at 350 - I tested it, personally). That helps distribute the heat more evenly, and the cake will rise, but stay flat on top. I'll try and post photos soon, just to explain. This beats cutting off cake tops (making them flat), especially because it minimizes crumbs that can potentially spread through the icing.

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Last tip - instead of using icing or frosting in the middle layer of cakes - spread some pudding - again, makes things more moist. You can make some instant pudding and spread about a cup, or just buy a pack of pudding snacks and use one - I've done both.

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Random things - hopefully something is useful to you. :)

Baking Frenzy. . . and a little cooking, too

This past few weeks I've had a lot of opportunities to bake - and remember some of my cake decorating skills (I took a class in grad school but haven't used it much since then). Here's what I've been making:

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For Faith's birthday (during our fam reunion), Amanda, Naomi, and I made these little cupcake bites (recipe/idea courtesy of Bakerella). I think they look pretty cute, but I don't know if I'll ever make them again - they are REALLY REALLY sweet, and lots and lots of work. And just not that wonderful. Disclaimer - I did make some recipe changes - Faith had a chocolate cake, too, so these were a side, made of strawberry cake - maybe the chocolate would have turned out better tasting.

Two days after Faith's birthday, it was my niece Abby's birthday. When I asked her what kind of cake she wanted, she said, pink cake with pink frosting, so strawberry cake it was.

Next - it was the end of the month, and after calling my visiting teachees a few times, I never reached them, so on the 31st, I decided to drop something off. Really, I mostly just wanted an excuse to try making these:

The best part of these?

Yum! They turned out SO well that I'll definitely be making these again.

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Yesterday, was Rob's birthday - he requested that we make homemade calzones for lunch/dinner. I think it was a success. They looked great, and tasted wonderful, too. So good that we might just do a repeat for dinner tonight.
Also for Rob's birthday . . . I won't go into my failed attempt at a Spiderman cake - I'm just glad that out of the 2 cake mixes I made, there was an extra layer, not used for what became a little messy. Not as fun as a Spiderman cake, but pretty good, still--I cut the 9x9 cake into 4 pieces, stacked, and decorated it just for Rob.
I think he likes it.