Sushi Night

Friday night is my favorite night of the week for several reasons, but mostly because it usually means sushi for dinner.   Lucky for us there is a fantastic sushi place about a mile from where we live so getting really awesome sushi is easy. Sometimes too easy. We save this treat for Friday since by that point we are all pretty worn out from the week and the last thing I want to do is cook.  Actually, if we're being honest, the last thing I want to do is clean up after cooking.  Our daughters especially love when we get sushi-even though they don't eat the raw stuff like we do.  Their favorite meal is chicken fried rice, miso soup ( even the Little One loves miso soup) and edamame.  They usually have a couple pieces of veggie sushi too.

My favorite is the volcano roll - I love anything spicy!

I like to share the volcano roll with my husband and get a veggie combo to go with my meal.  This way I can share with my daughters.  The Little One and Big One eat the avocado rolls and the Middle One likes the cucumber roll.  (The Little One doesn't eat the wrapper though.)

All of us girls get Miso soup with ours. 

Not the prettiest picture but it was so good!

And no sushi dinner is complete without an order of edamame, at least in my opinion.

Doesn't that just look so good? 

Nothing says TGIF like an ice cold Sam Adams.  

There is no better way to wrap up the week than with a no stress dinner. While I do love to cook and most of our meals are homemade, it is nice to get a break. Now I am ready to face the rest of my weekend, and I don't even have to do the dishes first! 

What is your favorite type of sushi?  Or if you don't eat sushi, what is your favorite takeout?

Heart Shaped Crayons~ An Allergen Safe Valentine's Day Gift

Valentine's Day is next week and my daughter's preschool class is exchanging Valentines, as most classes do.  Last year we gave each child small boxes of chocolate, the year before that I think I gave out lollipops.  This year there is a child with a severe peanut allergy in the class so I have been staying away from food items. I saw the idea to make crayons a long time ago ( well before Pinterest) but never got around to doing it.  I then saw the idea on Pinterest again, and pinned it as a reminder to myself.  The pin is  pictures, not so much the directions.  They turned out fabulous and my daughter is so excited to hand them out on Tuesday. I have not yet decided how I am going to make the cards, but as soon as I do, I will add that picture to this post.

Valentine's Day Crayons:
You will need:

2 silicon baking pans with heart shapes ( I found mine at Walmart in the Valentine's section)

2 boxes generic crayons ( don't waste Crayolas on this - this generics work just as well)

1 baking tray wrapped in aluminum foil

Directions:
Preheat oven to 250F
Peel the paper off of the crayons .This was the longest and most tedious part.  Break the crayons into small pieces- small enough to fit in the baking cups.  If you can, get the kids to help.

Fill each baking cup about halfway with broken crayons. Place the baking tray on the covered cookie sheet and bake at 250F for 15-25 minutes,  or until the crayons are completely melted. (this picture is of my second batch)

Remove from the oven and let cool completely.  They will harden after about 30 minutes.

Remove from the baking cups and you're done!  It really is that easy!  1 box of 64 crayons will make 12 heart shaped crayons.

To make them into Valentine's you can tape them to handmade cards, or premade purchased Valentines.  It's your choice.  I am going to make cards for my daughter's class.

*I am also going to order number and alphabet trays from Amazon and make letter and number crayons for my 1.5 year old daughter.*

Enjoy!

Family Fun Night~ Homemade Stromboli

Every Friday night we like to have a Family Fun Night. We started this tradition back a couple of years ago, and we have stuck with it. We do eat dinner as a family every night, but some nights during the week we have somewhere to be- Theatre classes, Scouts, sports. So we set aside Friday nights to spend at home as a family. The girls get to choose dinner for that night, and we either watch a movie, play games, or work on some sort of project together.

Lately we've been on a pizza kick. We've done Bagel Pizzas, and Pepperoni Pizzas, and once we had a Pizza Night with friends. We have found that making our crust from scratch is so much better than buying a premade one. One night we decided to try something a little different and made Stromboli. It was an instant hit, and has become our Family Fun Night meal.

INGREDIENTS & DIRECTIONS:

We make the entire thing from scratch. It is a little time consuming but totally worth it!

Sauce:

1 can plain tomato sauce

1 small can tomato paste

1/2 teaspoon garlic salt

1 teaspoon oregano

1 teaspoon basil

pinch of sugar (to cut the acidity)

Let it simmer on the stove while you get the rest of you ingredients together.

Toppings:

While you are letting your sauce simmer for a few minutes, use this time to get your toppings together. For this we used:

Ham

Deli Pepperoni

Green Pepper

Onion

Mushrooms

Veggie Shreds cheese

You can put whatever you like. Since I am not allergic to Casein I can use Veggie Shreds, but if you have a milk protein allergy you could use Daiya cheese instead. I have heard it is a great vegan cheese alternative, but I have not yet been able to buy it where I live.

I like to get all my toppings chopped and ready to go before I start on the dough:
Dough:

1- 3/4 to 2- 1/4 cups all purpose flour

1 envelope (or 2 & 1/4 teaspoons) pizza crust yeast (we use Fleischmann's- the recipe for the dough is on the package)

1 1/2 teaspoon sugar

3/4 teaspoon salt

2/3 cup very warm water

3 tablespoons olive oil

Directions:
Preheat your oven to 425F.
In your stand mixer combine the 1 cup flour, package of yeast,sugar, and salt. Add water and oil. Mix together using your dough hook attachment




Mix all the ingredients together until they are well blended. Gradually add 1/2 cup of flour until a dough ball is formed. If needed, add additional flour to form the ball.

On a floured surface, knead the dough until it is smooth and elastic- about 4 minutes.

Roll out onto a lightly greased baking sheet. (I also cover the pan in aluminum foil to save on cleanup time.)


Spread a thin layer of sauce on the dough and add your cheese alternative. Put your toppings on one side of the crust.
Fold one side of the crust over to cover the side with the toppings. Fold the edges over and pinch together. I like to brush mine with a little olive oil and sprinkle basil and oregano on top.
Cut 3 slits in the crust.
Bake for about 20 minutes, or until the crust is golden brown.


*For Vegans or Vegetarians you can omit any meat and fill it with veggies instead. *

**I have found that dairy free cheese melts better when it is inside something or covered, which is why this stromboli works so well. **

What are some of your favorite pizza toppings?