The gift that keeps giving

So now that work is over and my break has truly begun, I have kicked off the baking frenzy.

What truly kicked off the baking bug was Diane's gift to me - a beautiful pizza stone and peel set, so I can make pizza and bread from scratch!

So today I made a margherita pizza, such as we enjoyed in Naples on our honeymoon. And I have to say, it was delicioso. Thanks, Diane! I looked up a good dough recipe online,

I also made a grasshopper pie, although I don't really know what made me want to make it. I think I was looking through my Better Homes & Gardens cookbook, and the grasshopper pie was always something I wanted to make, with its chocolate-minty goodness.

It was fun to make, too: over a double-boiler, I melted a package of marshmallows with some milk.


Then when that cooled, I mixed in some creme de menthe and creme de cacao. These were sort of hard to find, and we had to buy a whole bunch of it. Therefore, we will be having grasshopper martinis for some time.

Then I whipped up some whipping cream and folded in the marshmallow / menthe / cacao mixture. Pour that into a pie crust, and you're almost done. (I had a lot left over, so I put the rest in cupcake thingies.)

The last garnish for the pie was a big pile of chocolate curls, which was fun to do and made the pie look super fancy.


Amanda and Ed came over and enjoyed all of these goodies - and it was good to see them. We were all sort of coming out of our holiday haze, but it was nice to catch up. We still have to go down and check out their new house!

Anyway, time to go watch Lord of the Rings with Dave. And maybe have another piece of grasshopper pie.