Mateo - Eleven Months

Mateo at 11 months is busy! Joe and I are getting a lot of exercise these days!

I LOVE FOOD!!!

"Hey mom! Look what I can do!"

He's a gymnast!

And this was the last night with the crib bumper...

Bubble Up Pizza

About a month or so ago my sister and mom introduced me to Pintrest. It's a neat site and is growing pretty fast so their platform is a bit slow (and annoying at times) but its great to find recipes or other decorating ideas.

Anyway, I've become horribly addicted and have found some great recipes. Here is the original recipe but I've changed it a bit. The main thing, instead of baking in a 9x13 and using two cans of biscuits, I'd use one can and bake in an 8x8 or something similar because the middle didn't get done and was still a bit doughy, yet the outside was completely done.

If you want to make a double batch, I would bake in two 8x8 dishes, rather than one 9x13 pan to ensure the middle cooks and the edges don't burn.

Ingredients (for an 8x8 dish)
1 can refrigerated biscuits
1 jar pizza sauce (15 oz) - I used 2 jars as Joe likes sauce
Mozzarella or pizza blend cheese
1/2 ground beef/italian sausage
diced pepperoni
sliced mushrooms

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375
2. Cook meat until no longer pink.
3. Slice "toppings" (mushrooms, peppers, onions - whatever you choose)
4. Cut uncooked biscuits into quarters (or smaller)
5. Combine biscuits and pizza sauce in bowl. Add meat, half of cheese and rest of toppings.
6. Transfer to 8x8 greased pan
7. Top with remaining cheese
8. Bake at 375 for  25-30 minutes or until biscuits are done

I really, really liked this recipe. I started thinking and you could totally do a taco version which I'm going to try next time.

PS - If you want an invite to pintrest, let me know and I'll send you an invite.

Lemon and Goat Cheese Pasta with Asparagus

I love pasta, always have and pretty sure I always will. I also have grown to love goat cheese so when I came across this recipe, I had to try it and of course had to muck with it.

Ingredients
1 box pasta
1 bunch thin asparagus
1/4 cup olive oil
1 lemon for grating
2 tsp fresh chopped tarragon
4 oz log of goat cheese
1 package chicken sausage (found where the hotdogs are. we used apple champagne!!)
Salt and pepper to taste
Lemon juice (optional - I didn't need it)

Directions

1. Chop asparagus into 1 inch pieces
2. Grate 1 lemon
3. Cut up chicken sausage and saute in pan until heated through and browned
4. Cook pasta according to directions. With 3 minutes left to cook, add the aspargus to the pasta.
5. Cook 3 more minutes
6. Drain pasta/asparagus and reserve 1 cup pasta water
7. In a large bowl, combine olive oil, lemon peel, tarragon and crumble in the goat cheese
8. Stir together and add pasta/asparagus and chicken sausage with some splashes of the pasta water
9. Stir until goat cheese is melted. Add salt/pepper to taster. If needed, add more water/lemon juice (I didn't add more lemon juice).

As we were eating this, I started thinking what else I could have added - roasted red peppers and mushrooms were the first to come to mind. Joe would have used two packages of the chicken sausage. Experiment - let me know how it turns out.

Blueberry Lemon Scones

Every morning as I drink my coffee at work I'm wishing for a muffin or something but am too cheap to stop and buy something. I came across this recipe and thought - what the heck, I'll give it a try. Since I've never made scones before, I stuck super close to the recipe except for the rolling out on the counter part. My dough was so incredibly sticky that I just scooped the dough out of the bowl and patted out on the baking sheet. I was a little nervous on how they'd turn out but they were delicious.

Ingredients
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
3 tbsp sugar

1 tbsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 cup (1/4 lb) butter, cut into pieces
1 grated zest of a lemon
3/4 cup buttermilk
1 large egg

1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries (if using frozen, don't thaw them)

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 400F.
2. In a large bowl, blend flour, sugar, baking powder and salt.
3. Add the butter and lemon zest and blend until the mixture is crumbly
4. In a small bowl, whisk together the buttermilk and egg.
5. Add to the flour mixture and stir a few strokes; add the blueberries and stir just until combined.

At this point it says to pat out the dough but I have no idea how they did that since mine was so incredibly sticky. Instead, I greased the largest baking sheet I had and used a spoon to scoop out the dough which I patted into a circle.

I baked about til the tops were golden - I forgot to set a timer so I seriously have no idea how long. Maybe 20 or 30 minutes?

Anyway, they were actually really, really good and I'm looking forward to eating one with my morning coffee.

  

Homemade Pizza

Growing up we used to make homemade pizza all the time using the pizza crusts that came in a tube. I loved them and still love pizza but have always thought making any sort of dough was too hard. Kneading? How do you do that properly? How do you know when the dough is done rising?

A friend told me she uses this recipe from the Smitten Kitchen. I actually found a similar recipe from Penzy's with the only switch being beer instead of white wine. I've made quite a few pizzas now and it is so good - this will definitely be a staple during the fall/winter months when I don't mind the oven heating up my house.

The measurements below will give you one large pizza or two mediums depending on how thick/thin you roll it out. You can freeze half the dough and use at another time.

Ingredients for dough
3/4 cup warm water
1/4 cup white wine (I used white cooking wine)
1 packet active dry yeast
1 tsp honey
2 tsp salt
2 tbsp olive oil
3 cups flour

Directions for dough

1. Whisk wine, water and yeast in a bowl until yeast has dissolved.
2. Add honey, salt and olive oil and stir.
3. Add flour and work it with your fingers until it comes together. I've had to add one or two more tablespoons of water to the dough so it isn't dry
4. Sprinkle some flour on the counter and knead the dough for a minute or two.
5. Quickly wipe out the bowl you mixed the flour in. Coat the inside with olive oil. Put the dough back in and cover with plastic wrap
6. Let rise for up to two hours or until it's doubled. To tell if dough is risen: Stick two floured fingers in the dough. If the indents stayed, it's done.
7. Once the dough has risen, gently deflate dough on a floured counter
8. Roll it into a ball and sprinkle the top with flour and cover with plastic wrap again.
9. After 15 minutes, dough is ready to roll out or to refridgerate/freeze.

If you're going to roll out and cook, preheat the oven to the highest temp (I'm a whimp and am afraid to go past 475) and if using a baking stone, make sure that is heating in the oven.

Roll out the dough to your desired size/thickness. Sprinkle down flour/cornmeal before you roll out. Transfer to heated baking stone. Top with sauce and toppings. Bake at 475 (in my case) until crust is done and cheese is melted.

As for toppings, I've used roasted red peppers, artichokes, mushrooms, goat cheese, mozzarella cheese, pizza sauce, italian sausage, etc.

The Great Minnesota Get Together

Every year I so look forward to the Minnesota State Fair! I love, love, love it! This year we begged Nana, Papa, Amy and Luke to come up for the weekend so we could all go together. You know, six adults to one baby would surely be way easier than two adults to one baby.

Joe and I learned just how truely blessed we are and what a mild-mannered, laid back kiddo we have. We walked through the gates of the fair at 7:30 a.m. and walked back out around 1:30 p.m. Mateo was an absolute angel. We saw the animals, the bizzare, ate and even ran into someone we knew. The weather was great and it wasn't super crowded.

The trash sculpture. Every year an artist creates a

sculpture from the trash found in the Mississippi

A huge thanks to Nana, Papa, Amy and Luke for fighting with each other over who would push Mateo in the stroller.

Actually, Joe had such a good time at the fair that he actually took Mateo back last Saturday by himself. Yes - a boy's outing. Every year Joe's friends and their sons spend a Saturday at the fair and Joe decided he was going to take Taye and go along. Joe and Mateo left at 6:50 a.m. and didn't get home until about 2:30 p.m.

Again, Mateo was an angel and had a great time hanging out with the boys. He even had his first glass of milk thanks to Uncle Travis not paying attention. Travis set his cup down on Mateo's tray and all of a sudden noticed that Mateo had the cup and was drinking from it, as well as milk all down his face/shirt. Evidently the "uncles" are out of practice not realizing just what a 10 month old can get their hands on.

And one more thing. Joe and Travis have a thing for hot food. Their motto - the hotter the better. Well, here's a nice little video of Joe and Travis conquering the Ghost Wing challenge. Evidently ghost peppers are supposed to be one of the hottest peppers in the world.

Weekends

I need to get better at updating this thing on a regular basis. So, we've had an few exciting weekends so here's a quick recap.

Family Values Camping Trip
No, Taye and I did not go camping as "camping" to me is a Super 8 (no offense). However, we did drive the 30 min drive to hang out with everyone for the day one Saturday.

Every year Joe and his buddies and their families camp the first weekend in August. Taye had a great time hanging out with everyone and taking in the great outdoors. We watched some badmitten, camping golf, and climbed all over Stella - the poor dog put up with Mateo like a champ. Mateo's schedule went out the window and he had two maybe 30 minute naps and was a champ the whole day.

A curly mohawk thanks to the heat/humidity!!!

Como Zoo
I love the zoo but am spoiled by Milwaukee's. I cannot stand the MN Zoo, although it's been a while since I've been there so I should give it a chance but I digress. Anyway, Como Zoo in St Paul is a "free" zoo (they ask for a small donation) and its just a nice cozy place.

We thought Mateo would love it but he was way more interested in all of the people and little kids than the animals...oh well, maybe next year he'll get excited to see the tigers and bears.

Mateo - Ten months

Mateo and his trusty blue hammer

Somebody caved and may have given him a

bite of cake - hence the cheeseball smile

I feel like I say this every time but wow is Mateo busy!! I think I mentioned in the last post if Mateo can see it, he can grab it (or tries) and he gets closer each time he tries. He's figured out if he stands on his tip toes, it gives him just a smidge more length to grab something. If he goes around to the other side of the coffee table, he can grab dad's computer. If he uses his push toy as a step stool, he can reach mom's soda. Oh yes, the fun is never ending around here.

Mateo is eating pretty much everything except for the "bad before one foods" (milk, honey, eggs, peanuts). Anything and everything else is fair game and he loves to eat. Mateo is learning to walk and does about 5 or 6 steps before he lowers himself to his tush and then finishes his journey by crawling to where he needs to go.

Being more mobile has led to some bumps and Mateo's first black eye. Yep, a black eye at ten months old. Taye put up a good fight but the bathtub was just too strong. I've also been assured that this is only the first of many yet to come. He's also quite the daredevil. He has a rocking/scooter toy that he gets on and rocks and then will actually stand on the seat. Yeah, Nana and Aunite Amy got to witness this on skype the other day. Oh yeah, he also likes to try to crawl on the top of the exersaucer and grab what we wants instead of walking around it. He's all boy.

He also has a total of four teeth now. His bottom two came in right around six months and now his top two have finally appeared. It's so crazy how each babe is different. A friend has a nine month old with nine teeth!!! I'm thrilled with Mateo's four.

I can't believe how fast time is going/has gone. Pray that his 5 or 6 steps of walking doesn't turn into full fledged running to soon.