I'm Pampered

Dave and I just got home from a great party at his brother's house. Our sister-in-law, Bernadette, had a great Pampered Chef party where we got to make some of the food using the consultant's stuff (micro-planner, mandolin, fancy measuring spoons, etc.). We made artichoke appetizers in wonton wrappers and pizza. Both were superb!

The artichoke appetizers were made by filling pre-baked wonton wrappers with artichoke and spinach dip, then backing again until it gets all melty:
It was a potluck and I told Bernie that I'd bring a pizza; since the idea is that we'd all work together to make a pizza I just brought the supplies: risen dough, sauce, shredded cheese, and some of our sausage for a topping. Mike and Bernie supplied garden fresh basil from their yard. In addition to all that pork we bought at Costco last weekend, we'd also purchased a huge carton of Chilean plums. To get rid of them before they went soft, I made a fantastic plum-upside-down cake. To make this, you put 1/2 cup of butter and 1/2 cup brown sugar into a greased cake pan and place it in the oven after it preheated until the sugar is bubbly. Then you arrange the sliced plums (or blueberries, peaches, etc.) on top of the sugar mixture then pour a half recipe of yellow cake batter on top (from scratch or a box). You bake it until done (duh) then flip it over onto a plate after it cools for about 15 minutes. I added a teaspoon of lemon zest to the batter to balance the tartness of the plums. It turned out very pretty and was sooooooooooo good. In fact, I think I'll have another slice after I finish this post...
Right when I got up this morning I made the plum cake, then I defrosted a few jars of my daddy's marinara sauce to make it into pizza sauce. To make the pizza sauce I let the marinara sauce simmer down for about 30 minutes, added a small can of tomato paste to thicken it, and added a few teaspoons of oregano leaves, thyme leaves, and garlic powder. And a few packets of chili pepper flakes from the pizza restaurant. My dad's marinara sauce is phenomenal. It is sweet with honey and chalk-full of so many vegetables but so saucy that even the most picky vegetable-haters will eat it. It is low-fat, high-fiber, high-flavor. We use it for sooooooooo many dishes because it can be adjusted to work as standard pasta sauce (or mixed with a jar of frozen basil pesto for a jazzed-up sauce), eaten as tomato soup, used as pizza sauce (or modified like I did), etc. The possibilities really are endless. Every few months I have to restock our freezer by making a large batch...using those giant #10 cans of tomatoes from Costco. I will include the recipe at the bottom of this post--just beware that it is scaled to use those giant cans of tomatoes!

Later on I browned some of the Creole-style chipotle sausage we'd make earlier in the week. When we tasted it, it was sorta bland--not super flavorful or hot (I guess all the spiciness was used up on my hands...). We still brought it to put on the pizza, though, as it added protein and good texture. How could something so colorful taste so boring?
Around 3:30pm I bagged up all the stuff we were supposed to bring--which also included 6 aprons for us party-goers to wear while cooking--thinking I had it all together. I finished cleaning up the tools and painting supplies outside before giving Dave a haircut in the stifling garage. Then we jumped into the shower to get cleaned up for the party. And...oh crap! I realized I totally forgot to make the pizza dough. You need to let the dough rise for at least an hour before forming it in the pan and letting it rise again for about 15 minutes. By this time it was already after 4pm and we were due at Bernie's house by 5.

After dressing I bolted into the kitchen to make 2 batches of pizza dough. To make up for lost time, I used very warm water and doubled the yeast in the recipe. To make sure it would be able to rise at least a little before we got to the party, I filled a Nalgene with boiling water and stuck it and the bowls of dough into a cooler. Ta-da! Instant bread-rising chamber. It totally worked, too. The extra yeast and warm box caused the dough to rise so well that it was practically bursting through the plastic wrap by the time we arrived. (And we were able to use the 1 liter of hot water for washing dishes later on.)

The wine flowed while the appetizers and pizzas were in the oven. I'd forgotten just how good a cool glass of white wine can be while chatting with friends on a hot evening. They were all Mike and Bernie's friends from work and school, but we see them often enough that we are really getting to know them all well. Mike's lab partner has a 3 year old little girl, Ariel, who helped me make prepare the wonton wrappers. She had her birthday party last night and wore EVERYTHING she got as a gift: a princess crown, lime green jelly shoes that are large enough to fit me, an old designer purse Bernie gave her, and a global warming t-shirt (because she complains to her mom that she's "sooooooooooo wooooooooooooooorried about global warming!"). She's a doll and has quite the personality.

Ariel is wearing my old Boston Market apron from my first job:
I am wearing my maternal great grandmother's apron and Dave is wearing my paternal grandmother's apron:
Davie sauteed onions for the pizza:
At the end of the party you can order stuff from the catalog. Under Dave's watchful eye I was a good girl and only ordered two small things (for me and Allison...don't worry Allison, it is small and won't take up much room in your kitchen!)

Other than the party, we had a pretty productive weekend. On Saturday Dave dug a pit underneath the gate where Potatoes tried to dig himself out while I was at school one day. (Silly us, we thought we had built a border collie-proof fence. Nope!) He filled the pit with concrete to deter our little boy from escaping. I went to the hardware store and bought some more pretty plants for the front yard and some cucumbers and peppers for the vegetable garden. While cleaning up the garage, I discovered some bags of bulbs that I never planted back in the spring (I hope they are still viable): peonies, foxgloves, and a sunflower-type thing.

When I was in high school I worked at a magical place: Alden Lane Nursery. I was a salesperson/slave for the bedding plants and vegetable department. My fantasy was to buy one of each plant of the unusual plants to grow at home. That way I'd actually know what each plant looked like at maturity. Plus, I love variety. When I suggested this to my dad, he didn't seem to go for it. Instead he suggested that I draw-up a landscape plan and choose a few select plants for a unified theme. Since then he's loosened up on the "gotta have a defined plan" attitude--in fact, I think he likes a little bit of randomness in his life these days. Anyway, my one-of-each plant dream is coming true. The way I choose plants for a given area of our yard is to walk through the garden section and pick the weirdest plants I can find. Really...who wants a yard full of boring pink petunias and red roses when there are so many unusual plants available? Whenever I see a chartreuse- or purple-leaved version of a plant I already have (like geraniums, mint, dead nettle, or coleus) I buy it.

We also set up the automatic irrigation for the vegetable garden this weekend: we have black soaker hose loops on each bed, linked together with green garden hose and controlled by electric valves and pressure regulators. The value/regulator assembly is still at little leaky so I set it on top of a big flower pot full of flowers...if it is going to drip, at least it will water a plant! The front yard is watered with two sprinklers that are connected to garden hoses. Once we replace the fence we will install all the irrigation underground using PVC piping...it is a long way off so I'll just have to put up with ugly hoses and electrical wire draped along the house.

Today while I was rototilling two new garden beds in the vegetable garden (for strawberries and melons/cucumbers), Dave removed the front door and applied a coat of white primer. He picked out a nice dark reddish color for the door but he didn't have time to put the paint on. It takes 4 hours to dry before you can put another coat on! I suppose we'll have to spend all next Saturday painting the darn door, which we rehung complete with newspaper covering the glass. (We still have our Christmas lights up and the newspapered door makes our house look very classy, let me tell you!)

It was really hard to keep track of Potatoes while the door was off. I kept forgetting that here was NO door. He took off for a jaunt in the park twice. Whenever he leaves he's surly at the park, staring up at one of two trees looking for squirrels. The second time, though, I went to the park to bring him home but he wasn't there. I looked in his two usual spots...but no Potatoes. I asked a couple having a picnic if they'd seen a black and white dog pass by but they said no. Finally I got on my bike and rode around the neighborhood asking around. No one had seen him. Then Dave hopped on his bike and helped me look. Dave kept asking me "Didn't you look at the park at his trees? That's where he usually is..." And I kept saying "Yes, I looked and no, he's not there." Boy, we must have been a real sight: running around the streets yelling "Potatoes!" into people's front yards like crazy people. People always giggle when I tell them our dogs' names: Rhubarb Pie goes by Ruby and Sweet Potato Pie goes as Potatoes. Anyway, wouldn't you know it, my baby boy WAS at his favorite tree in the park when DAVE rode over there. At least we never have to worry about Ruby getting away. She remains wherever I am, without question.

Daddy's Marinara Sauce

• 3/4-1 cup olive oil
• 1 chopped medium onion
• 8 cloves garlic, pressed
• 1 bunch finely chopped celery
• 6 finely chopped green bell peppers
• 6 medium shredded carrots
• 2 teaspoons dried thyme
• 2 tablespoons dried oregano
  
• 1 teaspoon black pepper
• 6-8 Turkish bay leaves
• 1 #10 can tomato puree
• 1 #10 can diced tomato
• 1 cup honey

Heat oil in a large pot, then sautee the onions until nicely browned (about 10 minutes). Add garlic and cook for 2 more minutes. Then add each of the other ingredients--let simmer for at least 2 hours, longer if you have the time, until everything is broken down. You can just chop everything really small so it will cook faster if you want. Make sure to stir it often to prevent it from scorching on the bottom. I pour this into 1 pint freezer mason jars or small Ziploc bags.