When I was growing up, I remember my mom tried her best to have us eat healthfully. She was a nurse for umpteen years and was very interested in nutrition. As most Koreans are, my parents are very health conscious. Or maybe it's just my parents and it's not a cultural thing. Anyhow, we rarely had soda or pop, or whichever terminology you use for carbonated and sugary beverages; we had 7-up only if we were sick. My mom only bought whole wheat bread. We had wheat germ on top of our cereal. We rarely had sugary cereal. Wheat germ on top of Cheerios. Shudder. We ate lots of veggies and fruits. We rarely had dessert or baked goods; perhaps that's why I don't enjoy baking as much.
I say my mom tried her best for a couple of reasons. Firstly, when we had to have wheat germ on top of our cereal, my brother and I sneaked outside to dump it into our tomato patch. We had a bumper crop of fabulous tomatoes that year! Yes, my mom knows all about this. We had a bit of a "do-you-remember-when... " session at our last family get together. Secondly, after I moved out, I rebelled and ate what I wanted. Now, things have come full circle.
As it invariably happens, girls usually turn into their mothers. We generally raise our families the way we were raised. There are some things that we very consciously change, but for the most part, we go with what we know.
I have also started a new journey down the path of healthier eating in our family. We are eating whole-wheat products, brown rice instead of white, lots of veggies and fruits, more fish and less red meat, etc. You'll be seeing more food related posts soon.
One of our weekly indulgences is pizza. If you hang out at our house on the weekend, you're very likely to stumble into our pseudo-pizza kitchen. Now, we don't actually have a brick oven or any of that jazz, but we take our pizza making fairly seriously. We measure our flour for our dough and make home-made pizza sauce, the recipe for which I got from my friend Mandy whose family lived in Italy while her father was in the Navy. It's an authentic recipe, as far as I've been told. It's fabulous, in any case!
We have experimented with baking dishes, stones, temperatures, dough and topping ingredients, and length of baking time. It is one of our favorite meals all week, especially one that the boys enjoy.
Here's our pictorial pizza diary. Bon Appetit, or as one of my sons says, "Bun up a diet!"
Here are our ingredients all assembled and ready to be made into pizza.
Measuring flour for the dough - we use both whole wheat and regular white flour.
Adding ingredients to the bread machine pan.
Pizza sauce ingredients.
Readying the toppings.
Dough, ready to be stretched into a crust.
Nicely stretched and ready to be topped.
Oiling our preferred "pizza pans."
Pizza saucing ensues.
Some toppings go under the cheese...
and some go on top of the cheese.
Ready to bake, along with a bulb of garlic.
Removed from their pans and ready to cut and eat!
2 comments:
I was cleaning out my recipe box a few weeks ago and came across several recipes that you had shared with me; Vegetarian Lasagna and that fabulous crab dip! I'll have you know that I thought of your recipe when I saw fresh lump crabmeat at Costco. It's in my fridge now, waiting to be turned into Julia's crabdip!
I think I told you also that we make your saucy lasagna with the cottage cheese and brown sugar on a regular basis. I've started adding a bit of hotlink sausage chopped up to give it extra kick. We have it every other month or so.
Lastly, Aidan'sMom told me that she got one of her FAVORITE recipes from your blog: Pork chops with applesauce. She said you posted it about a year ago. Her hubby loves it.
I am always amazed at the similarities in our personalities. I could live without baking, but much prefer cooking.
That pizza looks yummy.
Are those secret recipes or is there any way you could share the pizza dough and sauce recipes?
I look forward to more food posts. :)
-Charlotte
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