Iced out

This was supposed to be doctor day--minor surgery for Denise, early morning check-in, everything else scheduled around it. That was before we got two inches of snow and sleet. Call came in at six, just after I'd gotten up. Cancelled. Most of my other errands are probably duffed, too, though I still have to drop a package at the post office.

Now what do I do?

Valentine's tradition number one

Heart-shaped deep dish pizza!

Rocky Rococo's in La Crosse used to offer heart-shaped pizzas for Valentines. They also used to have a really good whole-wheat crust, though no longer offer that. Since the nearest Rocky's is in Spokane, I've had to reconstruct the recipe myself. This is not really a Chicago-style deep dish, maybe more Detroit? But it's soft and gooey and delicious.

Deep-Dish Pizza (per Rocky's, ca. 1981)
Sized for a 12-inch deep dish pizza pan, or heart-shaped or 9x13" cake pan.

Crust
1 cup warm water (120-130°F)
1 T honey

1 packet (2-1/4 tsp) dry yeast
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
3/4 tsp salt

1/3 cup melted butter
2 T olive oil
1 large egg

1/2 plus 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
2/3 cup whole wheat flour

Heat water in microwave until warm. Add honey. Whisk together the first set of flours, yeast and salt. Place in stand mixer with paddle attachment, and add water. Mix on low; add butter, oil and egg. Continue mixing on low 5 minutes.

Switch to dough hook, and stir in remaining flour. Mix until it forms a dough, then continue another 2 minutes. Turn out onto a floured board and knead gently four or five times. Form into a ball and slip into a clear cylinder (a large plastic pitcher works well) that you've prepared with pan spray. Cover, and mark the height of the dough with a dry-erase marker. (This makes it easy to see when the dough has doubled in volume.)

When the dough has doubled, press down, cover, and begin preparing filling.

Sauce                       
1 can (8 oz.) tomato sauce           
1 can (6 oz.) tomato paste           
12 shakes oregano               
14 shakes basil              
10 shakes red pepper flake       
1 or 2 large cloves garlic, crushed
1/2 tsp sugar
1 tsp olive oil

Toppings
1/2 lb. mozzarella, divided
5-6 button mushrooms, white or cremini
1/2 lb sweet Italian sausage
1/2 cup grated parmesan

Preheat the oven to 375° F. Whisk together sauce and set aside. Shred about a third of the mozzarella; thinly slice the rest. Slice the mushrooms.

When dough has doubled in size the second time, press out into a buttered 12" deep-dish pizza pan, flat all the way to the edges. Arranged sliced mozzarella on bottom in a single layer. Spread sauce over the entire bottom, cheese, crust, everything (there will probably be some sauce left over). Lay on the mushrooms, distributed evenly, then add the sausage, arranging little blobs every inch or two. Top with shredded mozzarella, then sprinkle the parmesan on top of that.

Bake 40 minutes at 375°, until golden. Let stand 5 minutes before slicing. It will be wonderfully messy and gooey, with a thick, soft crust.

Valentine's tradition number two

Well, Valentine's, anniversary, sometimes even birthdays: we make art together! Sometimes clay-related, more often a paper or bookbinding project. We've done woodcuts, mono-prints, gelli-prints, paste-papers. One of these days, we'll break out the paper marbling kit. This time, though, we did something called paper batik. It's a multi-step process that yields some very cool results. I used it on the cover of last fall's Inktober sketchbook.

The first step: rubber stamp patterns onto brown kraft paper--recycled paper bags--or possibly while recycle, we cut up a bread bag as well. I have a lot of carved-eraser stamps, so decided to try a bunch of those this year. We also have some from the workshop where we learned the technique, made from craft foam sheets.

Next, color over the sheets with wax crayons. Denise has a jumbo set of Crayolas, so we had plenty of colors to choose from. You can color over the stamps, or around them, your choice. I tend to go over, Denise around.

Brush a thin wash of colored acrylic paint over the whole page. It will bead up on the crayon, soak in uncovered parts, maybe darken your stamped images if you didn't color over them. I used purple on the whale sheet.

On a big patchwork bunny sheet, I used blue with a tiny bit of silver. If you look close, you can see the sparkle.

Once they're thoroughly dry, seal the entire surface by rubbing over with a tablet of beeswax.

Now they're ready to wrap book board for covers, reinforce spines, maybe use to cover boxes? Will have to experiment.

Speaking of experiments

I found an old box of oil pastels while looking for my watercolor palette, so Denise tried them in place of crayons on her last sheet. Very bright, very resistant to the paint wash. And they seemed to take the wax coat all right as well.

So many cats

I really seem to have a lot of hand-carved cat stamps. Can't imagine why...