The best pizza I've ever had....

A few weeks ago, Zack and I went over to our friends Jaclyn and Kevin's house for a pizza and game night

The night was a very casual affair. Jaclyn provided the pizza dough (amazing) and pizza sauce, and then everyone that came brought several toppings and a bag of cheese. Jaclyn rolled out the fresh dough and cooked the crusts. Then, everyone got to make their very own personal pan pizza. As we sat there in their kitchen consuming this pizza, we all started to comment on how good it was. I tried to think back on when I had had a better slice of pizza. I have eaten famous Chicago and New York style pizza. I have had many chain pizza restaurant pizza's, but I have to say, I think that this was the best pizza that I have ever had the joy to place in my mouth! You haven't had pizza until you've had Morang Pizza.




Jaclyn and Kevin were gracious enough to share some of their family secrets with us.

So, a few days ago, I attempted the impossible, I tried to recreate the pizza that we had that night. I think that there are a few KEY areas that I need to work on. 1 the dough, I just threw all of the ingredients together and turned the mixer on. I was a little scared because as I have mentioned before, I have a fear of yeast doughs...we are slowly working through that. Anyway, the dough turned out ok, but didn't rise as much as expected. The second time that I made the dough, I dissolved the yeast in the warm water first and it worked much better. 2 I do not have one of those fancy pizza paddles or whatever they are called that Jaclyn and Kevin had to transfer pizza to oven...so, i improvised. I used the back of a wooden cutting board...it was a little bit bulky, but it got the job done. Maybe Santa or the Birthday Fairy will bring me a pizza paddle.

My Pizza
Zack's Pizza

I am really looking forward to being able to have the option of making homemade pizza from now on....Zack is living in pizza heaven. He loves pizza and now he can put his own toppings on a pizza...the only problem is that it takes him about 20 minutes to place his toppings perfectly on his pizza crust...so, I tend to finish, bake and eat my pizza before he is done...if I waited for him to complete his topping placement process my pizza would have already grown mold on it from waiting so long! So, while we don't get to eat our pizza together, he gets to enjoy his very own special pizza when it is all through.

Sewing projects

One of the ladies that I went to Belize with opened her own boutique. She asked me if I would like to sell some of my sewing in her store. Of course I was flattered and thought that that would be an awesome opportunity. However, when I thought about it more, I wasn't sure that I could produce the kind of volume that she might want. So, I talked to her a few weeks later. When she told me that I could just give her whatever I wanted whenever I could, I started making some Christmas children's apron's for her to sell in her store. They are reversible half aprons. I haven't gotten to make as many as I would have liked, but between working in a pediatric office during flu season, being sick myself, holidays, and having jury duty, I just haven't had a lot of time to sew.

Taco Soup at the puddle.

Between being sick and being out of town, I haven't been doing very much cooking. Poor Zack has been having to fend for himself alot. So, last week, I decided that I would come home from work and make dinner for Zack. One of my coworkers had given me a recipe for Taco soup that I had stumbled across earlier in the week. I hadn't really looked at it very closely and I had left the recipe at home. So, when I went to the grocery store, I had to try to guess the ingredients...ummmm....missed the boat a little, but I improvised and I think that the finished product was pretty tasty.

catching up....(long post)

Well, things have definitely been busy here at the puddle. I knew that I had not posted anything in a while, but I didn't realize that it had been a whole month. Where does the time go?!

Zack and I have been staying really busy...and I have been sick off and on a couple of times during the last month or so, a hazard of working with kids.

As I look back at the last month, I am a little daunted by all of the things that I have to fill you in on.

Back in November, Zack and his brother Matt participated in a "hat" tournament down in Atlanta. Basically what this means is that people could sign up for the tournament in groups of 2 or as a single. Each player ranked themselves and then the tournament coordinators put together teams that were supposed to have fairly similar skill levels. Zack was REALLY excited going into the tournament because he and Matt were teamed up with some guys from Roma, Zack's teammates. I missed most of the tournament, because I had to work in the morning and wasn't able to make it there until around 2. Zack's team ended up being a little less experienced than it had at first appeared. They had a lot of fun, but they didn't win a single game all day. I think that they had a lot of fun even though they didn't have a winning record.











That same weekend, since we were all already in Atlanta, Zack's family all got together and had Thanksgiving Dinner. Every other year we switch off whose family we spend what holiday with and this year Rach and Ben and Zack and I were not going to be with Zack's family at Thanksgiving. Zack had suggested to his mom that we get together and have an early Thanksgiving and that is what we did. We ate WAY too much, laughed alot, and enjoyed getting spend time with family.










Near the beginning of the month, our friends Caren and Forrest had their little boy. He is absolutely perfect! One of the many great things about our small group is that each family brings a meal to which ever of our friends that has had a baby. So, Zack and I were signed up to bring Caren, Forrest and family dinner the Thursday before Thanksgiving. I had been looking through recipes trying to decide what to make. I wanted something that would be different than what they had been getting, but that would still be kid friendly. I found a few recipes from the Pioneer woman in a cookbook that I had at home. I tried out one of the recipes for dinner for Zack and I the week before along with another new recipe for marinated pork medallions and spectacular pumpkin pie. Zack and I gave those recipes a thumbs up.

I was planning to make a braised beef brisket for the main dish. I had never looked for a beef brisket before, but here in BBQ country it shouldn't be hard to find right? WRONG!! I went to 4 different grocery stores before I found an 11 pound beef brisket. I really only needed a 7-9 pound brisket, but this was better than nothing. Once I found my meat, I had to marinate it for 24 hours. Thursday am, I started my cooking. I ended up making potato soup, braised beef brisket, twice baked potatoes, 4 cheese mac n cheese, salad, and apple pie. It was an interesting fete trying to do all of that in my 1 oven. My mac n cheese ended up getting a little over done I think. We took our meal to Forrest and Caren's house and had dinner with them. They said that they really liked everything...hopefully they did enjoy it and they were not just being polite.



Zack and I headed to my parents house for Thanksgiving this year. We ended up having my cousin and his wife and little girl over to celebrate Thanksgiving with us. We had a great meal that my mother prepared. I got distracted and forgot to take very many pictures. I did get a picture of my cousins incredible french silk pie though!!

I got my dad and brother hooked on the TV show Psych while I was home. Psych is one of my new favorite shows. I find it funny and well written with likable characters. We did play Quelf with my family, which, as always is a lot of fun. And, then, on Saturday, we headed out to my parents property to go hiking. We had a great time getting to spend time with family.








A few weekends ago, Zack and I attended a dear family friend's wedding. It was good to see Lisa so happy and healthy.