An Update and Amish Friendship Bread

Sorry for the lack of updates (again). One of my best friends was in town and I don't get to see her often, so I spent TONS of time with her and our circle of friends.

So today is Tuesday: my turn to make dinner! While my friend, Amie, was in town she gave me some Amish friendship bread (AFB) aka a yeast starter. That was exactly 10 days ago. I was very excited to experiment with it. I knew that I would end up with enough AFB by today to make 3 items and still have one left over to continue my starter. One I will be giving to my mom, so I have 2 to work with. (Also, I am going to have to freeze a lot of this if I can't keep up with the baking! Let me know if anyone needs a yeast starter!).

So I'm thinking: dinner and dessert (who doesn't love dessert?). I really wanted to make pizza and chocolate chip cookies. Both of which I have made before (though it has been many years since I have made home-made pizza) so I figured they would be alright.

To begin, it was nearly impossible to find a recipe for AFB pizza dough. I finally stumbled upon this blog post: http://digrat.blogspot.com/2008/11/amish-friendshippizza.html. This was the recipe I followed. Only thing I didn't follow was letting the dough rise for 12-18 hours... because I did not plan this far enough in advance. Story of my life. I settled for putting the oven on very low and leaving it in for about 30 minutes. It didn't rise much. I am not sure it mattered all that much. Next time I will do it correctly and let you know.

For the sauce I used this recipe: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/exquisite-pizza-sauce/. The sauce was the main success of the dish, I think. I altered it a bit (no anchovy or honey, to name a couple changes), but overall that is roughly what I made. I used lots of mozzarella cheese and a pre made pizza mix. It was a good combo: mostly mozzarella with a little provolone, parmesan, and romano.

Main problem: The pizza dough didn't cook in the middle very well. I put it in a little longer but didn't want to burn the cheese. Thoughts for next time: Cook the dough for a while on it's own before adding sauce and cheese. I am not sure that will work, but it's worth a try. Otherwise it was pretty good. Due to the AFB, the dough was a touch sweet for my taste, but since the sauce was a bit spicy, it worked out pretty well.

This website came with the AFB and has lots of info and recipes: http://www.friendshipbreadkitchen.com/. Using this I found this recipe for cookies: http://www.friendshipbreadkitchen.com/pantry/afb-chocolate-chip-cookies.

I did not use shortening. I don't have any (and have never used it before) and I did not want to go to the store for the second time today and the third time in the last two days. Instead I used a little more butter. Most sources I found said that butter or margarine can be used in place of shortening in equal exchange. I did not do a full equal exchange because it already had butter in it and I couldn't bring myself to put in THAT much butter. The cookies turned out alright and they tasted pretty good. Next time I should try using shortening, however. Next time. Sigh. Another side note: this recipe makes LOTS of cookies. I feel like I was baking all night.

In other news, I have worked on my Shuiichi costume a bit. The shirt that scared me? I'm still a bit scared. However, I managed to get it mostly put together and (drum roll) I made a collar! I was excited. Of course I made the whole thing before I remembered it was supposed to be blue, not white... so I made a little case for it. Like a pillow case. It worked fine. Right now I am tackling the interfacing (I hate interfacing) which is supposed to go on the shoulders and down the front. It isn't actually *attached* to the shirt yet, however, but is attached to the facing.

During all of this, I learned what it meant to layer a seam. I had no idea what this meant and my google searching failed to clear it up until I found this wonderful video: http://www.ehow.com/video_4438184_sewing-collar_-grading-seam.html. Cleared everything right up. There are some other parts I am going to have to look up later. I will be sure to share those for any other amateur seamstresses out there. I will  post a picture when it is finished.

And I promise that I will be posting about my new little niece very soon! With a couple pictures because she is the cutest baby in the world (surely no bias here...).

So there you have it. An update and my Tuesday cooking. Sorry for the lack of pictures, I just wasn't feeling up for the extra work.