25 Hour Learning Challenge Part IV

We're feeling much better about this challenge!  In my quest for the perfect homemade pizza my mentee and I reached out to a few more folks for their suggestions. He scoured some cooking blogs and I called some friends. We both got the advice to pre-heat the pizza stone for about an hour in the oven on 500 degrees before cooking the pizza. We were told this would make a delicious, crispy, restaurant style pizza crust- which has been our challenge all along! So.... back to the kitchen we go!

                                               We used the same recipe for the dough

                                         And roasted tomatoes with TONS of garlic again 

Browned the sausage

 Made the sauce

        This time we decided to do as the Italians do 

     and throw the pizza to shape it. This was my 

        son's idea (he read it in a blog) and it turned out

          to be a lot easier to shape the pizza and it was more fun! :)

                     Their carnivore pizza- on parchment paper on the pre-heated pizza stone

       My veggie- pesto pizza on a baking sheet with no parchment paper

                                                             After only 7 minutes!

                                         Veggie pizza- slightly overcooked but that's ok by me

                                                                We got a crispy crust!

                                                                      Thumbs Up!

And again! 

So, a few changes were made during the challenge this week. The goal was to make a crispy restaurant style crust and by reaching out to family, friends, websites, blogs, pinterest and youtube videos, my mentee and I feel like we were successful. In the beginning I was overcome by all of the possibilities. How do I narrow it down to the perfect recipe when blogs all guarantee this is the best recipe ever and friends I'm talking to over Skype or face to face tell me the same thing? Choosing to the try recipes that had the highest numbers of positive comments and saves was a way to narrow it down. Not only does online collaboration give you ideas, tools, step by step directions, videos and photos to assist in whatever your endeavor may be, you also have the benefit of not making the same mistakes others before you have made. Recipes often need to be modified so I took the time to read over peoples' comments to see what worked and didn't work for them which saved me a lot of time with trial and error. 

As I was perusing blogs of chefs I like to watch on tv, I took note of the professional digital identities they have created. Some have thousands of followers on their blogs, Twitter and Pinterest accounts.   Quite impressive and I imagine they have some help to keep all of their accounts updated and accurate.  Over the course of this challenge I've had some time to consider my digital identity as well. I am quite content being known by just my close friends and family but I also have to admit that I had fun creating this blog. It was a lot easier than I had expected and I only scratched the surface as far as what could be done to enhance the images and make it more appealing. I love to cook and wondered what it would be like to create a blog that got enough followers and attention to have advertising and bring in an income. How fun that would be! 

My digital footprint has obviously increased now that I have created a blog. Before this learning challenge I also thought I was pretty savvy about internet searches and what was out there but I've learned much more through my research and even from my teenage mentee so I feel like I have a better understanding of the options available to me through online collaboration. For instance, I know that I prefer Google search engines over Explorer, I've learned how to better organize my online recipe collections and offer my own feedback when I try a new recipe. Since I now realize the value in sharing this information anonymously, I will take the time to be more of a contributor instead of a casual searcher. It's also clear to me now just how much time it takes these bloggers to post and share in the hopes that they will receive feedback from those that follow their blog. I can put myself if their shoes and see the importance of leaving a quick comment to show appreciation or pipe in on a conversation they have started. Without participation and feedback people would most likely not continue to make the effort. We need the audience in order to feel like what we're doing online matters. 

Bloggers, Tweeters, and website contributors all share what they know or what they've experienced with their online followers. My blog is accessible to anyone and like countless other blogs, it adds to an online learning community. It's not one that I believe would really be worth sharing at the moment but I feel like the increased footprint has taught me the skills to possibly create a teaching blog that I would like to share with colleagues one day. Since we'll be living in Italy, it could certainly be one to share my personal and professional growth and adventures ( with pizza included of course)! 

                                                   

25 Hour Learning Challenge Part IV

The pizza dough was ready after being in the fridge for a few days so my tasks this week were to come up with sauce recipes and get the toppings and make the pizzas! My absolute favorite sauce is pesto but the usual recipe calls for pine nuts but they are very expensive so I thought I'd try walnuts instead. We lived in Italy when I was growing up and I thought my mom would have a good recipe on hand so I Skyped with her and she gave me the recipe she uses (which calls for pine nuts) so I checked online and decided to try one from a blog, Once Upon a Chef. 

  I used fresh basil

      And walnuts and garlic

       To make a paste

And added olive oil to make the sauce

My boys are not fans of pesto however, so I knew I was going to need to create a traditional pizza sauce for them. Surprisingly, my teenage son has been helping me out a lot in the kitchen lately so I asked him if he'd like to help me to make the pizza sauce and he was all for it. He looked up a few recipes and chose one from allrecipes.com . We talked about the fact that you can read reviews from people who have tried the recipe before and this can help you to decide if you want to modify the recipe or try it at all. I really value these comments because it saves me time and money often -learning from other people's mistakes.  We had all of the ingredients for the sauce so we got to work. 

Lots of spices! 

The sauce needed to sit for a while to blend all of the flavors.

In the meantime we rolled out the pizza dough.....

Back to my pizza- I also LOVE oven-roasted tomatoes on a pizza so I decided to cut up some cherry tomatoes and add garlic and balsamic vinegar and roast them. Dee.Lish. 

Then it was time to put it all together..

And into the oven they go! 

We baked each pizza for ten minutes on 500 degrees F. The meat pizza was on a pizza stone and the pesto pizza was on a baking pan. I was curious to see how different the crusts would turn out using the two different baking methods. 

                                                              

     And here we are 10 minutes later!

                   These pizzas were delicious but we still have some work to do.

 Problems:

                   My younger son did not like the traditional sauce very much. He thought it was too spicy and sweet. The crust for my pizza was not as crispy as I would have liked so I decided to send a facebook message to a friend of mine in Okinawa who made homemade pizzas all the time. I asked her what her secret was to a crispy pizza crust. Preheating the pizza stone at 500 degrees for about 30 minutes before putting the crust on the pizza was her answer! I never even thought of that and never read that in any of the blogs I consulted. My boys prefer a thick crust but they did say they would like it if were a little crispier. I wish I had contacted her sooner!

My collaborations throughout this process were very helpful. I was able to read reviews of recipes to help me to decide how I wanted to proceed. I appreciated my Mom's advice on a pesto recipe but knew I wanted to try something just a little different. I would have loved to have had my Okinawan friend readily available to ask about her pizza crust secret recipe but the time change is a problem so I had to wait until she was available to get her advice. 

Collaboration, even for a fun and simple project like this, is so important to me because I know that the advice I get from others ( and some trial and error on my own ) will bring me closer to making that perfect pizza one day. 

The fact that my son so enthusiastically agreed to be my mentee is another bonus in this process. He loves pizza more than life itself so I know he's going to be eager to help and offer his encouragement and constructive criticism throughout this learning experience.

So, the next challenge in this process is to create the perfect pizza crust. A delicious challenge it is! 

Step 1- The Pizza Crust!!!

To begin my quest for the perfect homemade pizza- I started with the crust. I asked one of my foodie friends for her crust recipe and surprisingly enough she uses the refrigerated dough! I would normally probably do the same but I want this pizza to built from scratch- start to finish. :)

I checked Pinterest and allrecipes.com for a recipes but many of them called for bread flour which I didn't have so I chose a recipe from the Pioneer Woman using all purpose flour. The Pioneer woman is a blogger and has her own cooking show. The food she makes on her show always looks so dee.lish so I thought I'd give her recipe a try. 

                                   First, I mixed the dry ingredients- flour and salt

Then I slowly added the olive oil to the dry ingredients. It says you should use a mixer but I don't have one so this batter was mixed by hand. 

Warm water and yeast is next. 

And mix a lot...

And viola! I have pizza crust dough! This will be enough for 2 pizzas when I make them- so I'll be doing a veggie for me and a meat lovers for my carnivorous family. 

Cover and refrigerate for 3 days. You can use the crust in 24 hours but the Pioneer Woman says the crust is much better if it's allowed to sit for 3-4 days so that's just what I'll do! 

Well, easy enough to start! I would say the only obstacle for me on this first step was to choose the recipe to use. There are so many out there and all claim to be the best crust recipe EVER and the crust is pretty important I think! Blogs, cooking shows, and youtube videos make cooking so incredibly easy with step by step directions and videos these days. If this pizza doesn't turn out- I really only have myself to blame. ;-)

I want to learn how to.......

Create the most perfect homemade pizza that my entire family will eat! 

You might think this would be a pretty easy task but not so for this household. In my family, we each like something a little different for our pizza and I am still looking for the "just right" recipe that will make everyone happy. Our challenges are that I am a vegetarian and prefer thin crust pizza and my boys prefer heavy meat and thick crust and my husband is trying to lose weight. 

I plan to use these resources to help me in my quest: 

Pinterest (pinterest.com) 

Food Network TV (either by watching an episode or accessing foodnetwork.com)

Opinions from Foodie Friends

Rachel Ray Everyday Meals cookbook

How will I know I have succeeded? 

When my family give it the thumbs up, I like it too... and I haven't spent more than I would have at a gourmet pizza restaurant! 

Special Teacher & Reflection

My first entry will be about my wonderful fifth grade teacher, Mr. Monahan. My family and I lived in San Diego for a short time and I was fortunate enough to have been placed in Mr. Monahan's class. Not only was he an excellent, caring teacher.. he was also a role model that I still remember today. Mr. Monahan had Multiple Sclerosis and had difficulty walking. He didn't let this slow him down as he was still outside playing basketball with us at recess and walking us all the way down to Baskin Robbins for ice cream on Fridays. This was a class reward for good behavior and working hard in school. When the teachers in CA threatened to go on strike, I overheard him telling my parents that he sure hoped it didn't happen because he was going to continue to teach his class- he was there for the kids- and he truly was.

A recent reflection would have been nearly one year ago when I packed up my classroom to move from Japan to the U.S. Although I had only been in my classroom for five years, it was very difficult to box everything up and say goodbye to my students, parents, and colleagues. These were my first five years of teaching and I had learned so much. From a frantic first year teacher, not even sure what questions to ask, to a fifth year teacher just understanding what it was all about but still working way too hard! My students taught me so much about the art of teaching and about myself. There were countless games, stories read, science experiments, birthday parties, laughs and tears, songs sung, and projects completed inside those walls. Before I handed over my key I stopped to sit a while and reflect upon the wonderful times and consider what I would do differently the next time I had a classroom. I know that I would like to slow down for a moment. The classroom was often a whirl-wind of activities and I never felt like we spent as much time sharing and studying topics in depth as we should have. There was constant pressure to keep up with the curriculum and it often felt rushed. I would not change my style of teaching as that is just who I am.. but I hope to stop and enjoy the moment more often when given my next chance.

Mr. Monahan was a teacher that knew the importance of making memorable school experiences. Yes, we worked hard in his class but he understood there needed to be a balance and even with his disability, he showed us all that you can do anything and have a good time doing it. He enjoyed teaching and it showed. He was happy to see us everyday and cared about us as individuals. I would love to be the teacher my students remember fondly, like Mr. Monahan.