"Pickey Nose"

Sounds disgusting, right? Well, Sara's new fascination is with Mickey Mouse. Most of the time she'll get it to sound correct, but tonight I heard her say something that very much sounded like "pickey nose". I immediately started checking her fingers and face to see if everything was clean and okay. I finally clued myself in when she ran over to the shelf with the movies and pointed to one that had Mickey on the cover. Loving the parrot stage of this toddler... :P

Pizza Fridays - BBQ Chicken (and Bacon)

Earlier this year we started doing pizza Fridays at our house (when we're home). We throw the dough ingredients into the bread machine for mixing, then we roll them out, add sauce and toppings (purchased in bulk at Sam's Club) and stick them in the oven. We've tried several variations including adding herbs to the dough, treating the outer crust to butter, garlic, parmesan cheese, and herbs. After our vacation we decided to branch out and try something other than our typical pepperoni and ham/pineapple toppings. Heather came across a BBQ Chicken pizza recipe in a local recipe book that we tried (and modified) which turned out pretty tasty.

The original recipe included a dough recipe, as well as the topping. I'll only be including the topping - I think any favorite dough recipe or store-bought pizza dough would do fine.

2-3 chicken breasts, diced

1/2 green pepper, diced

1/2 red pepper, diced

1 3/4 c. bottled barbeque sauce

3 - 4 c. mozzarella or pizza cheese

Cook chicken in frying pan (sprinkle with garlic salt while cooking). Set aside. Sauté peppers until crisp-tender. Add chicken and barbeque sauce to peppers and heat through. Spread chicken topping over partially cooked pizza dough and top with cheese. Cook until cheese is melted and beginning to brown. Makes one pizza.

Original recipe credits to Kara Knapp, Mapleton, UT

Most of my family and friends know that I enjoy playing around with recipes and inventing a little - I just couldn't leave this one alone because I felt it needed more that just a BBQ sauce with bell pepper flavor added. For those that are interested, here's my interpretation of the recipe above...

Caleb's BBQ Chicken Pizza Topping

2-3 chicken breasts

1/2 green bell pepper, sliced

1/2 red bell pepper, sliced

1/2 sweet onion, sliced

1 1/2 cups BBQ sauce (we currently prefer Sweet Baby Ray's)

about 1 cup water

1/2 lb. package bacon, cooked and crumbled

2 - 3 c. pizza cheese

Step 1 - Chicken

Grill option:  Prepare chicken breasts with pepper and garlic salt to taste. Grill on medium heat until done. Slice against the grain into 1/8 to 1/4 inch pieces. Large pieces may need to be cut in half.

Pan option:  Slice uncooked chicken into 1/8 to 1/4 inch pieces. Large pieces may need to be cut in half. Season chicken with pepper, and garlic salt to taste. Preheat 1-2 tbsp vegetable oil in pan and cook over medium heat. Remove from pan and set aside.

Step 2 - Peppers

Preheat 1 tbsp vegetable oil in pan. Over med-high heat, sauté peppers until crisp-tender (about 5 minutes).

Step 3 - Sauce

Combine chicken, peppers in pan over med heat. Add BBQ sauce. Slowly mix in water until the BBQ sauce is about the consistency of tomato sauce or slightly more runny.

(Due to the varied consistency of BBQ sauce, add more or less BBQ sauce or water depending on the sauce you use. If you add too much water, just boil the sauce a little longer.)

Step 4 - Top the Pizza

Makes 2 pizzas for the amount of sauce/topping we like - do more if you prefer. Add the BBQ chicken mixture to the pizza crust. Add onions and bacon for texture and flavors. Top with cheese. Cook until cheese is melted and beginning to brown.

If you try it out, let me know what you think or changes you try. I think I'd try this without sautéed peppers and just put them on the top raw (like the onions).


Our next Pizza Friday adventure will likely be along the lines of chicken or spinach alfredo or something similar. If that one turns out we'll be sure to share it as well.

Summer Vacation - Part 3 (finally!)

So you might be wondering why it has taken so long for this last post. Well, not long after my first two posts i get very distracted with the family coming home, projects, vacation recovery, and other things that I hope we'll be able to post about in the near future. The largest impact to my posting was a recent hard drive crash which caused me to replace and rebuild my operating system. If you can't get the computer to run, you can't access pictures and post a blog...

So finally I get to share some of our beach pictures. This was one of the main reasons we decided to take some extra time on this SC trip. When we found out that Michele was getting married out that way we announced to Heather's family that we intended to go to the beach as well. We started coordinating the beach trip back in February with Heather's brother Paul (my age) and his wife Alexis and family. By the time we would go to the beach we had Ben's family and David's family as well.

We booked a beachfront hotel called the Ocean Reef resort in Myrtle Beach and got a good rate because we booked in February. We checked in on Sunday afternoon and arrived at about the same time as the other families. We had a two bedroom condo unit to ourselves with full kitchen, washer/dryer, 2 baths, and a few TVs for the few times we were inside with kids/etc. (I caught a couple world cup soccer matches)

Here's the view from our room that evening and the next morning before the crowds came in:

Also knowing that we'd be at the beach, and how much Heather and I love the beach, we decided it would be a good time to do some family pictures. Alexis has a nice camera similar tom mine, so we asked her if she would take some pictures of our family that evening (before the sunburn hit and while we had energy for it). Here are a few pictures that were taken:

Because of the chaos of kids at the beach, an approaching storm, and fading light, there were a number of pictures taken, but hair was out of place, people were looking different ways, and the lighting was a little funny. Most pictures turned out to be a little dark and blue like in the picture of Heather and I up above (which I have not yet taken into Photoshop). I played a little with the family picture and we got a pretty great shot. I'll  do a separate post on the Photoshop work I did on the lighting and Bryant's head in a later post. Couldn't tell, could you?!

I mentioned the storm... Storms in South Carolina come in fast and with lots of rain. By the time we were done with pictures the storm was close with lightning and thunder. They closed the hotel pool so we decided to put the kids to bed and play some games. Alexis pulled out her camera and we tried to capture some lightning with a timed exposure and here's one of the pictures that turned out.

The next morning was clear and calm. We had great weather for the rest of the week which we didn't complain about one bit. Our days at the beach went pretty much like this - wake up, eat breakfast, go to the beach for a few hours, come inside for lunch, some kids down for naps and others to the pool, dinner, then back to the beach for the rest of the day. Here are some pictures of us having fun...

For those that have not been to a beach on the east coast, the water is warm and pleasant with the current coming from the warm Gulf of Mexico - unlike the cold Pacific current which comes south from Alaska. The waves were fairly calm, but big enough at times to body board - which we did.

I heart waves...

Digging in the sand to construct a sand castle with kids playing in the distant waves. This was one of our regular evening activities.

Sara was a little timid with the waves, and was often found sitting in the shallows with Heather, playing in the sand, finding shells, shark teeth, and other sea treasures.

Kaylee showing off her shells.

Fun pictures...

A view from the condo balcony at the pool below....

And to wrap up the beach pictures, a series I took of Sara as a wave came in and caught her off guard. She and her cousin, Sabrina (Paul and Alexis 2nd), were playing in the sand...

We loved every minute at the beach and wish we could do this more frequently. We stayed Sunday to Thursday and then drove to wrap up my leg of the trip at Heather's brother Joseph's house. We went swimming with them a couple times (surprise) as well as other daytime activities. We got to spend some time with another brother, Sam, while there as well.

Overall, with everything that could have been chaotic and not much fun, I had a great time and it was a true break from work - one that I have not experienced since I started working after graduating. Two full weeks of near detachment and recharging did me well.

I flew home on Father's Day (best day ever since I didn't have to drive home!) and Nate was kind enough to pick me up at the airport. Went back to his place for dinner and to pick up my car and make my way home.