Four day old dough is delicious

Today I used the pizza dough that I saved from Sunday to make pizza for dinner.  This was a convenient experiment with what happens when you let the dough rest in the fridge for a couple days (or more, if you half forget about it like I did)... as it turned out, it was really yummy!  Like I had heard, it gave the crust a bit of a sourdough taste, or as Lawson said just made it taste less "flour-y."  It tasted a lot more like authentic artisan pizza.  Lawson suggested I call this post "saving dough pays off" but I was not up for the pun.

We are drowning in tomatoes from our super-productive tomato plant in the garden, so for the first pizza we topped it with slices of tomato and shredded mozzarella, with chopped basil added after we baked it.  No, I didn't use all these tomatoes on the pizza, so I gave up and peeled, seeded, diced and froze the rest for future use... I was getting anxious looking out at the plant and seeing even more ones ripening, so I thought it would be good to clear the decks.  Here's the pizza before it went in the oven...

And getting eaten.

I also made another one with tomato sauce that we needed to use up, chopped peppers from the garden, and more mozzarella.  Also delicious!

Wedding Paper Crafts - Part II

Photo courtesy of Joe Shymanski

In keeping with the stationery I made for our wedding that I described here, we also made coordinated paper items for the wedding ceremony and reception.  It wasn't too much work and was a good, affordable way for us to carry our wedding themes throughout the day, with lots of soft green colors and leaf accents.  As I mentioned before, and you can see throughout this post, I found paper source to be a great resource!

For the wedding programs, we laid them out in Word (using two columns on a landscape oriented sheet and then just playing around with the spacing until we liked how it looked), then we had them printed on two shades of green cardstock and folded.  Then I stamped them all on the front with one of our leaf stamps and also on the back with a smaller matching stamp (in between two paragraphs of text).  We were really happy with how they turned out!

Photo courtesy of Suzanne Thurston

In keeping with our garden theme, we used seed packets as escort cards - we printed the names and table numbers on green paper source labels and then stuck them at the top of seed packets for a variety of flower seed types from Renee's Garden (which I think have particularly pretty packages).  People seemed to really get a kick out of them!  Also visible in this picture is the lovely guestbook we got from CreativelyKept - I don't have a picture of the outside cover, but we really love how it turned out.

I printed and stamped matching menus for the lunch buffet table and bar, although I don't have photos of those.  Finally, we made fun labels for the yummy beer our friend Carl brewed for the reception! (And Carl was kind enough to put all the labels on in addition to making the beer).

Photo courtesy of Joe Shymanski

I will write more about the pottery I made for the wedding in a later post, but for now I will show the flower pots which I made for centerpieces - I made table numbers to stick in each pot using the 5 1/2" round cards from paper source and then the 4" round labels.

Photo courtesy of Joe Shymanski

Indian Food Feast

Last night I made a delicious feast of Indian food for dinner.  The keystone was a dish I have made many times, Sweet Potato Badi from Entertaining for a Veggie Planet.  Since I had the time, I went whole hog and made roasted cauliflower, raita, and flatbread (aka pita) to go along, as well as the usual long grain brown rice.  It was really yummy and well worth the effort - I have lots of leftovers to eat for lunch this week (and some more stashed in the freezer).

 The first thing I got started was the flatbread.  I used the pizza dough recipe from Animal Vegetable Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver, and then just cooked it as a flatbread.  This is my favorite pizza dough, and it made a great bread all by itself.  Following instructions from the Sunlight Cafe, after the dough had risen I punched it down and then cut it into pieces.  I actually put half of it in the fridge to experiment with the idea of letting it sit for a day or two and get a little bit of a sourdough taste (I have been wanting to read Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day but get the basic gist of it from reading articles etc).  The other half I cut into four pieces and smooshed each one out into a disc, then let them rest for five minutes and then rolled them out very thin.  Some of them sat for another five minutes at this stage which I remembered after the fact seems to be what gives pita its pocket - so I basically made pita breads.  I cooked each one for about 8-10 minutes at 400 degrees.

While the Badi was simmering, I chopped up the cauliflower and roasted it in the oven at 350 for about 20 minutes.  I used 2 teaspoons of an Indian spice mix that I had from Penzeys, then drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with salt.  I stirred it a few times while it was cooking to make sure it cooked evenly.

Finally, while the breads were cooking I pulled together a quick raita - mixing 1 cup each of plain yogurt and shredded cucumbers (from my garden) with about 1/2 teaspoon each of cumin and salt.

Over time, I have made some tweaks to the Badi recipe, so here is my version.


Sweet Potato Badi
Modified from Entertaining for a Veggie Planet

• 1/4 cup canola oil
• 1/2 cup red lentils
• 1 teaspoon chili powder
• 2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 1/2 - 1 teaspoon ground turmeric
• 1 medium potato, peeled and cut into 1/2" cubes
• 1 large sweet potato (or 2 medium), peeled and cut into 3/4" cubes
• 2 small zucchini, halved or quartered lengthwise and then cut into 1/4"-1/2" slices
• 2 plum tomatoes, peeled and seeded and cut into 1/2" cubes (or diced tomatoes from a can)
• 1/2 cup frozen peas
• 1/2 cup dried unsweetened coconut
• 1/2 cup plain yogurt
• 1-2 small skinny chile peppers (jalepeno or serrano work fine), minced
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt

In a large pan, heat the canola oil over medium heat.  Saute the lentils 5-10 minutes (adding the spices part way through), stirring frequently, until they begin to brown (or before - they burn pretty easily).  Add the potato/sweet potato and 1 1/2 cups water (or enough water to cover them when you put the pieces in a bowl after you chop).  Bring to a boil then reduce to a simmer and cover almost completely; simmer for about 15 minutes.  Add the zucchini, tomatoes, and peas and bring back to a boil and then reduce to a simmer again.  Cook until the vegetables are fork-tender and the liquid is mostly gone, about another 10-15 minutes.  Add more water while they cook if needed.  Remove from heat.

While the sweet potato mixture is cooking, heat a small frying pan over medium heat without any oil.  Toast the coconut until it is light brown (about 5 minutes), stirring frequently with a fork to mix, or shaking the pan.  Remove from heat before it is entirely done, as it will continue to cook in the pan (or transfer it to a bowl at that point).  Combine the the coconut, yogurt, chiles and salt in a bowl and mix together thoroughly.  Fold the yogurt mixture into the sweet potato mixture, then cover and let sit for a few minutes.  Serve over rice.

Here is my spout

Today I went in for a makeup pottery class and worked on assembling the teapots that I had thrown at my last class.  I enjoy making teapots because they bring together so many different pottery techniques (lids, handles, spouts...) and it always feels like an accomplishment when I make one I really like.  To make a teapot, you throw a teapot body and lid to fit.  I usually throw at least two lids per pot to be sure that I end up with one that fits and that I like.  I also try to throw 3-4 teapots at once, and then try to make all the openings the same size so that I will be able to try out various lids with the different pots.  There are a lot of different styles and types of lids so it can be fun to try out different kinds and see what looks best.  I also throw 2-3 spouts per teapot and try to make a variety of shapes so I can see what looks best with each pot.

After the pots get to be leather hard, I make the handles and assemble the pots.  I pull the handles off a lump of clay and let them dry a bit on a board.  This was the first thing I did when I came in today so that they would have a bit of time to dry and be a bit easier to work with.  The pottery studio where I take classes now also teaches a technique where you pull the handle on the piece, but this is the way I have always done it - I'll have to try the other technique at some point.

While the handles were setting up, I trimmed the lids and the teapot bodies, picking out which lid I thought went best with each piece.  Trimming is just the process of removing extra clay and making the bottom of a piece (where it was originally attached to the wheel) look nice and cleaned up.  Then I picked out which spout I thought looked best and cut it at an angle to attach to the pot.  I hold it up next to the pot to see what angle looks best and how high on the pot to attach it.  You have to be careful that you position the end of the spout higher than the top of the teapot body or you won't be able to fill the teapot all the way without spilling!  I am happy with how these pots turned out (and the other two partially finished today).  I could theoretically let them dry out at this point but I like to keep them wrapped in plastic for another few days to a week so let all the pieces get to the same moisture level before they start drying out - this helps reduce cracking as it dries.