toast with an egg in the middle

Imagine you find yourself alone in your kitchen.

Alone with a silent house and no one needs you for the next two hours. (No one needs you. Seriously. This moment is just for you.)

And you are hungry.

And you remember that you want to attempt the "toast with an egg in the middle" dish you ate for breakfast in Portland on Saturday. Or rather you watched your daughter eat because suddenly she was hungry and wanted everything on your plate.

So you get to it.

Step 1: Gather a piece of bread + butter + an egg. And decide to practice with your 50mm lens and put the egg in a dish

Step 2: Use a juice glass to "cut" a hole in the middle of the bread. (Consider first beginning to melt the butter mentioned in Step 3 if you aren't stopping to take photos.)

Step 3: Warm up your pan over medium heat and begin to melt a good amount of butter. (The butter really seems to be the key.) After the butter melts, put the bread in and turn it over so both sides are covered with at least some butter.

Step 4: Crack that egg and put it right in the middle of the bread.

Step 5: While the egg cooks, pour yourself a cup of coffee in your new favorite mug.

Step 6: When the egg settles in the middle, flip it over and marvel at the fact that you didn't burn side one. 

Step 7: Add your little circle from the middle of the bread and let it cook while side two cooks for just a minute or two.

Step 8: Scoop that egg out of the pan, put it on your new favorite plate, and set the table while the little circle of bread cooks for another minute. (Consider how much easier it would be to just add the circle at the beginning and decide to do that next time.)

Step 9: Grab a favorite book of poetry on your way to the table and take a moment to breathe in all the joy of these colors and the quiet and this time just for you.

Step 10: Eat it up. (And maybe even find yourself right in the middle of a poem that takes your breath away and reminds you of why you know "poeming it out" will save you again and again. Yes.)

What have you been cooking lately? I'm having some fun in the kitchen again and would love to know.

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the yummy yum yum yums

Baking is a new favorite creative activity over here. Ellie loves to "help" and then watch the goodies bake in the oven. And then while she waits to eat the real treats, she makes her own treats in her little kitchen.

It makes me really happy to have this time with her and then to create space for her to play by herself.

So I've been pinning a few recipes that we can make together. Sunday we tried what we are now calling the "yummy yum yum yums," which is Ellie's favorite thing to say when she really loves something she eats.

Here is the original recipe for cinnamon brown butter breakfast puffs from one of my favorite food blogs, Smitten Kitchen.

I followed the recipe exactly (though used milk instead of buttermilk like it says you can because that is what we had). 

Ellie helped me measure and stir and all that good stuff, but I decided not to let her help me dip the puffs into the butter and cinnamon sugar mix even though the original reason I decided to make them with her was because I thought she would love that part.

Here's why: 1) She was having a lot of fun playing "tea party" with her daddy and I didn't want to stop that flow, 2) the puffs baked so beautifully I just really wanted us to be able to eat them warm like the recipe suggests and I knew it would take three times longer to dunk and roll them if I had her help (and even though I let that part go with every other recipe we've made together, dude, do you see that photo below? I wanted to eat them ASAP), and 3) I melted the butter while the puffs were cooking so it was still pretty hot when it was time to dunk them (so this really should be number one) and I was worried it would be too hot for her to help. Next time I will melt the butter first like the recipe suggests, so that it is a lot cooler when we get to this step.

After I rolled them (and tried a few...ahem...), we moved their tea party to the kitchen table and shared some puffs that were quickly renamed "yummy yum yum yums" by all of us. 

Highly recommend this recipe. Jon and I both think the "muffins" would make great cupcakes or would be awesome warm with jam. I froze the ones we didn't eat and am already looking forward to warming them Saturday morning. Yes.

(And oh my gosh, a year later I've finally written a cooking post! More to come as I've been cooking more these last few months...I just keep finding my way...)

snow and pizza (the story of today)

This was going to be a post about the stew and soup I made this weekend (both really really good), but then we had this delightful day that included playing in the snow and making pizza and dancing in the kitchen and coloring and lots of toddler giggles as snow continued to fall outside, so I am sharing this story + recipe instead.*

(More than Just a) Simple Pizza: A Cooking Experience

Before you begin to make this simple pizza, set the scene. Having music on is a very good thing. (Current favorite is radioIO Acoustic Café using the Pocket Tunes App for ipod/iphone.) Then have your family nearby so you are reminded that you are making this meal for people you love. Of course, being totally solo in the kitchen singing along with Adele is an equally delicious way to approach this meal, and since this pizza isn't huge, it would be perfect for dinner for one and then lunch the next day. 

Then, take premade pizza dough from the fridge, remove it from the bag, and let it sit for 20 minutes on a floured surface. (My friend Christine recently mentioned that Trader Joe’s has a great pizza dough in their refrigerated section, so we tried it today. It is awesome! Your local store should have Pillsbury or another brand near the pre-made cookie dough if you don't have Trader Joe's nearby.)

Preheat oven to 450.

Next, gather your toppings. Cut up your veggies; then find the cheese you want to use and put it in a pretty bowl just because it makes you happy. When someone says, “We are going to have more cheese than that, right?” you can reassure him that yes, we will but this bowl looks pretty for photos. 

At this point you might realize you have 12 minutes until your 20 minutes are up. Here are some options:

a) Dance with your family in the kitchen to a song or two.
b) Fill one more grocery sack with items from your cabinet full of too many glasses and put on the porch to take to Goodwill.
c) Give your one year old her very first orange pepper slice and then proceed to feed her about 10 more pieces because she keeps saying, “good!”
d) Begin to clear the table of all your beading supplies so you can sit at it to eat.
e) All the above (as you realize 12 minutes is much longer than you think).
f) Make a quick salad that would pair nicely with pizza and give you more greens. (Next time. Yes. Next time)

Now you are ready to roll out the dough onto a floured surface. It is a good idea to let go of having a round pizza, especially if the surface you are using is rectangular. (And when you cook it, it somehow finds its way to being mostly round. Of course, later I thought about how I would roll it out on the pizza stone next time. Ahem.) And if someone stronger than you is around and offers to roll it for you, well, say yes. (It wasn’t that hard though and reminded me of standing at the window at Noble Romans watching teenagers make pizza decades ago.)

(Now this next step is one you should insert up there right before “dance with your family,” but when it comes at this point instead, give yourself permission to roll with it.) Next, remember that you have chicken sausage in the fridge that you want to add to the pizza. 

Cook the sausage if you are adding it. If someone else is cooking it (thanks Jonny), you might be able to wire-wrap 10 beads and dance with your daughter.

Next, put pizza dough on a pizza stone if you have one (if not, use a pan). Then, assemble your pizza. I layered as follows: olive oil, thin layer of cheese, mushrooms and orange pepper and small bits of chicken sausage, then lots of cheese.

Bake for 8-12 minutes. You know it’s done when the bottom of the dough is browning. I baked ours for about 15 minutes though and it was perfect, so do adjust the time based on your oven and dough thickness.

When you take it out, gather your family to oooh and ahhh at the pizza’s beauty.

Take a few photos.

Eat.

Have toys on hand for your toddler to play with when she decides she is full from all the pepper slices and won’t eat while you are eating. She can color or build things and you will be much more likely to enjoy your pizza if she is content.

Because this is a food that Ellie eats and since it really was so easy to use this dough (and felt really satisfying to roll it out and even has me thinking about making my own dough), I imagine making pizza a few times a month and sometimes making it for the two of us for lunch during the week (EJ and I are more likely to do no meat, less cheese, more veggies). So, this means, I am totally creating a pizza Pinterest board to save recipes I want to print out and add to my recipe binder. Just started using the binder because I am learning that I simply need that “oh right, I could make pizza this week” reminder that seeing a recipe in a binder gives me.

An invitation: I would love to know your favorite homemade pizza toppings/recipes. Please share them in the comments.

*The story behind the story: In some ways, this is the most important paragraph of this blog post, so I hope you made it to here. In the past few months, there haven’t been a lot of days that could be described like the romantic “wow, aren’t they lucky?” paragraph that begins this blog post. There are moments of beauty and love each day, but there have also been some of the toughest moments Jon and I have experienced as a couple. Today, as I wrote this post, I kept thinking about how the slight changes I have been making as I continue to focus on leaning into whole(ness) have been creating space for more laughter, for listening, for sharing (because we are talking with one another when we sit at the table), and for intimacy as we work together in the kitchen or as he talks to me while I cook or as we read or work together after she goes to bed (or naps) because we just want to continue to be together and not turn the television on. 

*****

Here is a simple version of this recipe in case you have a binder like me and would like to print it out.

The "Anyone (this means you too) Can Use Premade Dough" Pizza

Ingredients:

Premade refrigerated pizza dough (I used Trader Joe’s)
Veggie toppings of choice
Meat toppings of choice (I used Trader Joe’s breakfast chicken sausage)
Cheese of choice (I used pre-shredded mozzarella from Trader Joe’s)
Olive oil (I used Annie’s infused with basil)

Steps: 

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees. UPDATE: I now heat our oven to 500 so it takes less time.
2. Take dough out of packaging and let sit 20 minutes on floured surface.
3. Chop veggies, cook meat if applicable, grate/slice cheese as needed.
4. Roll pizza dough into a round(ish) shape, continuing to keep surface floured to avoid sticking (it’s a good idea to follow directions on your dough’s packaging).
5. Spread olive oil over dough.
6. Add toppings of choice (keeping to thin layers to avoid weighting down the dough)
7. Bake for 8-12 minutes (longer as needed depending on oven/dough thickness).