Recipe: Greek Pita Pizzas

Monday's are really busy for both JP and me. After work, I head for my workout class, and JP heads to play basketball with church. I typically get home about an hour before him so am in charge of dinner. After a full day of work followed by a hard workout, I am usually starving but have no desire to spend time in the kitchen. Therefore, I am always on the lookout for quick, easy recipes.

One of my favorite blogs, Annie's Eats, has come through we a good Monday night option with her Greek Pita Pizzas.
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Ingredients:
2 tbsp. olive oil, plus more for brushing
4 pitas (I usually choose the whole wheat)
1 tbsp. red wine vinegar (I had never purchased this before. It is actually really cheap)
Salt and pepper
1 tsp. chopped fresh oregano (or ½ tsp. dried) (I use dried)
½ small red onion, halved and sliced thin
½ cup pitted kalamata olives, chopped (or sliced black olives) (I use kalamata)
¾ cup grape tomatoes, halved (I never measure these)
½ cup hummus (I never measure this either. I just use a spoonful on each pita)
½ cup shredded mozzarella cheese (Again I never measure this. I just sprinkle a good bit on each pita)
½ cup crumbled feta (Our seeing a trend that I don't measure? Again I just sprinkle what I think is enough of each pita)
Tzatziki sauce, for serving (I've never used this)

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 475˚ F.  Lightly brush both sides of the pita with olive oil.  Arrange the pita on a baking sheet and bake 5 minutes or until light golden.

Meanwhile, in a medium bowl, combine the vinegar with 2 tablespoons of the oil and the oregano.  Season with salt and pepper, and whisk to blend.  Add the onion, olives and tomatoes to the bowl and toss to coat with the dressing.

Spread about 2 tablespoons (or a big spoonful) of the hummus over each pita.  Sprinkle the mozzarella over the pita, dividing it evenly between the four.  Layer each with a quarter of the vegetable mixture.  Top with the crumbled feta.  Bake once more until the vegetables have softened and the cheese has melted, about 6-8 minutes.  Top as desired with tzatziki sauce and serve immediately.
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I wasn't sure how the hummus would taste as I had never had warm hummus. It was actually really good! These pitas are very flavorful! And, although they do not have meat, JP has approved them. Plus, they reheat really well in the toaster oven.

Zoe Loves Summer

 This girl is loving her first summer. From running through fresh green grass to playing with the plethora of bugs outside, she is one happy dog. She is also getting to experience a lot of new things.

Zoe just loves water so we thought it would be great to get her a small pool for the backyard. She loves taking a dip after a long walk in the neighborhood.



But she isn't limited to this small amount of water. One of the walking trails near our house has a creek that runs next to it. She loves running through the water and this past week started sticking her entire head under water. She is working on her swimming as well. Her first experience was swimming was in a pool, and she is perfecting her skills in the deeper part of the creek.

She is also loving playing with other dogs. She has made several dog friends in the neighborhood. Her first experience with multiple dogs came at JP's uncle's house. She was one of four dogs and loved playing with them, even if they did not love playing with her all the time. She got to meet our friend's Great Dane. Size by no means intimated her. This was also evident at her first trip to the dog park. Zoe walked right into the group of dogs with no problem and enjoyed over an hour of play with over 10 dogs.

 

And no worries, Zoe is handling the summer heat just fine. With the help of her pool mentioned above and a hair cut, the heat isn't getting to her.

Down Under

I feel I should document JP's obsession. He is obsessed with the country of Australia.  When I say obsessed, I mean:

• He watches Youtube videos on the country. He has discovered a channel by the Australian government of videos they made in the 1950s and 1960s. He watches this frequently.
• He read Wikipedia articles on the country.
• He has discovered how to listen to radio stations from all over the world on our tv. You better believe he has checked out stations from Australia.
• He frequently talks about moving to Australia. 

Apparently this is not a new interest of his. I found in his third grade journal, on  December 15, 1994 he wrote: "If I could I would go to Australia."

No worries, we won't be moving there anytime soon. I told him I could not move to another country without visiting, and we have no plans to visit anytime soon. To be honest, I don't think he actually wants to move, he just gets on kicks where he likes to research places and things. As I type this he is reading all about the Tesla electric car... and I don't think we will buying one of these even though he is intrigued with it. (He just stated it costs $90,000 so yes we will not be buying it).

College Friend Reunion

My college friends try to get together twice a year. Once in the spring and once in the fall. This year we met in April in Birmingham. We enjoyed lunch, walking around Samford, and catching up.


  Blair and I enjoyed remembering our Frisbee class we took our Senior year when we found a Frisbee in the book store.

We also exchanged gifts. At our fall 2012 meeting we all drew a name and were responsible for getting that person a gift staying within the predetermined price range. This year I had drew Emily. Because a few people forgot who they had we all emailed Emily who we had and she reminded everyone. I did not want to email Emily, but I had to. So, since she knew who I was going in to the exchange, I felt like I needed to do something fun and creative.

If you know Emily, you would know that she can quote pretty much any movie or tv show she has ever seen. You would also know that she loves Friends. So, I decided to do a Friends themed gift for her. I got her a gift that represented each character of Friends. On the outside of the wrapping I had a quote from this Friends character that went along with the gift.

Brittany had me. She has a sewing/monogramming business, so I got a cute travel bag, shirt, and key chain from her shop.

How to Make a Headboard... Mistakes and All

We all dream of a house pulled from the pages of a Pottery Barn magazine. Well, except for Phoebe... if you watch Friends. I particularly had picked out this headboard and felt it would go perfect in our bedroom.

 However, the $900 price did not sound so perfect. So, i thought to myself, "I think I can make that." After some research, I discovered a very simple plan on ana-white.com. If you are not familiar with this website, you should be. There tons of plans for making your own furniture, and they are all free and all doable. I discovered the plan for a king size headboard that looked very similar to the headboard from Pottery Barn. Note: They have plans for other bed sizes too.

I am quite fortunate that JP's grandparents have always done wood work. They kindly purchased the wood for me (I reimbursed them), cut it according to the plans, brought it to me, and oversaw that building process.

We used pine wood as reclaimed wood is more expensive and hard to find. All the materials cost $100... much better than $900!

The directions for assembly were great, and although it took a little time, putting the headboard together was not difficult and went very well.

We made sure to sand each piece of wood lightly before assembly, and then sanded again lightly before staining. Here JP is round off the edge of the top piece.

 After easy assembly, it is time to stain.

And here is where I begin How NOT to Make a Headboard. As you can see if everything goes well, this project is a weekend project. However, everything did not go well with the staining. So here are all the steps from how things messed up to how we fixed the problems.

1. Thinking we were using the stain and poly in one. There are two types of stains- what I call a normal stain and then a stain and poly in one. The normal stain requires you to wipe off the excess stain after about 5-10 minutes of soaking. The in one stain does not require this. We thought we had the in one stain so we did not wipe off the excess. We actually had the normal stain. So, since we did not wipe it off, we had a very sticky finish. This, however, was not our biggest issue.

2. Our biggest issue was the patchiness that occurred.

 

 
 
As the stain dried we began to notice these grayish patches forming. We had no idea what was going on. JP's grandparents who have much experience with staining had never seen this occur. After much research, I figured out what had happened. Pine is a soft wood. If you do not use a wood conditioner, the stain will soak in at these soft spots and cause these gray patches. Well, we obviously did not use wood conditioner. So, learn from my mistake, if you ever use pine, use a wood conditioner.

3. So how does one fix such a problem. I tried a light sand, it did not work. I did not want to use stain remover because that sounded messy and too chemically for me. The only option left was sanding the whole thing down to the unfinished wood. I used 60 grade sandpaper. This was no easy task and took quite a long time. I will be honest, it was not enjoyable and at times I got very frustrated. While I was doing this, I did not even know if it would help.

4. I finally got it all sanded down to the unfinished wood! I purchased a wood conditioner. I made sure to read the directions and applied it appropriately. After applying it to the first side, I dropped the brand new container of wood conditioner and lost all of the product. I had to buy another can of wood conditioner.

5. If there was one good thing that came out of this mistake (other than learning), here it is. I had not really cared for the stain color we originally used. I felt it had too much red in it and was not dark enough. For the re-stain, we ended up using the stain color Ebony. It looked black going on, put once we wiped the stain off after 5-10 minutes (yes we read the directions this time) it looked dark brown and matched our chest and dresser.

6. After applying the stain, I was beginning to have hope. However, there were two places that looked very chalky to me and I was disappointed. I applied a polyeurathane too finish but was not completely pleased.

7. JP's grandmother suggested finish the headboard with a coat of wax. Oh, how I am so glad she suggested this! When we applied the wax it made the few chalky looking areas disappear. It looked great!

Here it is in the garage.

And here it is in the bedroom (right after installation which is why there is a drill on the table and toolbox on the floor.

Although it does not look exactly like the one from Pottery Barn, it looks very close. I am pleased with it after all the hard work and am glad I saved $800. I learned a lot from this project and would like to make something else. Hopefully, the staining process will go better next project!

How to Meet the Neighbors 101

If I was to write a book entitled How to Meet the Neighbors 101, it would include one sentence Get a Puppy.

JP and I have lived in this house for almost two years. During these two years we have gone on probably 3-4 walks a week. Other than saying hello in passing, we had not gotten to know any of the neighbors- other than the ones that live right next to us.

That all changed when we got Zoe.

The neighbor who lives directly behind us who we never saw before will come into our yard to play with Zoe. Now when we go on a walk with her, people walk down to the street from their yards to meet her. When we see other walkers they stop to greet her. Children call her into their yard and chase her around. As we approach people I frequently hear people say, "Oh here comes Zoe!"

She is definitely more popular than either of us!

As a result, we have gotten to know these people which has been fun. Growing up, I was so used to knowing people in the neighborhood, so it was hard for me not to know people. Granted we don't know them well, but it is better than just a smile or hello! We are meeting so many people that JP and I have a little notebook where we write peoples names because we are likely to forget. 

So, if you are wondering how to get to know people in the neighborhood... get a puppy!

Note: This is before her haircut last week. Her hair is much shorter now! She is still a cutie though.

Let Them Eat Cake!

One of my 2013 Kitchen Goals is to make a legit cake which means making a cake and icing from scratch and then icing it in a legit manner. When my friend Kate discovered this was my goal, she wanted in on the baking as well. You see, she was planning on making her own wedding cake because her mom had made her own wedding cake. She needed all the practice she could get.

Kate has a friend who has a cake business so she taught Kate a lot of things. Kate then turned around and taught me.  To prepare, we placed an Amazon order for what we like to call "the spinny thing" as well as off set spatulas for icing.

Our first test run was this Tiramisu cake which although it was far from being made from scratch, we got to test our icing skills.

After this test run, it was time to move on to the legit cake. I have a recently found love for strawberry cake so I knew that is what I wanted to do. Conveniently Sweetapolita (our cake baking crush) had a strawberry cake recipe. Note: I was hesitant to use this recipe because it uses strawberry gelatin powder and I thought this might take away from the "from scratch" properties. I did have a recipe that did not call for this (which is hard to find) but I decided go ahead and use Sweetapolita's recipe.

We decided to make a party out of it and had two of our friends join us.




I did receive some help from these girls, but I did most of the major parts since it was my goal.

While the layers cooled...

 

 ... we went to Mooyah Burger for dinner. Since I wasn't going to get enough sugar that night from licking both the batter and icing bowls, I made sure to get a milkshake (which is cheap if you get a kids meal).

Once we got back from dinner, it was time to start the icing process. I still have a lot of improving to do but I think it turned out great for a first attempt! It was tasty too!

Note: Since then, I have made one more legit cake- a red velvet cake. It did not turn out as well mainly due to the fact that I did not let the cake cool enough before taking it out of the pan. As a result it was a held together by icing, lopsided cake. However, it did taste good!

PS. You may be wondering- did we consume all of these cakes. We actually shared the first cake with work friends and the second I took to my home group.

Indy Race

Last spring JP and I went to Talladega. This spring we decided to check out another type of racing, Indy Racing at Barber Motor Speedway.

Before finding our place to sit, we checked out some of the tents set up near the entrance. JP enjoyed talking to people about cars and learning all about the cost of tires and many other things I don't really remember.

 JP took the chance to explain to me how an engine works. I think I might need a reinforcement education on that one.

One of the major differences between Talladega and Barber is the seating arrangements. At Talladega you have an assigened stadium seat. At Barber, however, you bring your own chair, and it is first come first serve seating. We chose to sit in the trees which was an excellent choice considering it was pretty sunny.

Another big difference between Talladega and Barber is the intensity of sound. I really felt that Barber was not nearly as loud as Talladega (although maybe the fact we were on the 3rd row at Talladega made it louder).

There was a car show at the race. Of course, we had to check out the Corvettes! My Dad made me a Corvette girl!

Overall, I really preferred Barber to Talladega. The environment was much different. I loved the seating arrangements and the options of things to do other than the race such as the car show. It seemed a little more relaxed and a little more classy. With that being said, I am glad I experienced both of these racing experiences, but I think I might be a one and done on both of these races.

Maker's Mark

Kentucky is known for it's bourbon, and there are actually 8 distilleries that are part of the Kentucky Bourbon Trail.  While I was in Kentucky for Kate's wedding, we had Saturday morning free so decided to check out the Maker's Mark distillery, which was the closest distillery to us.

Although I'd never had bourbon, and was pretty sure I would not like it, I was excited to check out the distillery. It was really interesting to learn about the distillery process. It fascinates me that someone even figured out how to do it in the first place!

 After the tour, there was a taste test of the three Maker's Mark products. The clear product is one that they don't sale anywhere but at the distillery which was pretty cool.



I tried all three of them, but not to my surprise, I did not like any of them. The clear one actually was so strong that even many people who typically like bourbon did not care for it. My glasses pretty much looked the same after the tasting as it did before. One small sip gone does not leave for much noticeable change.

Although I did not care for the bourbon itself, I did get a kick out of some of their former marketing materials that they had displayed.

One thing that makes Maker's Mark unique is everyone of their bottles is hand dipped into red wax. Because we were there on a Saturday, we did not get to see this process actually happen. We did see where it occurs and were informed of how quickly each of the bottles must be dipped to keep up with the continuous conveyor belt. They are dipped at such a fast rate that the people dipping them work in 30 minute shifts to prevent any hand injuries. It was pretty impressive.

The tour conveniently ended up at the gift shop- as any good tour does, of course. At the gift shop you could purchase a bottle of Maker's to dip yourself. Here I am with my bottle ready to dip.

I know you ask, "If you did not like it, why did you buy it?" The answer, JP. I was informed by him that since he could not go on the trip, I needed to bring him the biggest bottle of Maker's they sold. I did just that.

They required us to put on an apron, sleeve protectors, and glasses to dip- which I thought was pretty funny. Here I am dipping my bottle!

Even though I'm not a fan of bourbon, I really enjoyed the tour.