Recipe's from Alexandra's Kitchen & Marcella Hazen

Spent a furious afternoon in the kitchen baking Ernie's birthday request. It was fun and the end result was perfect as it always is when I use recipes from Alexandra's kitchen. She had suggested Marcella Hazen's tomato sauce recipe on Pizza Margherita with delicious results.
For me it was two new recipes but regretfully the kitchen sink showed that I have not perfected the execution of it. Notwithstanding that the results were great.
My section of the Pizza Margherita had anchovies and Ernie's pizza and a half had the Lepori Italian Sausage. We were both happy! The Nectarine pizza was also the best dessert I have eaten and it only had 2 tsp. of sugar in the bread dough. If you follow the Alexandra's kitchen link you can find the recipes. I didn't have time to make the home--made ricotta so I used mozzarella for both pizzas. You can make the tomato sauce while you are making the dough. I picked the basil from my garden and the tomatoes also from the garden. I used the "freeze the tomatoes" suggestion to peel the tomatoes. It was a breeze in this hot Sacramento summer. Have fun cooking.

Just a quick note - just about as quick as this summer is passing. The last few weeks have been full of reunions and short trips. Our H.S. classmates who live in Texas and who we spent a week with in Jan. of this year came and spent a week with us. It was a fun time!
Then E. & I & grandaughter took a few days to go to Gold Beach, Oregon to take the Rogue River Jet boat trip up the Rogue River for 80 miles. Our grand daughter loved the ride. From there we went to Ashland and saw the Pirates of Penzance in the Elizabethan Theater. We ended the visit by seeing a colleague of mine from the teaching days.
The telephone booth pictured at the right is in the Columbia Hotel, a great place to stay while going to the plays in Ashland. Couldn't resist taking a look at a place we stayed at 10 yrs. running.

Coming up for air!

Summer is beginning for me. The weather is finally cooperating, the garden is showing signs of vegetables, classes are finalizing and I'm feeling very light. We took off for a 3 day get-away to Fort Bragg/ Mendocino a couple of weeks ago and it was wonderful. I love the ride to the coast. Our little car(stick shift) is like driving a sports car (which it isn't) and it took the curves so well. The mountain country was lush, drove through some coast redwoods, saw vineyards in the rain on the way back. The weather on the coast was perfect. I walked the headlands and took beaucoup pictures of wildflowers. I only know the name of one of them and hope to research the names of the others. Maybe I'll get around to posting them & someone will recognize them.
I'm finishing up a knitting project, reading a new blog, following up on 2 favorite food blogs and even cooking some new dishes.

Hurray for summer!


What is my name?