by jphilo | Jan 7, 2011 | Family, Recipes
One week ago today, when our kids were home, the two couples staged their own pizza bake-off for supper. Their creations posed for a photo shoot as they came out of the oven, and then we devoured the results. Bellies full, the cooks wrote down their recipes, so I could share them with you.
This week’s recipe comes from the southern Minnesota Philos. The dough recipe comes from an Italian Country cooking cookbook they found somewhere. The sauce and toppings are their own creations. Hiram and are now two of the recipe’s biggest fans. The Minnesota Philos even left some semolina so we can make it again. Then I’ll have to find a store around here that carries it. Any suggestions about where to look?
Southern Minnesota Pizza
Pizza Dough: Sauce:
3 cups all-purpose flour 1 can pizza sauce with three cloves of
1/3 cup semolina 3 cloves crushed garlic
2 teaspoons salt
1 1/2 cups warm water Toppings:
1/4 cup olive oil chopped mushrooms, onion, olives
2 teaspoons dried yeast
Combine flour. semolina and salt in the bowl of an electric mixer. Combine water, oil, and yeast in a small bowl and stir to dissolve yeast. Combine the two mixtures in the mixer bowl and mix with beater until smooth, then change to the dough hook and mix at moderate speed for 10 minutes or until dough is smooth and pliable. (If you don’t have a mixer with a dough hook, knead by hand for 15-20 minutes.)
Oil a bowl, place the dough in the bowl and turn over to coat all sides with oil. Cover with plastic wrap and rest in a warm place until doubled in size (45 minutes to an hour) or overnight in the refrigerator.
Preheat oven to 500 degrees. Punch down dough and roll out. (Our cooks made a thick crust pizza, but the dough could be divided for 2-3 thin crusted ones.) Transfer dough onto a heated pizza stone.
Combine pizza sauce and crushed garlic. Spread over crust. Add toppings and spread 2 cups of shredded mozzarella cheese over top. Sprinkle with Italian seasoning.
Bake at 500 degrees until bubbly in the middle. Cut into pieces and serve. Mmm, mmm.
Come back next week for the second pizza bake off recipe. It’s as good as this one, so you won’t want to miss it!
by jphilo | Jan 3, 2011 | Family
The house is quiet this morning, after almost a week of fun, family, and relaxation. From Thursday to Sunday, all four of our kids (two by birth and two by marriage) were with us for the first multi-day stretch ever. When they left after lunch on Sunday and a 24 hour infusion of extended family, we were all still on good terms with one another. Therefore, the weekend can be considered a success.
But by my count it was more than successful. In fact, compiling the complete list of Christmas blessings and good memories we experienced would take more time than I have to spare. So here are a few that stand out:
- Planning meals and cooking with the kids.
- Tasting the results of the pizza bake-off on New Year’s Eve.
- Having people volunteer to set the table and clean up after meals.
- Learning to play the board game Carcassonne, thanks to our new son.
- Listening to our daughters talk while one taught the other how to knit.
- Giving the kids hugs at bedtime.
- Hearing about our kids’ dreams for the future.
- Watching our sons play with the pen/laser/flashlight keychains from their Christmas stockings.
- Seeing Hiram’s expression when he pulled cheetah spot patterned duct tape from his stocking.
- Watching my nephew put together a jigsaw puzzle with lightning speed.
- Observing Mom’s pleasure when a story she wrote about her childhood was read aloud.
- Fighting over the squirrel underpants, Twisted Tales from Shakespeare, and travel ping pong during the White Elephant gift exchange.
- Falling asleep to the sound of young voices and happy conversations.
What Christmas blessings stand out for you? What are you grateful for as the new year begins? What’s making you smile today?
by jphilo | Dec 24, 2010 | Family
Snow is falling slowly, gently. It rests upon the quiet trees and bends dry grass in the ditches. A small, soft mound of white covers the top of the old lamp post that marks the eastern border of our Narnia, there beside the evergreens and the lilacs.
For the twenty years we’ve lived here the lamp has stood, useless and rusting, a relic left by former residents who called this house home long before we did. During our stay in this land, we’ve demolished other useless things – dead trees, scraggly bushes, and a decrepit fence – but the lamp post remains, a reminder of our move to Narnia when our children were ten and four.
They were deeply smitten by magic in those days, most alive during the evening hours when we read aloud to them from C. S. Lewis’s Chronicles, Tolkien’s trilogy, and the Resistance Tales of David and Karen Mains. All through their childhoods and adolescents they watched for Aslan, believing he would return as promised when their numbers swelled from two to four.
In a few short days they will arrive, our two sons of Adam and two daughters of Eve. Grown up but still steeped in magic, still believing, they will enter Narnia and celebrate Aslan’s arrival in human flesh, the lion of Judah born in a manger, the Word made flesh.
In the cold, dark winter days before they come, there’s just enough time to dust the ancient wardrobe. Just enough time fill it to bursting with old fur coats. Just enough time to get ready for deep magic.
It’s time to wait beside the lamp post.
It’s almost Christmas.
Aslan’s on the move.
by jphilo | Dec 15, 2010 | Family
The more things change, the more they stay the same as this recycled post from December of 2007 proves. Abby the dog weighs 3 – 4 pounds more than in the picture above and her muzzle is completely grey – think raccoon in reverse. Abby the dog still lives with my brother and his wife, and our former doggy thinks moving in with my sister-in-law is the best that ever happened to her, which it is. It’s so good, the joint custody agreement has been scrapped, and Abby’s new family now has sole custody.
So this holiday season, the dog won’t spend time at our house. Instead, I’m going to spend the night with her (and my mom) while the brother and sister-in-law are out of town. Should be lots of fun, since Abby no longer gives me the time of day…unless I have food in my hand. Kind of gives me a complex, if you want to know the truth, until I look on the bright side…if the dog throws up this year, it won’t be on my carpet!
The Dog Report – Recycled
The holidays are here, and in a joint custody home like ours that means we have Abby the dog for Christmas vacation. Between the arrival of the dog and the daughter, things are busy around here.
The dog is adjusting well, considering her fragile canine psyche. So far she’s slept twelve hours a night, in a concerted effort to help the college daughter catch up on a semester of lost sleep. She’s kept the sweat quotient at bay by licking Hiram’s head after he works out. And she’s upped my hot flash incidents by cramming her warm little body next to mine in the hours between my bedtime and the daughter’s.
She’s had a few neurotic episodes. The first one was Sunday morning when we all went to church and left her home alone. The second was when I went outside to chop ice a few days ago and she thought I’d abandoned her again. The third was yesterday when she drank to much water and threw up on our bedroom carpet.
Yesterday she got an Hallmark e-card from the dogs at her other house. They had a little help from my sister-in-law, I think. My sister-in-law’s dogs think of this kind of thing. Abby doesn’t. But when introduced to new concepts, she catches on pretty quick. With a little help from me, Abby sent a return e-card. She chose an interactive card that allows the recipients to dress a dachshund in human clothes.
I discovered the carpet vomit right after our Hallmark moment. Abby looked at me. I looked at Abby. I’m pretty sure we were thinking the same thing.
Life is way better when the dog is at the sister-in-law’s house.
by jphilo | Nov 9, 2010 | Family
From what Mom’s told us about her childhood, she was never a costume kind of girl. My memories of her don’t run towards a let-your-hair-down sort of woman. And her former elementary students would most likely agree…especially since her nickname was Iron Woman of the Playground.
In short, she didn’t have a Goofy Gus personality.
Wasn’t raised like that.
Never experienced it.
Was always very concerned about what other people thought of her.
And her kids.
And her grandkids.
Mom’s world was hemmed round with inhibitions. Until a few years ago, when she was diagnosed with early stage Alzheimer’s. Then things began to change. Gradually, what other people thought didn’t matter. Having fun in the moment did. Slowly, she began expressing her feelings.
She told us we were good kids.
That she was grateful for our care of her.
That she felt safe because we were around.
That she loved us.
In July, her inhibitions relaxed further. At our daughter’s wedding, she got all dolled up in a costume, entered the photo booth, and the camera captured her essence.
The bunny ears on her head make me laugh.
The flowers around her face soften my heart.
The sweetness of her smile makes me cry.
She is so happy.
This picture is worth a thousand words.
For the first time in her life, my mother is free to be herself.
by jphilo | Nov 3, 2010 | Family
Rumblefish arrived Friday evening while I was at the evening session of our church women’s conference. So I didn’t witness the truck’s majestic sweep up the driveway. With Allen driving, new daughter Abbey and dog packed in the cab and an antique piece of farm machinery in the back, it must have been a sight to behold.
My first encounter with our son’s pride and joy came when our overnight guest, the conference speaker drove home late Friday night. The monster in the truck bed waved its round metal fingers when we climbed out of our respective cars. With Halloween right around the corner, the leering piece of farm history was more than a little disconcerting.
The contraption was slightly less threatening in the cold light of day. Allen gave Hiram and me a quick tour of its finer points – a bunch of handles and levers that impressed my hubby to no end, but left me totally bored, bored, bored. Then, the two men went into the mechanical trance that overtakes Philo men in the presence of machinery. They launched into a discussion about gears and welding and other boring stuff.
I, on the other hand, went into my capture-the-moment mode. After all, the thing (It has something to do with grain and boring holes, and it is made to be drawn by horses, not a tractor. So if this were an essay question the explanation would be worth at least half-credit.) is the first tangible piece of our son and new daughter’s dream of owning an organic farm and working it with horses.
If that isn’t a moment to capture, what is?
Admittedly, the moment wasn’t all that pretty, with Hiram and Allen rolling their eyes at the sight of the camera. Rumblefish could use some sprucing up, it’s muffler needs voice lessons, and a dozen cans of spray paint would work wonders on the machiney thing. But there was a weary beauty to the spokes and springs, and a wondrous imagining of fields and crops and critters as our son shared this small beginning of an upcoming chapter of life.
So I concede that the acquisition of the the horse drawn whatever-it-is, which wintering in a farmer friend’s chicken coop, is a good first step into future – even though encountering it in the dark of night prickled the hair on my neck.
Still, I’m hoping the second step isn’t the horse.
