Killer Homemade Pizza...

...made with all local ingredients!  It was delicious!  Harry and I make pizza at home often.  Having a breadmaker makes it so easy.  The dough comes together in minutes and it freezes beautifully! 

Anyway, last week we had all these fantastic local ingredients and we thought the best way to make excellent use of them was to make pizza!  We had:

Delicious homemade, local beef sausage which I sauteed and drained

Locally made mozzarella cheese, shredded

Local tomatoes (not mine, yet, but I got these at the farmer's market) and my basil.  Tomatoes thickly slice and basil julienned

Homemade pizza dough, defrosted

And homemade pizza sauce.

Here are all the ingredients, prepped and ready to go!

First, preheat the oven to 450F with the pizza stone on the bottom rack of the oven.  Preheat the stone for at least one hour.

I rolled out the pizza dough, topped it with a little sauce and the cooked sausage.

Topped that with the tomatoes and basil

Smothered the entire pizza in freshly grated mozzarella AND Parmigianno Regianno

Then popped the whole thing into the oven and onto the hot stone for about 17 minutes and Voila...we had pizza!!  Incredibly delicious...who needs take out?! :)

 Buon Appetito!

Kitchen Garden Herbs

Where would a gardener be without a kitchen herb garden?  I would be lost without mine as I use fresh herbs in my cooking every single day.

Even during the dead of winter, I have herbs on my back patio.  These are usually the hardiest herbs:  thyme, rosemary, bay leaf and maybe a few chives.  But come the spring, it's time to rejuvenate the herbs and plant fresh seasonal ones.  Usually all I do to revive my herbs is add fresh compost to the pot; mix it into the existing dirt and water well.  That's pretty much all it takes to revive the herbs.  That mixed with warm spring sunshine and before you know it, the herbs are growing strong and standing tall.  Here's what I have on my back patio right now:

Lemon thyme

Lemon thyme

Old thyme plant that comes back every year.  I bet this plant is 6 or 7 years old.  It looks kind of trashy now, but it comes back full and lush in just a couple of months.

An old sage plant that I thought was dead till I looked closely and saw this brand new growth. I love it when that happens!

New sage plant

New rosemary plant, although my old one is still alive and producing well.  

An old bay leaf plant that got some frost damage, but a little pruning does wonders in bringing it back to life.

Another old plant~~my chives.  Again, I bet this plant is at least 5 or 6 years old.  And it comes back every year without fail.  

My old peppermint plant.  You just can't kill this baby!

And these are two old parsley plants and they, too, come back every year.  My problem with parsley is that the plant can't keep up with how much I use it.  I use *a lot* of parsley! 

Additionally, I planted a full pot of sweet Genovese basil and a full pot of purple ruffled basil...I mean, where or where would an herb garden be without sweet basil?!  :) This is also one of my favorite times of the season...when I can pick fresh basil again!  It's like going all winter without fresh tomatoes and NO basil.  It's torture, but oh so sweet when the spring and summer finally produce these two quintessential summer staples.

It really doesn't take a lot of effort or time to grow a kitchen herb garden.  And the rules (if you want to call them that) are simple:  grow what you like to eat!