Kids & Kindness

Happy Monday Everyone!

This blog isn't about gluten free pizza ;) but rather something I came across today called "100 Ways to be Kind to your Children" from CreativeWithKids.com. I just really liked it and wanted to share with you all. There are some great ideas.

Have a great week!

Stacy

P.S. What about Bachelorette!? Can you believe it!!? Poor sweet Arie! Maybe the next Bachelor? ;)

http://creativewithkids.com/100-ways-to-be-kind-to-your-child/

Tell to your child:

1. I love you.
2. love you no matter what.
3. I love you even when you are angry at me.
4. I love you even when I am angry with you.
5. I love you when you are far way. My love for you can reach you wherever you are.
6. If I could pick any 4 year old (5 year old, 6 year old…) in the whole wide world, I’d pick you.
7. I love you to the moon and then around the stars and back again.
8. Thank you.
9. I enjoyed playing with you today.
10. My favorite part of the day was when I was with you and we were _______.

Tell them:
11. The story of their birth or adoption.
12. About how you cuddled them when they were a baby.
13. The story of how you chose their name.
14. A story about yourself when you were their age.
15. A story about how their grandparents met.
16. What your favorite color is.
17. That sometimes you struggle too.
18. That when you’re holding hands and you give three squeezes, it’s a secret code that means, “I love you”.
19. What the plan is.
20. What you’re doing right now.
Play:
21. Freeze Tag
22. Uno
23. Crazy 8s
24. Gin Rummy
25. Memory
26. Go Fish
27. I Spy- especially when you’re tired of driving and feel snappish
28. Catch

Pretend:
29. To catch their kiss and put it on your cheek.
30. That their tickle tank is empty and you have to fill it.
31. That their high five is so powerful it nearly knocks you over.
32. That you are super ticklish.
33. That you are explorers in the amazing new world of your backyard.
34. That it’s party day! Decorate for no reason!

Try:
35. To get enough sleep.
36. To drink enough water.
37. To eat decent food.
38. Wearing earrings, or whatever makes you feel pretty.
39. Calling a friend the next time you feel like you are about to lose it with the kids.
40. Giving a gentle touch to show approval, rather than saying something.
41. Dancing in the kitchen.
42. To get your kids to bop to the music with you in the car.
43. Showing your kids that you can do a somersault or handstand or a cartwheel.
44. Keeping that sigh to yourself. Just jump in and help clean up cheerfully.
45. Using a kind voice, even if you have to fake it.

Read:
46. A book of silly poems.
47. A book and then act it out. (Like “I’m going on a Bear Hunt”)
48. Your favorite childhood book to them.
49. When the afternoon is starting to go astray.
50. Outside under a tree.
51. In the library kids corner.
52. The comic book they love that you’re not so hot on.
53. About age appropriate behavior so you can keep your expectations realistic.

Listen:
54. To your child in the car.
55. To that Lego description, and think how important it is to your child.
56. For that question that indicates your child really needs your input.
57. One second longer than you think you have patience for.
58. For the feelings behind your child’s words.

Ask:
59. Why do you think that happens?
60. What do you think would happen if______?
61. How shall we find out?
62. What are you thinking about?
63. What was your favorite part of the day?
64. What do you think this tastes like?

Show:
65. Your child how to do something instead of banning them from it.
66. How to whistle with a blade of grass.
67. How to shuffle cards- make a bridge if you can!
68. How to cut food.
69. How to fold laundry.
70. How to look up information when you don’t know the answer.
71. Affection to your spouse.
72. That taking care of yourself is important.

Take Time:
73. To watch construction sites.
74. To look at the birds.
75. To allow your child to help you dump ingredients in the bowl.
76. To walk places together.
77. To dig in the dirt together.
78. To do a task at your child’s pace.
79. To just sit with you child while they play.

Trust:
80. That your child is capable.
81. That you are the right parent for your child.
82. That you are enough.
83. That you can do what is right for your family.

Delight your child:
84. Clean your child’s room as a surprise.
85. Put chocolate chips in the pancakes.
86. Put a love note in their lunch.
87. Make their snack into a smile face shape.
88. Make sounds effects while you help them do something.
89. Sit on the floor with them to play.

Let Go:
90. Of the guilt.
91. Of how you thought it was going to be.
92. Of your need to be right.

Give:
93. A look with Kind Eyes to your child.
94. A smile when your child walks into the room.
95. A kind touch back when your child touches you.
96. The chance to connect before you correct so that your child can actually hear your words.
97. Your child a chance to work out their frustrations before helping them.
98. A bath when the day feels long.
99. A hug.
100. You get to choose the next one! What is your favorite way to be kind to your child?

Kelowna Pizza

Did you miss me? I was very busy vacationing ;) We just came back from sunny Kelowna. Similar to every other trip we’ve taken out to Southern BC, we decided we’d like to move there. Haha….maybe someday! There’s just something about that lifestyle. Sunny summers on the water…being able to grow so much of your own food in your backyard…and all that WINE so close! Sign me up!

During this trip with my sisters (their husbands) and parents, we were all responsible for making one dinner over the week. Of course, I made pizza! For this round, I decided to try making my own pizza sauce AND I am reporting findings tomorrow on a Gluten Free Crust as well.

I made my sauce from two types of tomatoes: One type was roma and the other was an on-the-vine organic tomato. What I can tell you, is that you need a LOT of tomatoes to make any good quantity of sauce, and I needed more than what I made for the three pizza’s I had to cover. For me, pizza is really about the sauce. (I think this may have to be the focus for the rest of the YOP). Anyway, the Roma tomatoes were the best to use because the skin peeled off soooo easily – just like they were meant to become pizza sauce! After I had de-seeded and de-skinned these tomatoes using a blanching method (such as noted here: http://allrecipes.com/howto/peeling-tomatoes/) I put them into the pan I used earlier to caramelize my onions – hoping to get some extra flavour from that. I then added some extra virgin olive oil and garlic. I let it cook down for a couple of hours and added some torn basil to the sauce towards the end.

For the regular (non-gluten free crusts) I used the Double 00 flour (Molino Soncini Cesare Pizza Flour “Flour Type 00 of Soft Wheat”) that I mentioned before. It really is the best flour that I have found to use. It allows the dough to have more elasticity than plain old all-purpose flour does. (And this time I also added some dried basil and oregano to the dough). But to be honest, I still don’t know how the hell those pizza experts get it to go nearly paper thin without it breaking. I must not be doing something right.

But in order to really know this (and share with you my exact recipe) I should have written everything down as I was making it. And here lies my biggest problem about food blogging, which I was going to write about anyway later on but since it seems relevant here, why not? I just fly by the seat of my pants people (for the most part). I generally go by how things look, how things are tasting, and how they are baking/cooking in the oven or on the stove. For baking this is more of an issue than cooking, but not THAT much. Generally, I look up a few recipes for something that I want to make and then just go for it. Sometimes, I chose more elements of one recipe over another – but they usually are a mish-mash. And, as you can imagine….sometimes that works out for me, sometimes it doesn’t. I figure that for something like pizza dough, as long as you add the obvious ingredients (making sure they are good quality) that the real issue is consistency. I think you know if more flour should be added by feel and not just because the recipe calls for it. You may remember that in my last attempt, I followed a recipe exactly and there was just too much flour.

So on that note, I am about to show you some photos of this pizza making adventure (including a homemade pizza sauce) and you may be disappointed that I don’t have the recipe available, but let’s look at it as food porn. We all love to look at photos of food but don’t always make the stuff we’re looking at. How many of those Pinterest recipes on your boards have you ACTUALLY made?? ;) 

Tomato Preparation

Taking an ice bath

Going for a good long sweat ;)

 

The flour with a few herbs

Dough before it's "rest"

Dough! After resting. Good nap!

Stretching of the dough

Adding Toppings

Cooked Pies!

One pizza I made sausage and mushroom, and the other was a Greek vegetarian. I have ‘loosely’ noted what went in to everything below…

Sausage & Mushroom
-homemade pizza sauce
-cooked up sausage meat (I used Mild Italian)
-sautéed mushrooms
-cheese (4 cheese combo – lazy route)

Greek Vegetarian

-homemade pizza sauce
-chopped spinach
-tomatoes
-red onion
-caramelized white onions
-feta cheese

Homemade Pizza Sauce
-about 12 de-skinned and deseeded tomatoes (use roma)
-1/4 cup EVOO
-couple handfuls shredded basil
-couple cloves of garlic

(Cook them down until the consistence of sauce – took me a couple hours)

I’ll write more about the gluten free crust tomorrow…or the next day….It’s summertime you know ;)