Winter Haiku

Sixteen below,

Blowing snow,

No place to go

If you're the Brad Miller Snowman.

(but at least you have new arms)

That's right, we experienced brutally cold weather last week here in northern Indiana, as I'm sure many of you did in your own various necks of the woods. I was told that, just like the kid in A Christmas Story, little Roxanne made the mistake of licking a metal strip on the front door and had to be freed with some warm water. Maddie, the Amazing Barking Dog suffered no such mishaps. She made quick work of her business trips outside. She did discover this week, that she LOVES caramel corn, as I made a batch. When I tried giving her some regular popcorn later, she spat it right back out on the floor!

From the Archives: Various snow creations from the 1990's. Snow Rabbit

Snow Bear

Little Snow Cowboy with pine mustache

Snow Dragon on Diamond Street

Recipe of the Week: I've been intending to make pizza using Granny Ruth's recipe for some time now, but just didn't get around to it until this weekend. You remember Bob's Granny Ruth, from the potato post last summer. She was married to Grandpa Harvey who loved potatoes. They got married in 1929. A few years back, I interviewed Granny for a paper that I wrote about the Great Depression. They lived out in the country and she told me sometimes she would go an entire month without seeing another human being besides Harvey. She would kill and pluck chickens for him to take into town to sell on Saturday, but she couldn't remember how much she got for them. I think she might have sold bread too. Christmas presents for family and friends during those lean years might have been walnuts or some of the better apples they had saved in their cellar. I wrote that paper for an economics class and submitted it online, and a few months later, we suffered a computer catastrophe and lost everything. I didn't have a hard copy, so I'm relying on memory. Granny Ruth was the oldest daughter in the family and she did the baking. She gave me this recipe for Pizza Hut Crust several years ago. It's kind of a strange recipe, and I don't know where she got it. I always meant to ask her about it, but never did. Here it is, as written. I'll make a couple of notes at the end.

Pizza Hut Crust

4 cups warm water

1/4 cup sugar

3 pkg dry yeast

2 teaspoons salt

10 to 12 cups flour

2 Tablespoons Parmesan cheese

1 teaspoon garlic salt

1 teaspoon oregano

3 Tablespoons butter, softened

corn meal for dusting pan

Remove 1 1/2 cups of water from the 4 cups measured. Stir in 3 tablespoons of sugar to this 1 1/2 cups of water. Dissolve the yeast in this and let stand for 5 minutes until bubble. When done, add the yeast mixture to the remaining sugar and butter and add the rest of the ingredients except cornmeal and Parmesan cheese. Add the flour mixture and remaining 2 1/2 cups of water alternately, mixing the dough until it is stiff enough to knead. Knead for 10 minutes. Place in plastic bags large enough to allow the dough to triple in size. For a 15 inch pizza, take about 2 cups of the dough. Grease a pan and dust with corn meal. Roll the dough to fit the pan. Brush the crust with oil and sprinkle with Parmesan cheese. Add sauce and desired fillings. Bake at 450 degrees for 18 to 20 minutes.

Notes:

1. Forget about measuring out 4 cups of warm water and then removing 1 1/2 cups. Just measure 1 1/2 cups of warm water and when you're ready for the rest, run another 2 1/2 cups into your measuring cup.

2. If you take 3 tablespoons out of 1/4 cup of sugar, there's not much left, maybe, like a teaspoon. I don't get this, but I play along anyway.

3. I don't put the dough in plastic bags, but allow it to rise in a big greased bowl. I also allow the crusts to rise again in the pans while I'm fixing the fillings. It makes three big pizzas in jelly roll pans, so be ready to share pizza with your neighbors, or somebody.

"If you're a cowboy and you're dragging a guy behind your horse, I bet it would really make you mad if you looked back and the guy was reading a magazine." Jack Handey