Secret Pizza Seasoning Topping

About a year ago we bought a pizza seasoning to go on top of our pizzas. It was called, "Pizza Seasoning", imagine that! I didn't really know what was in it. But we ran out recently. So I decided to experiment on my own.

Besides the blurry picture, it looks yummy doesn't it?

Well, here is what we used.

3 Tbsp of oregano

2 tsp. basil

1 tsp. garlic powder 

1/2 tsp. salt

 1/4 tsp. chili flakes (use as much or as little as you like of this)

Mix it all together

Top your pizza before baking.

Our kids said it was the best one of the batch! And yes, that is an upside-down casserole pan! Some times you just have to improvise!

Fast Food?

One hard thing to get used to here in Nepal is that there is no such thing as fast food. Every thing is cooked from scratch here. I love learning new things and cooking new food, but some times you just want something easy!

We recently bought a deep freezer to help with this problem. So I have been doing my best to fill it up with quick things--still made from scratch, but will be quick to make when they are needed.

Project #1

Frozen Pizza

This turned out super easy. We don't eat pizza a lot because cheese is expensive and we bring our pepperoni from America, but I figured if I'm making some for dinner I should double the recipe and make some to freeze.

Still haven't succeeded in teaching him to "not" eat like a dog, but at least he enjoyed it!

First thing's first

1. Find a cute helper, even is she does sneak pepperoni when you aren't looking.

2. Make your dough.

This is the recipe I used and it is by far my favorite so far for homemade pizza. I doubled the recipe for this.

Pizza Crust

5 cups of flour

2 Tbsp. sugar

1 Tbsp. salt

1 Tbsp. Yeast

2 Tbsp. Olive Oil ( I only have sunflower oil)

1 3/4 c. water

Knead this all together. The dough will be sticky, but you also don't want it to stick to your hands or the counter, so keep adding flour as needed. I only added 9 cups (remember I doubled), just to make sure I didn't have too much flour, but then ended up using almost 12 cups of flour.

Let it rise in a warm place for 2 hours. Divide into 2 balls if you didn't double the recipe, divide into 4 balls if you did. Let them rest for about 15 minutes.

Roll out dough to the size of your pizza pan or cookie sheet (pizza doesn't really have to be round to taste good.) Now remember, you will be freezing some of these so don't use a pizza pan that's bigger than your freezer!

Bake your crust for about 5 minutes at 425 degrees. Just till the outside is starting to get hard, but not turning any color.

Once it cools completely, top it with your favorite toppings.

Place your pizzas on the pan (or cardboard cut to the right size ) in your freezer for about 3 hours. Once they harden then you will wrap them in Saran wrap and tin foil.

Now it's ready to freeze until you need it in a hurry.

I did this last week, and we ate some for dinner. Everyone loved it.

Even Emily wanted a piece!

So it has been frozen for almost a week now. Today our plans changed and last minute I didn't have anything ready for lunch so we pulled out a pizza. 

I heated the oven to 425 degrees and baked the pizza straight from the freezer without thawing. In 15 minutes it had a beautiful color and was nice and crispy!

We even had some visitors join us!

Nepali Cooking 101

I am learning to cook some Nepali food that we eat every day! Each day we have dhal bhat, which is rice and lentils and then a vegetable on the side. Here is the recipe for the vegetable for today. I have a pressure cooker to make mine with. If you use canned beans and cook your potatoes so they are soft ahead of time you could do the same recipe without a pressure cooker in about the same time.

This recipe comes from Sita!

Ingredients you will need

1 cup of kidney beans soaked over night or can of kidney beans (drained and rinsed)

5 small/medium potatoes peeled

5 cloves of garlic--peeled

1 small/medium red onion peeled

1 small piece of ginger about the size of a large garlic clove--peeled

2 small tomatoes

2 Tablespoons Salt

1 Tablespoon turmeric

1.5 Tablespoon cumin

chili pepper--add how much of this as you like. We put in a small pinch

Everglades seasoning (optional--or your favorite mixed seasoning)

oil (here we use sunflower oil)

Chop the garlic and ginger together and chop your onions up.

Heat up your oil about 1/8 cup of oil. Get it nice and hot.

Throw in the onions. When they start to brown slightly throw in the ginger garlic mix.

Let them sizzle for about 2 minutes.

 

Add the beans you soaked over night. Stir

Chop your potatoes to this size, while the beans are cooking.

Add seasonings--turmeric, cumin, and chili pepper

Add potatoes and salt and all purpose seasoning.

Add 2 small tomatoes, mine were just slightly bigger than cherry tomatoes.

Add about 1.5 cups of water, and stir.

Put the lid on and cook for one whistle if using the pressure cooker. Turn the heat off and let it sit until all the pressure is released.

If using canned beans and a regular pot, I would boil your potatoes just until they start to get soft then add them in and cook this mixture for about 5-10 minutes.  You could also just cut your potatoes smaller and cook them in this mixture until the potatoes are soft. 

I would also only add 1 cup of water.

We have quite a bit leftover after lunch so I am going to make it in to a soup by adding water and then serving it over rice for dinner. I may also add some chicken to it. It is so delicious!!

Homemade Sour Cream

Homemade Sour Cream

I've made sour cream before but I didn't really like it. It came out like thick milk and just didn't taste like anything but sour milk. So I researched it a little more and found out it is super simple, it just takes a little planning ahead.

Things you'll need:

Glass jar with  lid

vinegar

cream 

(you can use half and half, light or whipping)

The measurements do not have to be precise it's that easy.

I used about 1 cup of cream and added it to that jar. Then I added about 1/4 cup of vinegar. I put the lid on and shook it real well and let it sit on the counter for about 24 hours. Then I stuck it in the refrigerator. I didn't need it for about 3 days, but you could use it immediately  after the 24 hours if you wanted, but if you aren't going to cook with it, it just tastes better cold.

This is what it looks like about a week later! Light, fluffy, and yummy.

We used it to put on taco salad and tonight I'm going to make beef stroganoff with it. We really really like it! This is definitely worth trying.

Back in the Saddle Again!

 

We left the States once again and are back in Nepal. We arrived here a little over 3 weeks ago. I was quite nervous coming back, not sure what it was going to be like or how the kids were going to react. But surprisingly everything seem relatively normal. You can still see cracks in some buildings here and there, and downed walls, and people living in tents, but overall things are back to normal.

 

This week we put together our earthquake kit. After going through an earthquake and actually using our kit last time I realized some weak areas we had with it.

 

 

This is our revised list.

 

 

 

We decided to make 2 kits. One is a big kit and the other is called a "go bag". This is a small, backpack sized, grab it and go kind of bag. After the house had finished shaking I grabbed Emily, a blanket, my shoes and ran outside. We were there for several hours before we felt it was safe to move. I didn't have any food, water, or diapers during this time. So this "go bag" is to grab right before we run out the door next time. This will be just enough to tide us over until it is safe to return home for our other things.

 

 

In this bag we have

5 diapers

pack of baby wipes

pack of antibacterial wipes

change of clothes for Emily

baby blanket

2 liters of water

3 packs of cookies

5 packs of WaiWai

(this is like Ramen noodle soup, but you can eat it raw or cooked)

Bandaids

Tylenol

Hand sanitizer

Copies of all of our passports

Headlamp / batteries

Immodium

(found out the hard way last time that earthquakes don't come when everyone is well)

 

We are almost finished with our Large Kit

 

 

In our Earthquake Kit
2 large tarps

2 smaller tarps
(Last earthquake I had saved myself $2 and only bought one small tarp. But that doesn't help if you need to build a water proof shelter to hold several people plus things.)

Rope

clothes pins

Change of clothes for everyone, including a jacket

(Last time I made this I put summer clothes in it for summer time and then put winter clothes in it at winter time, but we found out that it's rather cold at night all year round.)

2 large blankets
(Last time we only had 1 big blanket, but you need something under you and over you.)
2 sheets

2 small blankets

5 toothbrushes

toothpaste

(Last time I remembered toothpaste, but didn't put in toothbrushes!)

Immodium
(Again, stomach bugs don't always come at convenient times)

Ibuprofen (adult's and children's)

guaze strips and tape

bandaids

Neosporin

instant cold pack

rubber gloves

Sanitary napkins

baby wipes

diapers

flashlight / batteries

swiss army knife

pot

pressure cooker

matches

cutting board

knife

spices (salt, turmeric, mixed seasoning, cumin)

rice

dhal (lentils)

chickpeas (dried)

small jar of oil

sugar

tea leaves

cookies

crackers

WaiWai

water purification tablets

plates

silverware

cups

5 gallon jug of water

A pair of contacts/ solution/ glasses for me

dish soap

sponge

2 garbage bags

dish cloth

Copies of our passports

 

I think this is all that we will need. We had a lot of useless things in our kit last time that we didn't need at all, and several things we really needed. With that info we have made this new kit. If you think of something we would definitely need please feel free to share.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kathmandu Earthquake update 6--just realized I didn't publish this before. Sorry to leave you hanging.

After 3 days of sleeping on the ground I was plum wore out, but going on. The tremors died down some. We decided to take our "base camp" and move it to my house. We were still nervous about the house itself, more earthquakes and tremors, but really tired of where we were living.

The night before 2 doctors came to our tent and told us to be super careful going out and that the risk for catching Swine flu was up to 80% in the area. We knew that our place with the bamboo was only getting worse and worse as far as cleanliness goes.

We moved all of our stuff to our house and began to look at our house again. I don't have pictures of the cracks in the wall but they were very unnerving to everyone and we decided we couldn't stay there. We considered a new place but it had just as many cracks. I mentioned going back to the bamboo place and found out that something else "shady" happened. Some of those same men from before were trying to get one of our girls (about 20 years old) to come over to them and talk to them--calling to her just like our kids were doing when they were playing together.

We didn't know what to do. One of the men found a place nearby that looked great but we only had two small tarps in my earthquake kit and it was going to rain. I looked all over the yard and tried to remember everything I could for making a water proof shelter but it just wasn't going to work with what we had.

I went upstairs and packed our suitcase for America and knew I needed to restock and reorganize our things for wherever we decided to go next.  I was very nervous being in our house and was working feverishly cleaning out the fridge so it wouldn't be horrible for Luke and also cleaning up the flour and sugar that was all over the ground from when the containers fell to the ground during the quake. I did a little cleaning and then saw two of our girls washing their hair outside and I realized how I longed for a shower, to be clean, and most of all to have clean hair.

So another first for me was washing my hair outside. You need to people so you don't get soak and wet. I bent over forwards and the other girls washed it for me. It was great and felt so good.

About that time Luke showed up with another family from our area. They came in and the husband looked at our walls and told us the house looked sound, but the walls downstairs and maybe upstairs would have to be replaced, but that it looked safe to him to be in there. Praise the Lord!! They then told us their house was great and invited us to stay with them. They had running water, electric, and internet! I was so glad!

We headed out and I have to say I have never been so happy to have a hot shower and sleep in a bed in all my life!

Our church people stayed at our house. It has now become a "new base camp". There are several others staying there as well including the house owners that live upstairs. They asked if it would be okay. They really wanted to leave their outside shelter but were to scared to sleep on the top floor. I don't blame them at all. We are praying for their family that they will be saved. They are Hyolmo Tibetan people. They are super sweet and love us to death.

Helping People

I talked to Luke yesterday. I actually got to Skype him for about a half hour. He is really exhausted. He's been working from sun up to 10 or 11 at night. Please pray for him that he will get the rest he needs so he can do the work he needs to do.

Here is Luke with two little boys and Flat Stanley (from a 1st grade class in America). He bought them some new shoes, some candy, and a face mask. Pray for Kushal and Vishal. They are staying at our house right now with their mom and the others from our church and 2 other friends.

 These 2 men are from a Hyolmo Tibetan remote village. There are only 4 houses left in their village. Luke was able to give them some tarps to bring back to the village. One of these men lost their wife just a few days ago. Please pray for them and their village. Before leaving Luke was able to give them a Tibetan gospel tract.

 

Here are a few of the people staying at our house headquarters right now. Please pray for them as the days are long and piling up.