The Mad Scientist

This past week, John and I have tried several new recipes, which were all delicious and worth sharing with y’all.

(Side-note: I am trying to use y’all more often. I mentioned yesterday that I had stopped using it so much, and I miss it!)

Our culinary endeavors began with Artichoke Pizzas last week. I loved every bit of those crispy, vegetable-packed pizzas. I also discovered how great pita bread is for a quick pizza crust. On Friday, we used our left over pitas (cut in half horizontally) to make quick personal-sized pepperoni pizzas. We just covered the crust in a tablespoon of olive oil and threw it under the broiler for 2-3 minutes until it was crisp. Then I put some tomato sauce, oregano, basil (I think), mozzarella cheese and pepperoni on top, put it back under the broiler until the cheese was melted (which was less than a minute). Viola! Easy-peasy pepperoni pizzas.

Over the weekend, John was inspired to try concocting some more interesting treats by a blog he reads, Life Hacker. The blog author wrote about groceries that were cheaper to make at home. Although for us, neither of the ones we attempted were cheaper – yogurt and granola – the results were fantastic. (A half-gallon of milk costs us $4.09.)

I have to give all the credit to John for the yogurt. He made it while I was at the movies with a group of girls (seeing Confessions of a Shopaholic), and he said the process made him feel like a mad scientist. Did you know that to make plain yogurt it only takes a small bit of yogurt plus milk?? The recipe he used can be found here.

The yogurt takes a long time to make (about 6 hours in the oven and setting in the fridge overnight), and in the morning, you get creamy, slightly tart, mouth-watering yogurt. I have tried 3 brands of yogurt since we made this, and none of them compare. So you can understand the consistency, I made a short video:

[wpvideo rwQZUBhT]

I put about a spoonful of honey in and mix it around with the yogurt and fruit. John has become a big fan of mixing the yogurt with our granola, which we made together on Sunday (click here for the recipe). Oh my goodness. It was so easy, it made our apartment smell amazing, and it tastes delicious. Why wouldn’t you make this?! Also, it doesn’t clump up like other granola, which I was thrilled about. Typically, I think granola can be a pain to eat because my jaw gets tired from chomping down on all the hard clusters. Give this one a shot. You won’t be sorry!! Here’s a photo of the granola with the yogurt in the background:

see? no clumps!

The rest of this week has been a pretty boring one for our kitchen. However, I pulled a few new recipes that I plan on trying next week. If they’re any good, I’ll share the recipes again. Enjoy!

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I almost forgot, today is Thursday, which means it’s “Hi/Lo Thursday,” which is a blog carnival from the Riggs Family Blog. Check out their blog to read everyone else’s highs and lows for the week. Like last week, I’m going to end with our highs, because I want to end on a happy note 🙂

Our Lows:

• Driving back and forth like a taxi driver to John’s work 3 times a day every day this week.
• Not having enough time in the day to get everything done and dealing with the frustration that comes along with that.

Our Highs:

• Beautiful weather today!
• Taking Béni to the park and having another yellow lab there for him to play with. (He really tired himself out!)
• Enjoying wonderful food all week.
• Overcoming my fear of driving in areas I don’t know around here, and making it back safe and sound 🙂

– Sarah