Time to Eat: Pizza English Muffins

I'm certainly not the greatest cook. In fact, I rather dislike cooking most of the time.  I'm not even a huge fan of baking.  But something about the fall weather brings out the Martha Stewart in me.  Haha!  Every year, around this time, I get in the cooking/baking mood.  My husband puts the grill away for the season, and I start digging through all my recipe books looking for long lost recipes.  I think something about being indoors more, watching the trees change color, the cooler days and nights, gives me that desire to nest a bit.  I crave the hearty soups, warm biscuits, and yummy tastes of fall.   As Christmas nears, that brings a whole new avenue of cooking/baking.

Even though, I certainly enjoy being in my kitchen more at this time of year, I still have a very defined style of cooking.  I steer away from recipes that have more than 6 or 7 ingredients.  If I can't pronounce the name of  a food, I quickly turn the page.  I like quick, simple, uncomplicated cooking for the most part.  

Now, I hear that MaryBeth and her husband are quite the adventurous cooks!  And that they are pretty good at it too.  So I hope she'll be sharing some of her tasty recipes here too.  From me, you'll see my favorite "stand by meals", and lots of kid friendly meals too.  Which brings us too....

I have a picky eater.  My  2 1/2  year old,  would eat peanut butter and jelly everyday, for every meal if I let him.  I am searching for something healthy, but good enough for Cameron's standards, errr...taste buds.  I have invested in quite a few children's recipe books.  Today, my Pizza English Muffins (aka. Mini Pizzas) is a combination from my friend Karrie and Taste of Home's Cooking for Kids

Photo credit

The ingredients for this recipe are :

Whole Wheat English Muffins.  My friend Karrie uses biscuit dough from a can (ie. Pillsbury) I didn't have any on hand the day I made this so we went with English muffins.

Pizza sauce of your choice

Mozzarella cheese

Pizza toppings of your choice

Open up the English muffins and lay them open side up on a baking sheet.

If you are using the dough biscuits, lay them on the baking sheet and press them flat with the palm of your hand.

Then using a spoon, spread the sauce over the pizza.

Next is Cameron's favorite part to help with.  Putting the cheese on top.  This is such an easy way for kids to help with cooking and get involved in the kitchen.  Cameron loves to be in the kitchen stirring, or dumping or whatever else you can do to help!  And I believe that, picky eaters especially, are more willing to eat what they helped make.

Aunt Stacy joined us for lunch today too.  You are welcome to add whatever you want to the top off the pizzas at this point.  Cameron likes his plain, but I added pepperoni to Stacy's and I's.  Then pop them in the oven for about 15-20 minutes.  

Cameron loved his!

And so did Elissa!

If you try out this recipe,  let us know how it turned out and if your kids enjoyed it!

~Laura

Wowza! My New Sewing Space!

Hugs and kisses to my husband for creating this space for me!

Isn't it beautiful!!!!  Well, it would look even better if it wasn't in my basement, and I had a sunny, well lit, spare bedroom on the main floor in my house (a girl can dream right).  Truly though, I feel so grateful for this space that I do have.  

I'm love love loving my cutting table!  This is my very favorite feature!  We used two ClosetMaid shelves and my husband put a wood top on it for a work surface.  This first side is where I keep partially finished orders, getting ready to ship, and all my shipping supplies.  I even have left-over space to fill up!  I love the chocolate brown, aqua and pink totes.  It's like my little girly space!

The work surface/cutting table is so handy.  I am beyond thankful for this feature.  Previously I was spending an hour or so, crouched on my cold cement floor, cutting patterns each night.  (Can I get a sympathy "awwww").  I can now easily lay out all my fabric and quickly cut, pin, and package items for shipping.  My cutting mat fits perfectly on here.  And I stained the wood a pretty pink!  Love it!!!

This is the sewing table my husband built for me.  We used a skinny door and table legs.  Again we stained them in a be-a-u-tiful shade of pink!  I would suggest NOT using a hollow door for any one that wants to make something similar.  It gets a little bouncy when I'm sewing.  But I love how it is long and skinny.  There's plenty of room for both of my machines.  Before, I had a small desk, that was too deep, and I was having trouble reaching my foot pedals.  I also didn't have enough room to have both machines out.  I had to slide whichever machine I need to use at the moment to the front, leaving only a few inches to work with the fabric. Yikes!

There's enough space over here, to have my iron in the area too.  No more jogging across the basement, back and forth from my machine to the iron.

I also bought a shelf to help store all of my fabric!  I used this tutorial from Ucreate to make mini bolts to wrap my fabric.  It works fabulously!  I love how neat and organized it is....well, almost.  I have a few more bolts to wrap looks like.

This is the other shelf on the cutting table.  I keep current projects, patterns, elastic, velcro, thread and any other frequently used sewing necessities on this side, so they are easy to reach.  I feel extremely blessed to have found a carpet remnant to help "warm" the space.  It really just ties it all together.

I feel so much more efficient and productive my new sewing space.  It's such a pleasure to be down there sewing and crafting.  I can feel the inspiration coming to me as I work in it.

Thanks again to my husband for all his hard work in creating this space for me!

~Laura

Fall Fun Adventures

This past Saturday, we went to the farm!  One of my new favorite new traditions as a family.  Our first farm visit was Cameron's first fall in '08.   It was warm and windy, and Cameron was clearly terrified of the pumpkins.  Hmmm....must have been the strange texture and bright orange color.

I love that sweater he is wearing, by the way.  I wish he could still fit in it!

Cameron's first year in the pumpkin patch.

The following year our friends joined us in the fun.   I looked like I had a pumpkin in my belly, because I was weeks away from giving birth to Elissa.  It was definitely freezing cold last year.  We were bundled up tight in our winter coats and hats. Brrrrr.  Cameron was definitely more OK with the pumpkins this time.

Cameron's 2nd year in the pumpkin patch

  This year, we tried a new farm and had a wonderful time.  Our friends joined us again, as is our new tradition.  It was extremely warm, which made it feel not very "fallish".  We still had a blast choosing our pumpkins, petting the animals, playing on the playground and walking through  the apple orchard.  Elissa' seemed  intrigued by the pumpkins, even thought her face doesn't show it here in this photo.

Elissa's first year in the pumpkin patch

And Cameron thoroughly enjoyed picking out the pumpkins to adorn our front porch and later to be carved.

Cameron's Third year in the pumpkin patch

 I made the kids matching appliquéd pumpkins shirts.  This was one of my first attempts at really truly appliquéing.  I definitely learned from some of my mistakes....like the importance of using a tearaway stabilizer in the back, and be patient and wait until you can get to the store to buy orange thread.  All in all, it was a fun new project for me, and I see many more appliquéing projects in my

future....maybe even a few to be listed in the shop!

The Petting Farm

We ended the day, purchasing some delicious apple cider and donuts and headed to our friends house for a fun dinner and conversation together.

Having fun playing, at Lewis Farms

 I love the memories that were making with the kids on days like this.  And I'm looking forward to lots more this fall season as well; carving our pumpkins, making fall treats, Trick-or-Treating, and Thanksgiving.  What special things/traditions do you do or make with your family this time of year?

~Laura