Pizza Ravioli

I impressed myself tonight by making dinner totally from scratch!  I made Jenna's pizza rolls, or at least followed her recipe.  Jenna's look like miniature rolls stuffed perfectly with sauce and cheese; mine ended up looking more like pizza ravioli. 

First, I made the dough. This was my first experience making dough, and it was a huge success!  Then I made the sauce.  I didn't measure any of the ingredients and left out the anchovy paste, Parmesan, and onion powder.    The sauce was good, but I wish I would have had the 30 minutes to let it sit and soak up all the flavors!

After rolling out the dough and stuffing it with sauteed yellow pepper and mushrooms and itty bitty pieces of pepperoni, I put the ravioli-looking pizza rolls in the oven.  15 minutes later- viola!

The pizza rolls were good, but next time, I will make the dough thinner and add more cheese.  Isn't that always the answer- more cheese?

Well, it's Sunday night, so let's take a look at the 'ol spring break to-do list! 

CHORES
*vacuum, dust, clean the whole house
*change filter in heater
*clear plants from around the air conditioner (this was easy since there weren't any!)
*organize and thoroughly clean hall closet
*grade a pile of papers
*go through the dozens magazines beneath the coffee table.... pull out stuff I want, recycle the rest This took forever

*find a spot for the coffee table
*research school board candidates for the April 5 election
 *clean bird cages One of my students asked for the lovebirds to be brought to school, so I thoroughly cleaned their cage.  It looks great, and I can't wait for the kids to see the birds tomorrow!
*clean and organize the garage This was a huge job.  My advice is to never, ever do this buy yourself!  Have a spouse or a friend help!
*hose off patio furniture and cushions
*go to the dentist (haven't been in almost 2 years!) 
*find a spot for my new rug Sure did!!!
*iron clothes
*iron curtains and add more clips to the top of them/decide if I want to keep them Returned them to Lowes.

FUN STUFF
*send gift and card to a friend (maybe that friend is you?!)
*buy materials for and help Kyle build a clothesline
*plant a garden It's not planted, but the raised beds are ready!
*visit HaHa Tonka State Park and Bridal Cave in Camdenton, MO
*hit up the outlet mall at the Lake of the Ozarks
*workout daily 6 out of 9 ain't bad!
*use a Barnes and Noble Groupon No problem there!
*shoe shop for Buster Bought him some shoes, but I'm not impressed.

Over all, I had a very productive spring break, but more importantly, I feel refreshed and ready to be an awesome, effective teacher until June 3!

DIY: Raised Garden Beds

Chirping birds yesterday, barking dogs today.  My own dogs woke be up today while they were outside barking at geese.  I guess it's still better than waking up to an alarm!  My Friday got off to a good start with this breakfast. Half a whole wheat bagel with organic cream cheese, two kiwi, and a small glass of pure cranberry juice. 

 Now here's the first of the gardening posts I promised you.  When Kyle and I put an offer down on our house in April 2009, we were excited about all of it, but were especially in love with the backyard.  It was spacious, bordered by a privacy fence, and had a garden.   Fast forward to when we moved in in July 2009 and everything looks good except- there's no garden.Just this plot of land where the garden used to be.  Where did the garden go?  How would we create a new one?

  After consulting my sister (an organic farmer), the Self-Sufficient-ish Bible, and quite a few websites, we decided to build raised beds.  Here are materials you'll need to build one raised bed:  3- 8' by 2' by 3" pieces of wood, saw, long screws, a drill, and lots of soil.  One bed ran us about $90; the soil was the biggest expense.

First, we sawed one of the 8' by 2' pieces of wood in half thus making 2- 4' by 2' pieces of wood. Kyle is doing his finest Barney Stinson impression as he models the boards.

Once the boards were cut, I held them in in place while Kyle drilled about 3 screws each board to connect it to another boards.  The end result looked like this.  Of course, we had to dig around and under the frame to get it that level, but it wasn't too bad.  We ended up with a nice level bed and 32 square feet of gardening space.  The next step was lining the bottom of the bed with cardboard to prevent weeds from growing.  Kyle and I just used cardboard boxes to line the bed. I was careful to take off all of the tape/staples before using the boxes.  Then we lined each bed with compost from our compost bin.  Finally, it was time to fill the bed with soil. 

We figured out the volume doing the basic formula- length X width X height.  We needed 64 cubic feet of soil per bed.  This was EXPENSIVE and took us forever to complete as we kept underestimating the amount of soil needed.  I recommend buying a lot of soil at once, then returning what you don't need as opposed to going to Lowes 5 times in one day!   Also, the majority of the soil we used was the cheapest stuff they had, then we bought some 'good stuff' (re: more expensive soil) for the top layer.  The garden ended up looking like this. Pretty, right? I'm extremely proud of this project.  It's one of those you'd see at the end of the Better Homes and Gardens magazine under the title, "I Did It!"

 

What is your garden like?  Do you have containers, raised beds, or just a plot of land you've planted? 

Chirping

Chirping birds woke me up this morning.  I knew it was a good sign, so I rolled over towards the window and realized:  no sunshine.  This is the sixth sunshineless day in a row!  I've been good about not complaining about the weather all spring break, but today the weather kinda ticked me off.  Please sunshine, I beg you to show yourself tomorrow!

Despite the lack of sunshine,  I managed to get out of bed and get reading.  I finished the book Out of My Mind by Sharon Draper.

source

It's a book written for middle school students; I read it for a book club.  The book is written from the point of view of a child who has cerebral palsy and cannot speak.  The main character Melody is extremely smart and has so much to say, but she can't say it.  Her thoughts and feelings were so real!  I cried bawled at three separate parts of this story.  It was so touching and sad, and I just wanted her to be able to talk!  Her parents were so loving and always believed in their daughter.  I get choked up just thinking about it!  I have no idea who I would recommend this book to, but it opened my eyes and has made me a more compassionate person.  It's perfect for teachers to read and reminds us that all students can and want to learn.

Enough mushy stuff,  my food today was uninteresting, more of the same- it was a 'left over' day.   I got in a nice walk at the gym in my new kicks and followed that by weight lifting.  Hopefully, I'll be up to 7.5 pounders by the middle of April!  I came home and instantly became a gardener- weeding the raised beds we have in our backyard.  I plan on doing a lot of posts about last year's garden, what we learned, and what this year's garden will be like.  Get excited!

Where Have I Been?

Whew!  It's been awhile since I've updated.  I'd like to have some grand excuse for you as too why I've been MIA, but I don't give excuses. : )  The important thing is that I'm back now and will be updating this regularly since I am on Day 1 of SPRING BREAK, and the weather around these parts is supposed to be yucky.  My loss; your gain!  jk- I'm looking forward to sharing projects and food with you!

Spring Break 2011 promises to be epic productive.  I spent many minutes creating a to-do list for the coming week. Hopefully by next Sunday, I will be able to report I've accomplished all of my tasks.  Without further introduction, my to-do list for Spring Break 2011:

CHORES
*vacuum, dust, clean the whole house
*change filter in heater
*clear plants from around the air conditioner
*organize and thoroughly clean hall closet
*grade a pile of papers
*go through the dozens magazines beneath the coffee table.... pull out stuff I want, recycle the rest
*find a spot for the coffee table

 *research school board candidates for the April 5 election
 *clean bird cages
*clean and organize the garage
*hose off patio furniture and cushions
*go to the dentist (haven't been in almost 2 years!)
*find a spot for my new rug
*iron clothes
*iron curtains and add more clips to the top of them/decide if I want to keep them

 FUN STUFF
*send gift and card to a friend (maybe that friend is you?!)
*buy materials for and help Kyle build a clothesline
*plant a garden
*visit HaHa Tonka State Park and Bridal Cave in Camdenton, MO

The spring at Ha Ha Tonka

*hit up the outlet mall at the Lake of the Ozarks
*workout daily
*use a Barnes and Noble Groupon
*shoe shop for Buster

Obviously, I'm in for a wild spring break! I started it off right with a delicious breakfast of a whole wheat bagel with organic cream cheese.  No picture though-  The bagel didn't last long enough for me to take one! : )