Pizza Dough - Sponge Method

Yield makes eight 9-inch pizzas servings

Sponge Ingredients

• 1 cup lukewarm water (110°F to 115°F)
• 1 tsp active dry yeast, divided
• 1 tbsp sugar
• 1 cup all purpose flour, divided

Dough Ingredients

• 1 3/4 cups lukewarm water (110°F to 115°F)
• 2 teaspoons table salt
• 1 tbsp active dry yeast
• 4 cups all purpose flour
• 1 to 2 cups bread flour
• 1/4 cup Olive Oil
• Yellow cornmeal for dusting pizza peel

Sponge Preparation

Step 1 - Place 1 cup lukewarm water in large bowl of heavy-duty mixer. Sprinkle 1 teaspoon yeast, 1 tbsp flour, and 1 tbsp sugar over water. Gently whisk to combine. Let stand until yeast dissolves and mixture looks spongy, about 4 minutes. Add remaining flour and whisk until smooth; scrape down sides of bowl. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let sponge rest at room temperature in draft-free area overnight (about 12 hours; sponge will look bubbly).

Dough Preparation

Step 2 - Add 1 3/4 cups lukewarm water, 2 teaspoons salt and 1 tbsp yeast to sponge and turn dough mixer. Add 4 cups AP flour, 1 cup at a time, beating with dough hook to blend after each addition. Add one cup of bread flour, then 1/4 cups of remaining one cup one at a time. Dough should be moist and slightly sticky. Continue to knead with dough hook until dough is smooth, comes cleanly away from sides of bowl, and is only slightly sticky to touch, scraping down bowl occasionally. Total time should be about 5 to 10 minutes. If dough is very sticky, beat in more flour, 1/4 cupful at a time. Scrape dough onto floured surface; knead into smooth ball. Continue to knead by hand if needed. Dough should be stretchy without tearing easily and pass the window pane test.

Step 3 - Brush inside of large bowl with oil. Add dough; turn to coat with oil. Cover bowl with plastic wrap; chill 6 hours, kneading dough down when doubled (after 2 hours). Only punch down once.

Step 4 - About 1 1/2 hours before baking, dust 2 baking sheets with flour. Turn dough out onto floured surface. Knead gently; shape into 16-inch log. Cut into 8 equal pieces. Weigh dough if possible and divide total grams by 8. Knead each piece into smooth ball. Arrange 4 balls of dough on each sheet. Cover loosely with kitchen towels and let rise until almost doubled, 1 to 1 1/4 hours.

Step 5 - If using pizza stone, place in oven.

Step 6 - Preheat oven to 500°F for 45 minutes. Working with 1 dough ball at a time, dust dough with flour. Press into 5-inch round, then gently stretch and roll out to 9-inch round. For tips on kneading and rolling out pizza dough, see our video Kneading and Forming Pizza Dough or our tip How to Roll Out Pizza Dough.

Step 7 - If using pizza stone, sprinkle pizza peel or rimless baking sheet with cornmeal. If not using pizza stone, sprinkle large baking sheet with cornmeal. Place dough round on cornmeal; brush lightly with oil. Top as desired. Slide pizza onto stone or place pizza on baking sheet into oven.

Step 8 - Bake pizza until sauce is bubbling and crust is crisp and brown, lifting edge of pizza to check underside, about 14 minutes.

Step 9 - To speed things up, you can bake two pizzas at the same time. To ensure even cooking, be sure to reverse the position of the baking sheets after 8 minutes. Baking two pizzas at once may take longer than 14 minutes.

Slightly modified from this recipe. 

www.bonappetit.com/recipe/overnight-pizza-dough

Glazed Pumpkin Sugar Cookies

I made these in 2020 and 2021 for sure.... and this is a keeper! 
~~~

Found here: https://www.laurenslatest.com/soft-glazed-pumpkin-sugar-cookies/
(also pinned to Tried & Approved)

Ingredients

• ▢1/2 cup softened butter
• ▢1/2 cup vegetable oil
• ▢1/2 cup pumpkin puree canned pumpkin
• ▢1 cup granulated sugar
• ▢1/2 cup powdered sugar
• ▢1/2 teaspoon vanilla
• ▢2 large eggs
• ▢4 cups all purpose flour
• ▢1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• ▢1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
• ▢1/2 teaspoon salt
• ▢1 teaspoon cinnamon
• ▢1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
• ▢pinch of cloves
  
  

for the glaze-

• ▢3 cups powdered sugar
• ▢4 tablespoons water
  1/4 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
• 
  
• Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or silicone baking mat and set aside. In a large bowl, stir butter, oil, pumpkin, sugars, vanilla and eggs together until incorporated and smooth.
• Slowly mix in all dry ingredients until completely incorporated.
• Scoop onto prepared baking sheet using 1 1/2 tablespoon scoop and flatten to 1/2 inch thick using the bottom of a glass. If the dough is sticking to the glass, press the bottom of the glass in granulated sugar before flattening. Bake 8-9 minutes.
• While cookies bake, stir all ingredients together for glaze until smooth.
• Once cookies are finished baking, cool 3 minutes on baking sheet before transferring to cooling rack. Spread 1 1/2 teaspoons glaze over each warm cookie. Let glaze harden 2-3 hours before serving. OR eat them warm with lots of runny glaze
• 
  
  Yeah, soo my cookies baked 9 minutes. They were too puffy to put the glaze on top, so I flipped them over and glazed the bottom!! My dad's grandmother did that with her sugar cookies so why not? It worked great! 
• Also my glaze was 2 cups powdered sugar, 4.5 tbsp water and at least 1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice... Next time i'll use milk or cream.
• I got 57 cookies, plus dough out of this batch.  69 out of the second batch (smaller for sure)

Zucchini Banana Oat Bread

ETA: I will only make this in two of my smaller loaf pans, ever. lol. 

I tried this recipe six years ago and pinned it to my "tried and approved" board. Today I made it again and shared it with a friend. It is SO yummy! You can find the original post HERE. 

From the comments, someone suggested adding in chocolate chips, so today one loaf had none and the other two loaves had maybe 2/3 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips.

The loaves are very short, splitting the batter into three pans. I might try using just two, larger bread pans... I don't know how much that would effect the baking time. But for three loaves that are less than 2 inches tall, it baked 40 minutes in my oven.

I am linking it here and copying over the recipe because the original post is eight years old and I don't want it to disappear. Also, I refer to this blog way more often than I look at Pinterest for food ideas. I get too distracted on Pinterest! And this is a keeper! 

Zucchini Banana Oat Bread
from Amanda Rettke at I Am Baker.

INGREDIENTS

• 1½ cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1 cup oats
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 cup canola oil
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 2 ripe bananas, mashed
• 3 cups shredded zucchini
  
  INSTRUCTIONS

  1. Heat oven to 350°F and prepare loaf pans. (I used three small loaf pans.)

  2. In large bowl add flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and oats. Stir together.

  3. In a smaller bowl combine sugar, eggs, oil, vanilla, and mashed banana.
     Pour sugar mixture into the flour mixture and stir by hand. Add in zucchini and mix until well incorporated.

  4. Bake for 35-45 minutes or until bread pulls away from sides of pan and an inserted toothpick is removed clean.

Burt's Potato Salad

• 6 Russet Potatoes, about 2 to 2 1/2 lbs, baked or pressure cooked whole and refrigerated until cold, pealed and chopped into chunks that are about 1/2 to 3/4 of an inch.
• 8 hard boiled eggs, refrigerated till cold, peeled and chopped
• 1 red onion finely minced
• 3/4 cup Miracle Whip salad dressing
• 1/2 cup mayonnaise
• 1/4 cup ketchup
• 3 tbsp mustard, regular, Dijon, deli, whatever you have
• 1 1/2 tsp dill weed
• Salt and pepper to taste
• Sprinkle with paprika to garnish

Combine chopped potatoes, chopped eggs, and minced onion. Stir to combine. Sprinkle on salt, pepper, and dill weed. Stir again to even distribute seasoning. Combine Miracle Whip, mayo, ketchup and mustard in a bowl and mix to together. Dump dressing onto potato mixture then stir to combine. Sprinkle on the paprika to garish. Cover and put into the fridge for a couple of hours to chill and let the flavor combine.

Tin Foil Dinner!

The other night I wanted to make tin foil dinners....but it's been so many years that I was a little concerned I'd forget something important..... I finally decided to look up a recipe or two to make sure I didn't skip anything, and ended up following THIS recipe almost exactly. Four out of five of us really enjoyed it, so we'll keep it here for next time! 

This was the ingredient list, and I'll tell you what changes I made.

• 1 pound lean ground beef
• ▢1 package dry onion soup mix
• ▢4 small potatoes peeled and sliced
• ▢2 cups carrots chopped
• ▢1 large or 2 small onions, sliced
• ▢2 tablespoons olive oil
• ▢1 teaspoon garlic powder
• ▢salt & pepper to taste
• ▢condensed mushroom soup

My quantities made 6 meals.
I used 1.5 lbs of ground beef, which I did mix with a packet of dry onion soup. I did five potatoes, peeled and sliced. I did two very large and three small carrots, and a little more than half an onion. I did not mix the vegetables, I layered them like I am accustomed to. I layered some potatoes in each, then sprinkled with a bit of seasoning salt. Then I added the carrots, then some onion, and then I drizzled on olive oil, with a bit of kosher salt and one twist of black pepper. Then I put the meat patty on top of that, and put roughly two tbsp cream of mushroom soup on top of that. I spread it a little over the meat, then folded the tin foil up around it, and laid four meals on a hot baking sheet that had preheated in the oven, at 375. After 45 mins, we ate!
Then I cooked the last two because someone came home from work late, and the 6th meal was eaten as leftovers the next night! 

I did toss maybe 1 tbsp of the cream of mushroom soup because I honestly didn't feel like I could add any more to the meals, and I had no idea what we would do with the leftover bit. That can was in our food storage a long time... 
The only complaints were that two people would have preferred a lot more potatoes and another would have liked a lot more carrots, so next time I'll do more vegetables. But it was tasty, and the flavors also worked well with A1 sauce on the meat! 

~~~
7/20/2022
I forgot what I was doing and diced the onion, so I put that down first, then a hamburger patty, with a couple drops of worcestershire sauce, a bit of black pepper, then cream of mushroom soup, potatoes, carrots, and a bit of seasoning salt.