Zucchini Crust Pizza

This was so delicious. It may seem like there is way too much zucchini, but once it is all squeezed out, it shrunk in size a lot. I didn’t have enough time to make my own sauce, so I just used store bought sauce, and it was still delicious. Remember to bake the crust before putting the toppings on. It makes a big difference. It really gives the crust the firm baked crusty taste that the pizza needs. I put the toppings on the crust, then put it in the oven before originally baking the crust. It still turned out delicious, but I couldn’t pick up the crust all at once. I had to use a fork. I also didn’t use almond meal. I just used regular flour, and it was absolutely perfect. This was a major success and such a healthy substitute for regular pizza.
Zucchini Crust Pizza Recipe

French Bread

So I had a hankering for bread, and no car to go to the grocery store. Luckily I had all the ingredients and found an awesome recipe for some French bread. This recipe was not nearly as time consuming as it sounds. Making the dough is really quick, some yeast, flour, water, sugar and salt was all it took. After I mixed all the ingredients, I kneaded the dough for about five minutes. Kneading is tricky because you don’t want to over knead it. I then let the dough chill and rise for an hour. The recipe only calls for letting it chill for 30 minutes, but I left it in for twice as long. I skipped the kneading it every ten minutes for an hour, and just kneaded it for five minutes before forming it into loaves. After letting the bread bake, it was time to test my creation. The bread looked beautiful. It was a light golden brown, and the crust was nice and crispy while the middle was soft. Taste wise, it was fantastic. The bread was delicious. However, it was still a little heavy. Next time I try this out, I will let the dough chill for a lot longer, and knead it every ten minutes for an hour like the recipe calls for.
Recipe for French Bread

Samoas

So Sunday was my baking day. I had a craving for some Girl Scout cookies, so I decided to whip up some Samoas. “Whip up” is definitely not the correct term to use because I spent about 5 hours on these things. Luckily the Game of Thrones marathon was on, so I wasn’t going crazy. First you have to make the cookie dough, this was easy and a no brainer. I had to let the dough chill for an hour, so in the meantime, I toasted the coconut. It took me a while because I had to use a toaster oven. You also don’t need to use 3 cups of coconut. 1.5 cups will be more than enough. After the coconut toasted, I still had a while before the dough was ready, so I melted the caramel. Then I cleaned up my kitchen a little bit. Finally the dough was ready. I didn’t have a donut shaped cookie cutters so I just made the cookies into flat circles. After the cookies were baked and cooled, I remelted the caramel to put on the coconut and cookies. This was hard. The caramel was really hot, and the coconut/caramel mix was really sticky and messy. Essentially what I did was take a cookie, and used a spoon to spread the caramel on the cookie. I then took some of the coconut/caramel mix and stuck it on top of the caramel. It took me a while to get a hang of this, but eventually I got into a groove, and it was easy. While the caramel and coconut was cooling on the cookies, I melted the chocolate in a flat soup bowl. This was the easiest bowl to dip the cookies in. Once all the cookies were dipped in chocolate and laid out, drying on the wax paper. I drizzled the rest of the melted chocolate over the cookies. Once all the chocolate was hardened, it was time to taste test my project of the day. Even though it took me five hours to do, it was totally worth it. The cookies were delicious. I gave some to friends and family, and I already have requests for more. Some things I would do differently would probably to make the cookies a little flatter. I would also toast less coconut because I didn’t use all of it and that is a waste. Overall this was a success.
Recipe for Samoa Cookies