Homemade Pizza with Chef Cate



 Making Pizza is a  very kid friendly thing to do and my little Chef Cate just loves cooking with me.  So we made pizza....she made cheese and I made a veggie with white sauce. 



Dissolve 1 tablespoon of yeast in 1 cup warm water.
 Should be between 110 and 115 degrees.
Let it set for about 10 minutes until frothy.

Next, in a separate bowl mix 2 cups bread flour,
1 teaspoon salt, 2 teaspoons white sugar.



Stir with wire whisk until dry ingredients are well blended.

Next add 2 Tablespoons of olive oil to liquid yeast mix.
With a dough hook mix on low while pouring in yeast mixture. 
Turn up speed and scrape edges of bowl.
Mix until flour is well mixed with liquid. 

Dough will be sticky.

Next put some flour on the clean counter top.

Spread flour with hands.

Pour dough on counter and with floured hands kneed dough for
about a minute.

Shape dough into ball.

Place dough in a bowl and cover with plastic. 
Let it rest for 30 minutes.

Clean work area!

On a sheet tray brush Olive Oil until thinly
covered. About 1 Tablespoon or so.

Next preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Lightly sprinkle with corn meal.  This helps the pizza to not
stick to the tray and adds some crunch to the crust.

Next divide the dough in half and roll out into two pizzas.
This makes a thinner crust which we like. I used a pizza stone
for mine. I did that same as Cate did for preparing the pan.
We rolled out our Pizzas and placed them on the pans and
finished shaping them into a round circle.
Bake in the oven for 10 minutes.

Remove pizza from oven.
Spread your favorite sauce over the pizza.  Cate used some high
quality left over Marinara sauce for hers.  Don't use cheap Pizza
sauce....this is gourmet after all!

Next spread the pizza with your favorite cheeses.
We used fresh grated parmesan, sharp cheddar,
and shredded mozzarella. 

Bake for 10 to 15 minutes or until the edges brown nicely.

Enjoy....blow first.  It's hot!

 The other grandkids liked it too.  This pizza was gone in seconds!

Vegetarian Tamales, Yummo!!!

My daughter, Callie, learned to make these awesome tamales.  While we were visiting my folks in California we made a bunch to put in GG's freezer.  Callies girls also like them a lot and can't get enough of them.  So I tried them at home and sure enough my Grandsons and the rest of the family love them too!  If you're not vegetarian you can put whatever filling you want in them and they will be awesome.  So here is the recipe that Callie got from http://www.mommiecooks.com/2010/12/17/vegetarian-tamales/ .

1 Pkg. of Corn Husks

2 Cups of Masa

1 tsp of Baking Powder

3/4 tsp of Salt

2 tsp of Cumin

2 tsp of Chili Powder

21/4 Cup of Veggie Broth

1 Stick of Butter

Start off by soaking your corn husks in water for at least 30 minutes.

Grab a bowl and add in the masa, baking powder, 1/2 tsp of the salt, and 1 tsp of both the cumin, and chili powder. Now add 2 cups of the veggie broth to your mixture and form a dough. Pop your stick of butter into your mixer and whip it up for a minute or so. Add the masa dough in and mix it up well again.

Set your finished dough aside and let's move on to the filling. The basic tamale recipe is what we use and then we came up with our own filling.  The filling recipe is:

Two bag of Morning Star Farms Meal Starters. (You can use whatever brand of textured vegetable protein you like. Sometimes I use Loma Linda Vege Burger. It is like a crumbled burger.
You can use 2 pounds shredded chicken or 2 pounds of browned hamburger in place of the vege food if you want meat filling.)

1 Onion chopped fine
1 Red, Yellow, or Green Bell Pepper chopped fine
2 T oil

Saute onion, pepper and burger in oil until onions are clear. If you want some kick to your tamales you can add 1/4 Tsp Cayenne Pepper or Chili flakes or more depending on how hot you like your food.)
2 c. shredded mexican cheese. 

Set up the counter with the Masa dough, burger, and cheese in an assembly line. I lay down a tea towl and lay a corn husk on the towel while filling and rolling.  Drain the husks and put at the beginning of the assembly line. Tear strips of a couple of husks about a quarter to a third of an inch thick for tying up the tamale rolls when ready.

Lay a corn husk scoop a small amount of Masa dough in the center of a corn husk.  (About a large tablespoon or so.)  Put a tablespoon of burger down the middle and sprinkled a small amount of cheese on top.  Roll the husk in half so that the Masa surrounds the burger and finish rolling like a burrito. Fold the bottom up and tie it in place with a strip of husk.

To cook I used my spaghetti strainer and set in in a big cook pot.  Stand up the tamales and place water in the bottom of the pot up to the bottom of the strainer.  Cover the pot with tin foil to seal it so the steam wouldn't escape and steamed them for 90 minutes.  Put some uncooked tamales in the freezer for later steaming.  A double recipe of Masa dough and the filling from above will yield around 50 tamales depending on how big you make them.  Enjoy!