Homemade pizza!

 

I came across this wonderful recipe once again through King Arthur's blog! You can find the link to the original recipe here. The dough makes two 12 inch absolutely delicious pizzas! Of course, we can't compare them to Sammy's pizzas but for home-made ones they're the best!

We made one pizza the same day while we refrigerated the rest of the dough for later. So that proved that we could make the dough and refrigerate it for future use. I didn't have the Italian style flour so I simply used all-purpose flour but even then we found it pretty good!

Here's the recipe:

2 teaspoons instant yeast
2 teaspoons sugar
1 1/4 teaspoons salt
1 tablespoon Pizza Dough Flavor (optional, but tasty)
1 tablespoon King Arthur Easy-Roll Dough Improver OR Baker's Special Dry Milk OR nonfat dry milk
3 cups (11 ounces) King Arthur Italian-Style Flour* all purpose flour
3/4 cup (6 ounces) lukewarm water
2 tablespoons (7/8 ounce) olive oil

*Substitute King Arthur 100% Organic White Whole Wheat flour for half of the Italian flour, if desired.

1. Mix all of the ingredients to make a soft, supple dough. Knead for 5 minutes. Add more water than specified if your dough is not soft.
2. Divide the dough in half, cover with lightly greased plastic wrap.
3. Let rest and relax for 15 minutes (or for up to an hour or so; work it into your schedule as you see fit). I kept one for only 30 mins or an hour but the other one was out longer. It fermented much more so I think you should give it as much time as it needs to ferment well.
4. Grease two 12" squares of parchment paper.
5. Use your greased fingers to press each piece of dough on the parchment into an 11" to 12" circle about 1/8" thick. I used a rolling pin to roll the dough into a circle.
6. Brush or spray the crusts with olive oil, and let them rest for about 30 minutes, while you preheat your oven to 450°F (with a pizza stone inside, if you have one).
7. Place the crusts with their parchment directly on the stone, or onto a baking sheet. I directly placed the parchment paper in the oven.
8. Bake till they're just starting to brown around the edges, about 4 minutes. It's for a really short time; you just want to cook the top a little bit so that after you add the toppings the top of the crust doesn't get soggy.
9. Remove from the oven, top with whatever you like. We used readymade pizza sauce, grated mozarella, chopped tomatoes, green pepper and onion!

A shop and a cause

The shop: The Paper Shop.
The cause: an orphanage/old-age home in India.
How are they connected:
Sometime back I'd setup a shop at Etsy (a place to sell handmade stuff), The Paper Shop. Recently I visited an orphanage/old-age home in India, Nethaji Mercy Home, and since then I wanted to do something for them. So I decided that I would use my etsy shop for raising funds for this home. Below is a picture (borrowed from their website) of the children from the home:
On the extreme left and right is the couple behind this home. It was so amazing to meet these beautiful people; they treat all the children as their very own and have devoted their life to the care of these children and the old-age people. On seeing such selfless service, I felt there could be something that I could do and came up with this idea: a dollar ($1) for each item sold at my Etsy shop, The Paper Shop, will be donated to this home.

How you can help?

1. Of course by shopping at The Paper Shop.
   
2. Spread the word: Word of mouth publicity - tell your friends about it, it would be great if you could publish a post on your blog (if you have one) linking to my shop or this post.

There's a link to my Etsy shop on the right of my blog.

Sins and Virtues

I read this verse in Naradapurana (this link just indicates what Narada Purana is, my source is a book by the Gita Press) and found it not only very profound but also beautiful; I've translated it in english too for the benefit of all.

अकीर्ति के समान कोई मृत्यु नहीं
क्रोध के समान कोई शत्रु नहीं
निंदा के समान कोई पाप नहीं
असूया के समान कोई अपकीर्ति नहीं
काम के समान कोई आग नहीं
राग के समान कोई बंधन नहीं
संग अथवा आसक्ति के समान कोई विष नहीं


English translation:
There is no death like ill-fame
There is no enemy like anger
There is no sin like libel
There is no stigmata like jealousy
There is no fire like desire
There is no binding like affection
There is no poison like attachment

Janmashtami

So I'm late posting about Janmashtami this time...mainly because I had really really late start on it. Usually I like to decorate my temple a week before Janmashtami, but this time my DH and I were working on the temple that day itself. We did manage to change everything except the style of the decorations. It was a repeat from last year. Here's a peek at what it looks this year:
The swing is more "aerodynamic" this year, as quoted by my DH :D. It actually is, when you try to swing it you can see it. For the prasad, we made makhane ki kheer, fruit chaat and panchamrit.

I'll update the photo for the kheer sometime later this week. In the meantime I can tell you how to make it though the quantity of everything is hand wavy because we just didn't measure anything this time :). The recipe comes from my mom.

Makhane ki kheer

I used a can of evaporated milk, half a litre whole milk, 8 tblspns sugar, around 250 gms of makhane and a few dry fruits (especially chironji). Chironji adds a very special taste to the kheer; maybe because since my childhood I've always had makhane ki kheer with chironji I feel it's incomplete without it.

Dry roast the makhane and grind them. Most of them should be fine, just leave a few chunky pieces here and there. We firts ground it in the food processor and then took the chunky pieces and ground them in the grinder. Mix everything and bring to boil on a medium flame (covered). When it comes to a boil, simmer (open) and cook till you think the milk has thickened enough. I think it took around 15-20 mins but it would differ from stove to stove.

Here's my post on Janmashtami last year; look at what I said about makhane ki kheer:

It didn't taste the same as my mom's. So the next time I'll get it from my mom and if I make it right, the recipe will make way into one of the posts.

True to my word, I posted it now :).

Shopaholic and Sister

Author: Sophia Kinselli

This is from the famous Shopaholic series by Sophia Kinselli and it was my first from the series.

The book is laughter riot though it does have its serious moments; the main character Becky is a shopaholic and that's exactly what she is - shopping is the cure to all her problems!! In this book, she comes to know that she has a half-sister and the sister turns out to be diametrically opposite to what Becky is. It's fun to read what goes on in Becky's mind all the time. Becky reminded me of Lucy from "I love Lucy" - my favorite sitcom! The story takes a dramatic turn when Becky's husband says that she should be more like a sister and then comes out the good in Becky. It does have a very traditional ending where everything fits in and everybody lives happily ever after! It was after a long time that I'd sat with a book for at least three hours!!

Though I expected the book to be a light read, it had some profound philosophies of life. For example, Becky tries to befriend her sister through what she likes - shopping - and hopes to win her over. She puts in all her heart to plan a day out, shopping with her sister who hates shopping and gets sorely disappointed when her sister doesn't enjoy it. That I think is so true for all of us: we try to please others through ways that we think would please us instead of thinking of ways that would please the other person.

Bottom-line: A thoroughly enjoyable read.

Quirky Tag

My mom tagged me...did I just say "My mom tagged me"?!?! Yes my mom blogs :). Okay coming back to the tag, here are the rules:

1. Link the person who tagged you.

2. Mention the rules on your blog.

3. Tell 6 unspectacular quirks of yours.

4. Tag 6 following bloggers by linking them.

5. Leave a comment on each of the tagged blogger's blogs, letting them know that they have been tagged.

Oh I'm sure my friends and family can vouch for the fact that I'm a very quirky person so it should be a piece of cake writing just 6 facts!

1. I like my aloo (potato) paranthas with Amul cheese (if not Amul I make do with any other brand). This is the quirkiest of all!
2. I set my clocks 10 minutes ahead of the actual time; I feel that they help me be on time. Everyone argues that if you know that your clock is 10 mins ahead, how can it benefit you; I don't know.
3. I can't distinguish between left and right: okay I don't mean I have a disorder but there's a problem :D . Everytime, my DH says left I go for the right (right hand, right turn, whatever) and vice versa! Yeah I'm sure it sounds hilarious to all but me *rolling my eyes*!
   
4. My constant companion is a bottle of water.
   
5. I truly believe that TV is an idiot box; one must use as little of it as possible.
6. I'm known as the "work-generator" in my family :); I don't like to sit idle, I need something to do all the time!
   

I would've liked to tag my two friends-turned-bloggers but they are now bloggers-doing-no-blogging so there would be no point tagging them. I think they know who I'm talking about :). So if you haven't been tagged yet, you are now!

My garden

I'd promised my friend M that I would take photos of my container garden but unfortunately by the time I got to taking the photos: the cucumber plants caught a disease, the zinnias got eaten away by some merciless animal and the container garden is only-half container! Well, so what...I still took the photos of my tomatoes and carrots! I was falling short on containers and my plants were spreading wings as if sky was the limit so I was left with no option but to sneak them into the land around my apartment. Then I was gone for 2 weeks during which my DH took care of them and I must say that he took VERY good care of them because when I came back I couldn't even recognize them!! They'd grown so tall and healthy! So...I thought this presented a beautiful opportunity to do a before-after comparison. The photo on the left is the "before" and on the right, the "after".

The little ones are carrots in the above photos.

 

 

The "after" photos for the pots in the left photo above is:

The key to such healthy plants - sun, sun and more sun. At least for tomatoes that's true. Initially we'd them in our patio which gets around 2-3 hours of sunlight and I thought that was sufficient but apparently it wasn't! The tomato plants have started flowering so we should be getting tomatoes soon!!! Ah the joy of getting fruits of your labor - literally!