From the Kitchen

Well, naturally,  after declaring that I was going to give up white flour I have been craving things that normally have white flour – pizza, pasta, tacos.

What’s a girl to do? Search her Pinterest board of course!  I’ve recently seen several recipes to create a pizza crust that is made out of cauliflower, and because  I love cauliflower, I have pinned them all.

After purchasing a potato ricer yesterday, I decided that I needed to make the cauliflower pizza crust.  {Possibly the best decision I have made all week.} Oh. My. Word.  It was so stinkin’ good.

This is the recipe I used – Cauliflower Crust Pizza.  I steamed a head of cauliflower and then riced it.  After looking at a couple of recipes, I determined that it would be better to make smaller pizzas rather than one large pizza.  So, I ended up making 8 personal pizzas.  And, get this – I had no leftovers.

The man who doesn’t eat vegetables (aka Hubby) had 4 pizzas! 4!  He even declared it to be one of the best things I have ever made!  Seriously! I am completely astonished that he liked it that much.

The boys enjoyed it, too. Woody had a pizza and then begged for a second – he really loved them.  Tigger liked his, but he wasn’t as favorable to it as his brother. I think the fork turned him off.  While this was great, it doesn’t hold together well enough to pick up a slice.

I followed the recipe for the crust and then topped the pizzas with turkey pepperoni, a light sprinkling of mozzarella, and a pinch of Penzey’s Tuscan Sunset herb blend.  If you think I burned it by looking at the picture, I didn’t. The edges did get dark, but that part was crispy and mmmmm, sooooo gooooood.

Try it! You’ll like it!

I promised the boys that we could have something different for breakfast a couple of weeks ago.  After perusing Pinterest for days on end, er, a couple of minutes, I found this idea.  It’s apple slices dipped in pancake batter, then cooked on the griddle. Wow!  Talk about a new family favorite.  All of us loved them.

Because I was out of baking mix, I Googled recipes to see how I could make my own.  After whipping up a batch of this mix, I used two cups of it, 1 cup of milk and 2 eggs to make the pancake batter for the apples.

My tip for the apples is to slice them as thin as you can.  The thin ones cooked best. The thicker slices were still quite good, they just required a little more force to cut into bite sizes.

We had leftovers! (A rarity around these parts!)  This one batch of pancake batter was a little more than what was needed for two sliced apples.

They were so good that we didn’t even need butter or syrup. We just ate them plain! The sweetness of the apple was the perfect complement to the warm pancake. Soooo yummy!

Try ’em!

Surely you’ve seen those cute little trays that people have made out of peppermint candies.  You’re supposed to unwrap the candies, arrange them on a baking sheet, and then bake for 350   8 to 10 minutes so the candies will melt into a lovely little sheet.

Here’s an example of one that turned out right.

This is what I got.

Cute little squares turned into an UGLY mess.  Really ugly.

I tried to make the best of it by making swirly designs with a skewer, but I think this batch may end up being used in Peppermint Bark or something…

So – Pinterest gurus – What did I do wrong?

As I’ve been searching for cute decorating ideas on Pinterest, I’ve come across a couple of recipes for homemade glass cleaners.   Because I ran out of Windex today, I decided I’d try to make my own.  I looked up the recipes and found one that listed ingredients that I had at home: vinegar, rubbing alcohol, cornstarch, and warm water.  I hesitated because of the cornstarch. Like many comments below these pinned recipes, I wondered if the cornstarch would cause streaking.

However, when the balance of “get dressed so you can go to store to purchase Windex” is on the scales against “stay in pajamas & figure it out”  –  pajamas win.

So – I gathered the necessary items, followed the recipe, and sprayed my kitchen like a wild woman.  I cleaned the counter tops – no streaks.  I cleaned the front of the microwave – no streaks.  I cleaned the front of our shiny, black refrigerator – no streaks.   I cleaned the glass part of the back door – No Streaks!

Yea! We have a winner! The homemade glass/surface cleaner really works!

I will note that you do have to shake up the solution prior to spraying.  The cornstarch tends to settle at the bottom of the bottle, and I imagine it would easily clog the spray nozzle. So, shake before you spray! 🙂

Click here for the recipe I used.

Truly,