We're headed here for the week ...

See you soon!

Leftover Lovers Pizza

When you're cooking for two, chances are you'll get to the end of the week and have a few leftover items - be it veggies, cheese, or proteins - that won't make it past the weekend. You could just throw them away, but if you're anything like me, you hate to waste! Well luckily I live with a pizza-holic who could eat the stuff for breakfast, lunch, and dinner everyday of the week. So I came up with Leftover Lovers pizza - an almost weekly ritual that helps me use up whatever's in my fridge!

You can start with a store bought crust or a homemade version. My personal favorite is a recipe from Bon Appetit. It's thin, crisp, and absolutely perfect. Here's how it's done ...

In a large bowl, combine 2 tsp sugar with 3/4 cup water and 1.5 tsp active dry yeast. Stir it up, it will look like this:

Let it sit around for about 5 minutes until it looks spongy. Something like this ...

Now stir in 1.5 Tbsp olive oil, 1 tsp salt, and 2 1/4 cups flour. Knead it up for about 5 minutes. You'll find it therapeutic ...

Now take the dough out and coat the bowl with a dab of olive oil. Add your dough ball back into the bowl, cover it with a towel, and leave it alone for about 1.5 hours. It should go from this:

To this:

Now you'll want to turn your oven to very hot (500 degrees) and put your pizza stone or pans in the oven. This is key because the hot pan will help crisp up the dough when you put it on. While the pans are warming, stretch your dough out with hand, a rolling pin, sheer will, whatever works! I like to make mine into two long flatbreads, but you can do two traditional circles or even squares. Here's mine:

Now toss that towel back on top of your dough, and let it rest for another 15 minutes while you drink a little pre-pizza beer and get your toppings out of the fridge and chopped up. After your crust rests, take the hot pans carefully out of the oven and put the crust on them. You'll hear them start to crisp up a bit on the bottoms. It's lovely!

Now you're ready to top it off. For these two pizzas I did:

Pizza #1 which was out of this world

1 cup Manchego cheese
About 1/3 link of crumbled chorizo
Around 10 large shrimp chopped up

Pizza #2 which was decent but paled in comparison to its oven-brethren

Smear of olive oil on the crust
About 6 blanched green onions
A couple of slices of shredded Prosciutto
1 cup grated Mozzarella
1/3 cup grated Parmesan

Now bake these in your 500 degree oven for 10 minutes, slice 'em up and enjoy! The beauty of these pizzas is you can really top them with whatever you like. I'll keep you updated on what combinations I successfully come up with in the future!

Enjoy!

Oh happy day

Last week Derek had a birthday.
I'm pretty darn happy this guy was born 26 years ago, so celebrations had to be made.

While Derek was out golfing (his favorite past time) I prepared the surprises ...

Like a yummy cake - I used this recipe.

And a delicious meal including a signature drink featuring two of Derek's favorite flavors - strawberry and basil - recipe here.

And balloons and other birthday decor that Arnold adored ...

until he popped one.

There was some music and dancing.

And of course candles to blow out.

Happy birthday love!

The cutest time crunch

Allow me to introduce you to one of the major culprits of my lack of time ...

Meet Arnold. He's our new 3-month-old Vizsla puppy and Derek and I are pretty much obsessed with his little face. As in we've already taken about 500 pictures mamarazzi obsessed ...

 Or make-up-songs about him and talk to him in silly voices obsessed ...

Even triple-spoon sleeping arrangements obsessed.

Let's call it puppy love. 



Making a comeback

If you're here and you're reading this after my several-month hiatus, you are AMAZING! Although I've taken the last few months off from blogging myself, I haven't stopped reading all of your awesome blogs. It's been nice to enjoy the blogosphere without worrying about what I'm going to post, and my crazy busy life just got in the way of spending additional hours beyond my workday at my computer each night.

After reflecting on the time investment and what I enjoy most about blogging, I've decided to begin again, albeit quite casually, blogging on the fly when I have something I want to share or a memory I want to capture for my own benefit. Hopefully you enjoy reading along!

Thanks again for stopping by! One of my favorite things about blogging is reading your lovely comments checking out your own fabulous blogs.

xox,
Taylor

Weekenders

Oh, I have had a crazy couple weeks: a visit to NYC for work and fun, sake and sushi, karokee (pictures too embarassing to share here), shopping galore, and a few new projects! I'm trying to get myself in order but thought I'd share a couple of pictures from my trip so I'm not not totally stagnant on here!

Visiting friends ...

and vintagey NYC views from my hotel ...

For Japan with love

Today I'm joining with many others in a bloggers day of silence for the victims of the disaster in Japan. You can help them and the victims of other natural disasters by donating here. Have a happy weekend and keep Japan in your thoughts!



They call me mellow yellow

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When I posted about this Chloe couch last week, my friend Kayla text me that she was considering the same piece! It's a small sofa world out there people, and while Derek and I have yet to commit to the Chloe, Kayla is ready to take the plunge with the beautiful couch in sleek granite.

Yesterday, we talked paint colors and agreed we both love the soft but modern combination of yellow and grey, so I thought I'd pull some images for inspiration! Which do you like best?

Cherry swirl cake

Awhile back, I picked up a cookbook called 101 Things to do with a Cake Mix at a thrift store for about cents. It's a cute little book and all the recipes are effortless - involving cake mix and just a few other ingredients. When I was craving something sweet the other day, I thought I'd whip up one of these simple recipes and was delighted with the result! It took almost no time to make and was just as quickly gobbled up.

Enjoy!

Cherry Swirl Cake
from 101 Things to do with a Cake Mix

Ingredients:
1 white cake mix
3 eggs
2 cans or 21 ounces cherry pie filling
Whipped cream or powdered sugar

Directions:
1. Prehat oven to 350 degrees
2. Mix cake mix and eggs together and stir in half of the cherry pie filling
3. Pour batter into a greased bundt cake pan and bake 40-50 minutes or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean
4. Invert hot cake onto a platter and dust with powdered sugar
5. Serve with reserved pie filling and whipped topping

Want to see something cute?

Miss Chelsea in the above video is a Teach For America corps member, one of 8,200 teaching this year to change the lives of over 500,000 students growing up in some of our nation's most impoverished school districts.

Want to help students like the super scholars? All you have to do is shop! That's right! This weekend (March 17 - 20) when you use the coupon at this link, you receive 30% off at Gap, Old Navy, and Banana Republic (outlets included) while 5% of what you spend goes to support Teach For America's efforts to close the achievement gap.

Just click, print, and shop! And feel free to pass the link onto friends, family, and your own readers. You can even pass the coupon to the shopper behind you in line after you check-out and ask her to do the same!

So spread Spring style and help our kids get an excellent education.

Thanks so much!

Weekenders

The sun was out this weekend in full force and we made sure to soak up plenty of it! Friday we went to the drive-in movies, our favorite way to watch a new flick since we can bring as much candy as we want and a bottle of wine.

Saturday we drove up in the mountains to Julian, an old mining town that has retained much of it's historic charm. We even ate at an original drug store soda fountain! Yum!

And Sunday, I was majorly spoiled as Derek insisted on doing all our chores (vacuuming, dusting, laundry, etc), while I lounged in the sun with a book. He even managed to be a sneaky photographer in the process.

Have pure joy

During last weekend's stroll on the beach, Derek and I wandered onto the leash-free dog beach so I could drool openly over how much I want one of my own, and not even look out of place! And I must say, there is nothing more joyful than a dog at the beach - frolicking in the waves, chasing toys, and meeting new friends - it reminds me of a book called Dog Heaven I read as a child.

So this weekend, I hope you're as joyful as a dog at the beach! Here are some links I liked this week to help the happy factor.

Black and white and read all over!

I simply can't wait to have a non-community laundry room, but if I had this one, laundry would feel glamorous!

This pasta dinner we made this week was light, easy, and absolutely bursting with flavor. Mmm, baked goat cheese!

Be prepared for astonishment, these are real people, painted!

Oooh! I think I'll wish for an herb mill in my Easter basket.

I'm quite jealous of this find and DIY art idea! Fabulous!