Chicken and Artichoke Pizza

This is what I made for dinner tonight (New Year's Eve). The recipe is again from our nutrition class's "recipe makeover". Here it is:

Ingredients:
Whole Wheat Pizza Crust*
1 packet of yeast
1/4 cup warm water
1 TBS honey
3 3/4 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup cool water
1 TBS olive oil
pinch salt

Sauce**
2 TBS olive oil
1/4 tsp dried oregano
1 clove minced garlic

Toppings
2 chicken breast fillets, grilled & sliced
1/2 cup shredded mozzarella
1/2 cup nonfat ricotta
1 cup rinsed & drained canned artichoke hearts, halved
3 medium plum tomatoes, diced
2 TBS grated Parmesan
pine nuts

1. In a small bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water. Add the honey and let sit for 5 minutes or until foamy.
2. Put the flour in a food processor fitted with a stainless-steel blade. Mix the 1 cup cool water with the olive oil and salt. With the motor running, pour the olive oil mixture and the yeast slowly in through the feed tube. Process until the dough forms a ball that rides around on the blade.
3. Transfer the dough to an oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and let rise until double in bulk. Punch down the dough and knead it on a lightly floured surface for 1 minute. Divide the dough into 4 equal parts and roll into tight balls. Place on tray, cover with damp towel, and let rest for several hours or overnight in the fridge before use.
4. Roll or stretch each ball of dough into a 7-8" circle. Place the circles, on at a rime, on a wooden peel or baking sheet and build the pizza as desired.
5. Preheat oven to 450. Brush the pizza dough with olive oil, garlic, and oregano. Add desired toppings and bake 7-8 minutes per pizza or until cheese is melted and crust is golden brown.

*You can buy your own pre-made crust or use a bread maker to make the crust-making easier! I would highly recommend a pre-made crust, it's less complicated! I used the bread maker way but for some reason it was kinda doughy and I had to cook it almost double the time! It was also kind of dry tasting. We need to perfect it.

**I think this pizza would actually be better with a pesto sauce. I'm gonna try that next time. It needs more flavor, or something different. I'm trying to figure it out. Lemme know if you try it and figure what the "something different" is.

Christmas baking! And more DIY gifts.

I call these "Cheater Truffles" because they were so easy to make! They were a HUGE hit too! I got the recipe from Amy on my cross-country team. Here it is:

1 pkg Oreos (regular or mint)

1 pkg of cream cheese (I used the low-fat kind)

chocolate chips (I used all natural dark chocolate for half of them)

Scrap the filling off each oreo into the blender. Put the remaining cookie part into a zip-loc bag. With a rolling pin crush all the cookies as finely as possible. Blend the filling with the (softened) cream cheese. Now mix the filling/cream cheese with the finely crushed cookies. Roll into 1" balls and chill. Melt chocolate (I did it in the microwave) and dip each ball in chocolate. Chill. Pure yumminess. Jason's dad, Jim, called them "Chocolate Resurrection." That's a huge compliment from him!

This is a chocolate-peanutbutter tofu pie. Ya don't think too much about the tofu part. Don't judge it before you try it. Most people, with the exception of Jim (future FIL) can't taste it! I think it's so yummy! Really rich. The texture is almost like a cheesecake. My roommate Kate made this recipe for our nutrition class "recipe make-over" project. The tofu is to replace a cream-cheese type filling and to make it more nutritional.

Here is the recipe:

Crust*-

1/4 cup butter, melted

10 oz pretzels

2 TBS sugar

Preheat oven to 350. Crush pretzels and sugar in a food processor or blender (or use some elbow grease, a rolling pin, and a ziploc bag) until mixture becomes very fine. With a fork, stir in melted butter until crumbs are moistened. Press into bottom and sides of a 9" pie plate. Bake 8 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool.

*I cheated. I used a store bought graham cracker crust. And the graham cracker crust is not healthy because it adds hydrogenated oils which are bad for you!! Buuuut i was lazy. And when Kate made the pretzel crust (healthy!! and gluten free for those of you who can't eat gluten!)  it didn't hold together very well and I wanted mine to look pretty. If you figure out how to make it hold together better, let me know! Maybe more butter...

Filling-

1 cup creamy peanut butter (I used Adam's organic)

1 cup dark chocolate chips (60% cacao)

12 oz. extra firm light silken tofu

1/3 cup maple syrup

Blend peanut butter, melted chocolate, tofu and maple syrup in a blender/food processor until thoughouly mixed and smooth. Pour into pie plate. Let chill before serving. Don't tell your victims tasters the secret ingredient until after they eat half of their piece.

A canvas painting I made for Heidi. I love quotes! They make great inspiration for gifts too!

Josie the artist hard at work...

The final product! I watched her draw a nativity scene in church, and I was inspired to have her draw it on a canvas as a Christmas present for my parents. She started to paint it with me too but I had to finish as she got tired of it. I think this is such a precious gift!

...if you like it then you better put a ring on it...*

*slightly adapted lyrics from "Single Ladies" by Beyonce

**photography by Kate Gillett. She is awesome!

***My ring is absolutely stunning and sparkly. 

Snapshots of Christmas

Almost everything Josie got for Christmas was something that had to do with Toy Story. She'd been begging my mom for a Buzz and a Rex. When she opened Buzz she exclaimed, "Buzz is the best present ever!" Notice the pajamas and Evil Mr. Pork-Chop as well.

Christmas Eve with the Kellers

Umm... Jason wearing my mom's coat... Ya. Just for laughs!

Traditions.

I love our Christmas traditions! In fact, they are one of the things I enjoy most about Christmas, because they are all centered on Jesus and family! I want to carry them into my future Koemans family!


Tradition #1:
Christmas tree hunting and decorating. As I posted before, we pretty much always go into the woods and cut our own tree. No store parking lot, no tree farm, just the natural woods untouched by commercialism. During this hunting time we usually take sleds and sometimes snacks and hot chocolate. Then, for the decorating part, we have lots of fun, holiday snacks, we play Christmas music, and we try to all decorate as a family! Our tree's "theme" is family. There's no color scheme, nothing orderly. It's special ornaments given to us each year, hand-painted ones by my both of my grandmas, and hand-made ones by us kids. I love it. I'd take our tree, decorated this way, over any perfectly themed and matched tree any day.

Tradition #2:
Ornaments. Every year, sometime between December 1 and December 25, my mom gives each one of us kids an ornament. The purpose is so that when we get move out of the house we can take our own box of ornaments to begin decorating our tree with.


Tradition #3:
Shopping for stockings. Our family plus Jason puts out names in a cup. Everyone draws a name and gets $15. We all go to one store at the same time (this year was Target) and shop for the name we picked. It's all supposed to be secret! This is how our stockings get filled! It's a great and fun way to do it! Heidi had my stocking this year and gave me several pairs of bright/fun socks, purple nail polish, a mug, latte mix, chapstick, and snowflake and snowman gel window clings.


Tradition #4:
Christmas Eve. We go to a Christmas Eve service and then get together with the Kellers to have soup and hang out. Sometimes we watch White Christmas. Once we get back home we open our stockings! Then the kids sleep under the Christmas tree!

Tradition #5:
Christmas morning. We wake up (this year my dad had to wake us up at 9am!!) and eat breakfast, then read the Christmas story, then open presents. Sometimes we even have to do kennels at the clinic!


Tradition #6:
Opening presents. We all take turns, one at a time, from youngest to oldest. And you have to say thank you.


Tradition #7:
No Santa. Period. Unless it's a joke. Santa's not real and I don't believe in lying to my kids.


Tradition #8:
Bless a family. We like to include someone(s) in our Christmas that need some extra blessing in their life. Sometimes that means bringing presents and stockings stuffers and Christmas treats to a family who is bankrupt and who's dad tried to commit suicide. Sometimes that means having an employee of my dad's over. Christmas is also about giving and fellowship. I like to emphasis that.

DIY -- Christmas Gifts

I decided that I love DIY (do-it-yourself) projects and crafts, as well as baking! I'm not crazy crafty, nor can I afford to be, but I like doing what I can and I want to do more of it! I have some great projects for the future that I'm excited to try. I'm really excited to get into baking and cooking more! I'll make sure to post about them all! Here's what I did for Christmas gifts - it works out so well because they're cute but not expensive! I do want to find better and more recipes for the mixes though...

making the Vanilla Chai mix

 spices for the Vanilla Chai mix

 Everyone loves cookies! Even when you don't have time to frost them or bake them from scratch!

Green fabric found in the remnant section for about $1. Score!

Hand-made tags that are simply yet cute and classy.

The finished product tied with a bow -- Vanilla Chai or Cappuccino mix! 

(Plus a little bag of cookies!)

Here are some DIY bloggers that I find inspiration from:

Scrappy Chic

Just Something I Made

Nesting Corral

The Pioneer Woman

What Josie Says.

Here is my conversation with Josie last night:


Josie: "Lauren, do you love Jason?"
Lauren: "Yes Josie I love him very much."
Josie: "Are you gonna marry him? He be the husband you be the wife?"
Lauren: "Yes Josie I'm gonna marry him."
Josie (with much concern and thought in her voice): "Lauren, who am I gonna marry when I grow up?"
Lauren: "Well Josie I don't know, but you have a lot of time to think about it."
(Pause)
Josie (very excited): "Oh Lauren I know I know! I marry Nathan! He be the husband!"


And here is what Josie said tonight, "Lauren, Jason's your best." She's got things figured out!

Christmas Time Is Here

Today we went hunting for our Christmas tree. That is our family tradition, one that I love and plan on carrying into my future Koemans family. We always* go up in the woods somewhere and cut our own tree and do some sledding! It's a blast and lots of fun! Josie is fun to watch as she experiences Christmas and the holiday traditions. Once we get back, we decorate it, although not always on the same day. Here the tradition continues with Christmas music and yummy/special snacks. Each of us kids has our own box of ornaments, because each year my mom gives us a new one! Next year I'll get to take my box for mine and Jason's tree! Josie loved decorating. She would hang all her ornaments on the same couple branches on the back of the tree. Then Nathan would distract her while I'd go and move them to more spread-out locations.

*last year we didn't get a tree because my family didn't want to get one without me, and by the time I was home it was after Christmas so we felt silly getting one!

Roommate Adventure

My roommate Kate and I always try to go on adventures, when we're not too busy that is. Lately though, we've been making adventures a priority. You see, Kate is going to Germany for 2nd semester and I'm gonna be all alone! So we've been trying to do lots of fun things together lately!

Today after my final we went to Mt Hood Skibowl to ski! They have night skiing and on Tuesdays it's only $15 for women! It was a blast! Getting there was a bit tricky because the road was pretty snowy and I couldn't get traction and would slide sometimes, but we made it! The skiing was great! There was lots of powder and it snowed almost the whole time! We skied from about 3:40-7, with a 30 min break to eat dinner in there too. I'm so glad we went, even though it means we're both cramming to study for our finals tomorrow! On the way down the mountain, we decided to put my chains on. They were a bit tricky, and I got the right one on after a struggle and then a guy helped us with the left one. Well guess what? The left one fell off!! Guess girls are better at putting on chains. Also - you'll never believe this. Some guy tricked us into giving him our lift-tickets as we left so that he could go ski with them for free!!!!! I didn't even realize why he wanted them until it was too late. Dumb. Oh well.

Tomorrow night we have one final adventure planned as roommates =( Hopefully I remember to take pictures!

This picture is of us from our dorm Christmas party. So cute.

My Heart Is Flipping.

I have an absolutely wonderful future husband! We had such a special talk tonight. He is so good at loving me!

Deep Breath.

Finals. Are a lot of work. A lot of stress. A lot of coffee. Not a lot of sleep.


But I'll be home soon. And one semester closer to taking a break from school and enjoying my new role as a wife!

Something to think about...

"You are what you think you are." 

Choose your attitude by changing your self-talk.

Love Like Crazy

They called him crazy when they started out
Said seventeen's too young to know what loves about
They've been together fifty-eight years now
That’s crazy

Be your best friend, tell the truth, and overuse I love you
Go to work, do your best, don't outsmart your common sense
Never let your prayin' knees get lazy
And love like crazy

He'll tell you faith and sweat
And the heart of a faithful woman,
Who never let him forget

Always treat your woman like a lady
Never get too old to call her baby
Never let your prayin knees get lazy
And love like crazy

They called him crazy when they started out

They've been together fifty-eight years now

Ain't that crazy?