Make Your Own Sourdough Pizza

 
  Sourdough makes for a fantastic pizza crust; crisp enough for my thin crust loving mother yet bread like enough for me, who personally thinks thin crust tastes like a cardboard cracker. Plus if you make the full recipe you get enough dough for a pizza and a loaf of bread. All you have to do is follow the recipe for bread I shared last week until after you knead the dough then you roll it flat and put it on a cookie sheet covered with cornmeal. Then put on your tomato sauce and toppings on and bake at 400 degrees for 15-20 minutes.  Find the recipe for bread here: http://batsbizarre.blogspot.com/2014/03/make-your-own-sourdough-bread.html

A good tomato sauce isn't very hard either. Simply combine about 3/4 of a can of tomato paste with about a half a cup of water -basicly enough to make it spradable- a sprinkling of oregano, basil, garlic powder, sugar, salt, and pepper, or whatever seasonings you prefer in a sauce pan over low heat for a few minutes so the flavors mesh. -We don't measuer much here, you just have to taste the sauce and make sure the seasonings are right.-

The topings are up to you. We like an everything kind of pizza. Anchoves, onions, spinach, peppers, olives, sausage, even kale. If we have any freash, we like to add exrta basil and sliced tomatos. You have to fry the breakfast sausage seperately before adding it and the onions and bell peppers taste better if you caramelize them first, but everything else can go on as is. Then cover everything with cheese, mom and I use Monterey Jack and a little Romano, but any readly melting cheese is good. Try putting some kale on top of the cheese too. It's crunchy and good!


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Make Your Own Sourdough Starter

   I really like Sourdough Bread. But unlike most breads you're going to need a starter if you're going to make it at home. Sourdough starter is strange it's more of a liquid then I pictured when I first thought of making Sourdough and taking care of it is more like taking care of a living organism than anything else. Which is a little creepy when you think about it. Try not to think about it.

  Starter is basically yeast, water, and flour. Dissolve one package of dry yeast in 1 1/4 cup lukewarm water. (It should feel comfortable on your wrist. If it's too hot it will kill the yeast.) Stir in 1 cup of flour put the mixture in a plastic or glass crock, never store it in a metal container, cover the opening with cheese cloth, and store in a warm place. Every day for five days add a 1/2 cup of flour and a 1/2 of water. When it smells sour it's ready to use. You'll need to replenish it by adding the same amount of water and flour you used back to the starter every time you use it.
  
   If you store it on the counter you'll need to feed it or use it every two weeks or so, depending on the temperature. When the starter turns grey you should use it soon-ish. If you store it in the fridge you'll have at least a month.
  If you don't feel like using it you can feed it a 1/2 cup of flour and a 1/2 cup of water or a tablespoon or two of sugar. You can feed it lukewarm potato water, but when I did my starter turned pink. I had to throw it out. It might have been because I forget to use or feed it, but I'm superstition about potato water now.
   
      Somethings to remember about Sourdough starter: 
    - Throw it out if it turns pink. It's poison.

    -It needs to be feed or it will starve to death.

    -It needs to breathe.

    -Always use lukewarm water

    -Keep the container clean. Any bits of flour around the side will grow mold and may contaminate your starter. Plus it's gross. 

   It sounds like a bad science experiment, I know, but the bread tastes really good and it makes a great pizza dough, more on that later.
  
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Make your own Knitting Bag

Need a bag to hold your supplies? Cut up an old pair of pants, the only thing you have to buy are the handles. That's how I made mine.

      It's not quite as neat as some of those roll up needle holders, but I can store those tiny ball of leftover yarn in it.

 One of the best things about using an old pair of pants are the pre-made pockets. If don't sew the top part down you can have two pockets in one spot.
   (Plus jean fabric doesn't unravel as easily as most fabric does and is very study.) 

  I cut the legs off the pants, so they were the same length, 21" long in this case. Then I cut up the seam so that they were flat panels of fabric.
   I lined the pieces up and sewed them together.
  After that I folded the top edge of the bag over to hold the handles. I just eye balled it when cut a slit in the folded over part for the handles to go out of.
   If you want a more finished look you could use chalk to mark where you need to cut the fold for the hands to come out of cut there and stitch the edges to limit unraveling before you sew the fold over lengthwise.

Now it's all about customization! I put the pockets inside by sewing the original pockets inside the bag. It was so easy I'm thinking of adding a couple more. All you need are an old pair of pants, a sewing machine, something to use as a handle, and an imagination.

  

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New Halloween Lights and make your own ghosts

Normally we don't buy more Halloween decorations until November, but when we saw these spider and 24' purple and orange lights on sale at Kroger we couldn't help ourselves. It looks a little busy now, but next year we'll either be in the new house or will try to find a better place for them here. The spiders are great I'd like to get some more after Halloween. The purple and orange are cool, but I wish they were more purple. Hopefully there will be a string of solid purple lights this November.

   How to make your own ghosts. These simple, lovely Halloween decorations are very easy to make. Most of the items are garbage. Mom came up with this design years ago, using some gauzy fabric she had left over after making curtains. The best part is the older they get the better they look. Right now we have four and plan to add more. She made a bunch of little ones using dryer lint for the head.




What you'll need:
 Tulle or sheer white fabric
 Newspapers/ handful of plastic grocery bags (preferably white)
one plastic bag (preferably white)
Fishing line
Optional: Glow in the dark paint

   Cut the fabric into a rectangle-ish (you could cut a big circle too) shape that's about 8 inches longer that you want the ghost to be about 4 1/2 feet long and 2 wide. Make a ball about the size of a head (most of ours are around 5 inches in diameter) out of the newspapers/ plastic bags and cover with one white plastic bag. Place the fabric over the head so that some of it hangs a few inches below the head. Tie fishing line around the bottom of the head. Optional paint a face on the head. Thread an embroidery needle with fishing line and use that to hang your ghost in a tree. The lighter the fabric the less wind they need to fly.

They are great for telling which way the wind is blowing. They are very easily customizable, too.            



 In honor of Halloween Bats Bizarre is having a sale! From today October 3rd until November 1st use coupon code HALLOWEEN for 15% off your entire purchase.

                         Thank you for reading Bats Bizarre's offical blog. Have a bat-tastic day!