Becoming an Italian Grandmother

This will be me in 50 years.

I have now made it my mission that one day I will successfully make some classic Italian dishes. It has taken a couple years, but I think I finally got pizza dough down. This weekend I made homemade pizza (something we used do at least once a month). I've found that making pizza dough and baking it is an art. The secret ingredient is probably patience. This time around, I made the pizza dough in the morning and let it sit all day. Normally, I don't think about making the dough until about 3:00, so I have to make it rise quicker than it naturally would by putting it in a warm oven. Because it sat out all day, it got incredibly light and fluffy. The dough was beautifully bubbly and delicious.

Before and after toppings.

I also tried to make classic Italian gnocchi this weekend. Like the ricotta experiment, I looked at the recipe and the process and thought, "it doesn't look that hard". Well, its not, except that I must have missed something because they didn't turn out quite right. Maybe I was too impatient, plopping the little potato dumplings into the boiling water right away. Michael Chiarello warned me to let them sit and dry out for 30 minutes before boiling them. Oops.

So, if I can deduce anything about Italian cooking, it is that you must be patient!

Savage Chickens

I also did a lot of sewing this weekend. I made a couple more pillow cases for my friend and also sewed a big curtain for the entryway at the top of the stairs in my apartment. The idea is that it will block some of the hot air from the stairwell from coming up and keep some of the cool air conditioned air from going down. So far, I think its been working! Also...making your own curtains is SO easy. Granted this one took me a little over 2 hours because my sewing machine broke, but I would totally make my own curtains again. And I plan to! Maybe I will find some cute fabric to make curtains for the bedroom next weekend.

Pillow case. Isn't the fabric beautiful?

And finally, while I was at Hobby Lobby picking up everything I needed for my other projects, I found a frame and matting so that I could FINALLY frame my diploma. It has been 8 months since graduation and I have just let the diploma sit on my desk collecting dust. Now the framed diploma is just sitting on the floor in the office, where I am sure it will sit for another 8 months until I eventually hang it up.

How was your first weekend of August?