I have been experimenting with making my own pizza using a cast iron skillet. My first try, I bought some Whole Foods premade pizza dough since I had read good things about it. It’s kind of a pain to wait for it to rise before you can use it though. I’m more of a spontaneous cook since I never know what the night’s plan is going to be or when we will get home from work for me to cook. So…really excited to read about this quick and easy pizza dough from the blog I’m an organizing junkie. It requires no rise time and I have all the ingredients on hand. I can’t wait to try this for my next pizza!!!

Pizza Crust:

1 tbsp active dry yeast

1 cup warm water (105 to 115 degress F)

1 tsp sugar

1 tsp salt

2 tbsp vegetable oil

2 1/2 cups flour

Dissolve the yeast in the water. Add the rest of the ingredients in and mix. Dump onto a floured surface. Knead into a smooth dough (five minutes or so). Roll out and press down onto a greased pizza pan. Add some pizza sauce and your toppings. Bake at 450 degress F for around 12-15 minutes until the crust looks crispy and lightly browned. Dough can also be frozen as well.

She also has a gluten-free version on her site as well.

For making the pizza using a cast-iron, I’ve been using this recipe from Serious Eats. It produces a pan fried crust….my fave!

Has anyone tried the Trader Joe’s pizza dough? I have read mixed reviews about it but I am curious to try the herb and garlic one.

There are 2 things I need to rave about. I am in love with these 2 products!

First one is this all in one printer:
Lexmark X4650 Wireless All-In-One Printer (2057321) (only $60!!)

Maybe it was the fact that my last printer sucked so hard that makes me love this printer so much. Imagine having a printer that suddenly turned against you and started eating up all of your paper and wouldn’t take in your paper straight EVER. Also, my last printer was wireless but it kept shutting down so I would have to go into the room to turn it on before printing. Doesn’t that defeat the purpose of having a wireless printer? I HATED IT.

Anyways, this guy is awesome. Not only does it print but it scans and copies as well. I can print pretty pictures (which reminds me I need to show you some of our pictures that I have hung on our walls that were printed from this printer!). AND best of all I can be laying in my room and printing all day long without having to get up! It’s lovely! When I am not using the printer, it goes to sleep to save energy. IT’S PERFECT.

Second one is this MIU Plastic Pull String Salad Spinner. I grew up with salad spinners but it wasn’t until I got my own place that I splurged on this gadget. Well it’s not really much of a splurge at $14! but I never really had the space for it hehe. It was kind of getting annoying using paper towels to dry my lettuce and it never really got my greens dry enough! Dry lettuce will hold your dressing better. Anyways, salad spinners are nothing special but this is the first time I used one with a PULL STRING. I have only used the one with the handles that you have to turn. This one just has a string that you pull. And boy does it spin! Fast! And it’s so much easier! If you have one of the manual turning salad spinner, I suggest you invest yourself in this pull string version instead. It’s like one little tug and that’s all you have to do. No cranking of the handle like the usual salad spinners. SO MUCH BETTER.

Now that I have this salad spinner, I must eat more salad!

This makes me feel better. boyrobot always makes fun of me for crying in movies but at least i’m nothing like this!

<

Click here to learn more about the crying wife and see other videos of her crying.

Remembering margaret moth – interesting read on a CNN camerawoman
5 things you can freeze to save money – guess i should start making room in the freezer for my batteries!
11 things you didn’t know about the shawshank redemption – this reminds me..I NEED TO WATCH THIS.
Math genius refuses $1M prize for solving one of the most complicated math problems in the world – recluses are awesome
Apple boycotts Fox News because of Glenn Beck – i’m not an apple fan girl but this might make me one!
Shoes that make everyone the same height – oh i so need these at our next party! ehehe

can’t get enough of these failbook images :)

How cool is this…

Created by the co-founder of buzzfeed and The Huffington Post, Jonah Peretti.

Click here to start your adventure

Bush shakes hands with Haitians and then wipes his hand on Clinton

Baby hates miley cyrus

Collaborative spreadsheet art

Biking Guitar Hero

boyrobot REALLY wants an iPad. but i’m not really sure if it’s such a great idea to get it right now. aren’t we on our iPhones enough?? can you imagine our lives with an iPad as well?

Anyways, over at wired, geekdad has a handydandy ipad flowchart to see if you should buy the iPad or not. are any of you getting one?

I love these videos:

A lot of people thought the guy was Ben Folds so he decided to do a tribute to Merton by doing a live chat roulette session at one of his concerts. How awesome is this?

My dad is here.

I just have boring, old house stuff on the brain.

I have a housewarming party this sat to plan.

And I spent my free time tonight reading this interview with Rielle Hunter.

Apologies!

Check out this cool website that calculates how many servings of fruits and veggies you should eat based on your age, sex, and amount of physical activity you do: Fruits & Veggies Matter

According to the website, I should be eating 1.5 cups of fruit and 2.5 cups of veggies. They also give you examples of what 1 cup looks like.

I’ve been snacking a lot at work. My bay is snack central. We have chips, cookies, candies and all kinds of processed foods everywhere!! It’s sooo bad. I’m going to try and stop snacking on those. But to get my full servings in, I have to consciously think about what foods I will buy for the week. Here are some fruits and veggies I like in 1 cup servings:

fruits
1 snack container of applesauce
2 clementines
1/2 avocado
1/2 cup of orange or other juice (100% pasteurized)
frozen berries (with parfait and granola!)
4 tsp jelly or jam (with some wheat toast)

veggies
5 broccoli florets
2 large stalks of celery
10 baby carrots
1 roma tomato
1 ear of corn
1/2C of edamame
1C of peas

I should also try to eat a salad a few times a week! One of my favorite salads is the Panera Strawberry Salad with poppyseed dressing. It has tons of fruits…mmm. When I was working in Florida, I used to make this salad several times. I never used the dressing recipe (splenda yuck!) and instead just bought a light poppyseed dressing from the store. I might try and make my own sometime and I will share the recipe if I find a good one!

What are your favorite fruits and veggie snacks to eat? I hate anything I have to peel or slice so the more convenient the snack, the better and the more likely I will eat it.