Homemade Spaghetti/Pizza Sauce

Last Tuesday, I shared with you a pizza recipe, so today I am sharing with you a homemade spaghetti/pizza sauce. This was my first time EVER making a homemade sauce and it was SO simple! I will never buy store bought sauces again. There was enough sauce to use on the pizza and two nights worth of spaghetti dinners. Did I mention it was super good and simple?

Give it a try! :)

Ingredients

• 1 Tbsp olive oil
• 1 large garlic clove (diced)
• ½ small Vidalia onion (diced)
• 4 Campari tomatoes (diced) OR 14 oz can diced tomato
• 28 oz pureed tomatoes
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• ½ tsp onion powder
• ½ tsp garlic powder
• 1 tsp sugar
• Crushed red pepper (optional, to taste)
• ½ tsp salt (plus more to taste)

Directions

• Chop up garlic, onions, and tomatoes
• Olive oil and chopped garlic in a medium sauce pan
• Rub garlic around the pan and then turn the heat onto medium-high
• Add in the onions
• Then add in the diced tomatoes
• Next add in the pureed tomatoes
• Stir well and bring to boil
• Add spices: oregano, onion powder, garlic powder, sugar, crushed peppers (to taste), and salt (to taste)
• Reduce heat to low simmer
• Allow sauce to simmer for at least 15 minutes 
• Place over spaghetti or dough for pizza

5 Steps to Visualizing your DREAM Life

If you are anything like us, you long for and dream of what we call the million dollar view.... the view of farm fields and beautiful countryside right out your door. We are working hard to make this dream a reality and we want to share with you the tools and strategies we have learned and are implementing to help us make this dream a reality.  Are you fired up yet?

GREAT! Let's get you started then.....

Our first tip and strategy.....

VISUALIZE 

Yes, visualize! We are giving you the go ahead to let your mind wonder and daydream. How cool is that!?! 

Step #1: Find a quiet and comfortable spot. I like to lay outside and stare up at the clouds on a sunny day or visualize before I go to sleep at night, but you can go where ever your special place is at in your home. 

Step #2: Clear your mind! I know this can be a difficult task for most of us when we always seem to have so much on your minds; what's for dinner, work stress, the kids, etc. But this is a time for YOU to think about you and your dreams. Let those thoughts and worry go. 

Step #3: After you have cleared your mind with your thoughts, close your eyes and think about your dream home and  land. Be specific! What color is your home? What does the land look like? Do you have crops? If so, what kind? How many acres do you want? Is it on a dirt road or paved road? Long driveway or short? Porch or no porch? I think you get the idea. 

If you  are already living in the country, visualize your dream life or the dream projects you want to accomplish on your farm, land, or house. 

Step #4: Have FUN! Yes, this is meant to be an enjoyable experience, so let loose and enjoy. Have fun with the process and dreaming about your house and land. DREAM BIG! Don't let allow objections, negativity, worry or fear in your head. There is no room for them today. Think positively and have fun! 

Step #5: Draw or write about your vision. We keep a notebook for our drawings and writings. This notebook is just for our visions. This will help you to remember your vision which will help you stay focused and motivated. 

So I bet you are wondering why this is important? Visualizing your dreams helps you to be focused on what you are working towards. It's your final destination of this adventure you are embarking on and we need to always know where we are going in order to be successful. 

Visualizing your final destination helps you to stay motivated. When those bad days full of fear, worry, and doubt rear their ugly head, you can fight back with your visualizations. Being focused and positive is crucial to making your dream life a reality. YOU deserve this life, so get started visualizing today!

We recommend doing this at least once a week, visualizing with purpose and being present and mindful. This will help you stay even more focused. Set a day and time each week to do this. It's also a great idea to reflect on your week after your visualization. What did you accomplish this week that put you closer to making this a reality? What got in your way or put you further away from your dream life this week? Add this reflection to your notebook each week as well.  

Corn Bins and Barn Wood

What  makes for the best weekend ever?

 A fallen barn, wooden corn bins, trucks and Ed makes for the best weekend EVER! 

We got the go ahead to head over to a family friend's barn and dig through what was left of their fallen barn. Say What!?! We get to spend our Saturday going through old barn wood.  YES!!!!

This was definitely the highlight of my weekend. The barn was originally taken down about 4 or 5 years ago. The people collected the wood they wanted and left. They were suppose to clean up the rest of the wood and didn't, but hey, this only meant there would be wood for Ed and I to go through years later.  So grateful they didn't take it all, otherwise we wouldn't have the opportunity too.

Lots of wood was already rotted and was no good, but we pulled out 1 truck load of wood that we can use for our upcoming projects. We also found an old wooden box and still have a pile waiting for us to pick up. Each piece was hand selected by us and will be used for some really neat projects!

Not only did we get to go through the barn wood, but we also were able to take down the corn bin. The corn had amazingly perfect weathered wood on it. The whole corn bin was able to be salvaged and used later, so we took it down and added the wood to our pile. I can't wait to see how this wood will be used in our projects. It is going to look AMAZING! :)

Be on the LOOK OUT for projects in our Etsy store!

Pizza-A-Dough Dough

So I have been honing in on my cooking skills and I must say I have surely surprised myself. I am learning how to cook and bake like my grandma use to do... everything from scratch! And to my astonishment and amazement, I am a pretty darn good cook! Who know! ;)

I made this super delicious pizza and it was SO mouth watering good... I can't wait to make it again. In honor of it being Tuesday and just because, I am starting a new segment on our blog on Tuesdays where I will be sharing the yummy recipes that I find and enjoy as I begin to experiment and learn new recipes. 

Let's face it, I went from NEVER cooking to making items from scratch including the pizza sauce! Stay tuned next Tuesday for the amazing pizza sauce recipe I used. 

Pizza-A-Dough Dough

Ingredients 

• 2 cups warm water
• 2 Tablespoons active dry yeast
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 4 Tablespoons olive oil
• 5 cups flour 

1. Pour the warm water into a bowl and mix the yeast into the water. Make sure the water is only warm and not hot. If it is hot, it will kill the yeast and we don't want that. Stir until it is completely dissolved. 
2. Add the sugar, salt, olive oil and flour... mix until it is to hard to mix. 
3. Flour a surface area and dump the dough onto the floured surface. You will knead the dough for about 5 minutes until it is smooth and not sticky. 
4. Cut the dough in half! Yes there is enough dough to make two pizzas or you can freeze the other one until later if you only want 1 pizza now. I also used the rest of the dough to make bread sticks. 
5. Put the dough on the pizza pan and smooth out the dough with your hand until it is as thin as you like. I like a thicker crust, so I left it thicker around the edge. Make sure the pan is greased. You can also roll out the dough on your floured surface first and then move it to the pan. 
6. Add the sauce and pizza toppings of your choice. 
7. Bake at 475 degrees for around 12-15 minutes until the crust looks crispy and lightly browned. The thicker the pizza the longer it will take, so keep an eye on it. :)
8. Allow it to cool after taking it out.
9. Enjoy!

   

   Pizza Dough ready for toppings!

Pizza ready to go into the oven

The final pizza... so delicious! :D

Farm Life is our Dream Life

Ed and I decided there is a specific life we want to create for us and our future family... THE FARM LIFE!

Neither Ed nor I were raised on a farm... in fact we are both 2 generations removed from the farm. However, we both love the farm life. The hard work, the passion, harvesting, planting, barns, farmhouses, animals, home cooked meals, living off the land, mason jars, tractors, love, freedom, raising kids out in the country and teaching them the value of work are all the very things that we love about the farm life. But as you can imagine, starting a farm from scratch is VERY expensive and there won't be farm land handed down to us from our family. So we MUST work for our farm life and build it from the ground up.

And today is a perfect day to start living out that dream life! Why wait!?! Yes, we are currently living in our house in town and not in the dream house we picture in our heads. We have only about a half acre of yard with lots of neighbors close by which means we aren't miles away from neighbors separated by our acres and acres of precious crops and farmland like we envision. But why let that stop us!

We are starting to create a mini farm life here in town until we can buy the acreage with that big ol' farmhouse with my wrap around porch and big RED barns! Oh I just love wasting away time dreaming about our dream life! Anyways, back to creating our "mini farm life" here in town. We are working hard to get our trucks paid off, our mortgage paid off on this house, learning about farming, honing our garden/planting skills along with our cooking skills and crafting abilities, completing personal development, and learning how to can and preserve foods from our mentors, so when we are ready to actually start our farm we will be READY to roll!

Working for our dreams is tough... It's not easy! Sometimes we want to give up because it's easier, but giving up won't create that dream life and the ability to live out our dreams. We have to be lazer focused, determined, and work hard each and every day. As they say.... "All the flowers of tomorrow are in the seeds we sow today!"

So what's stopping you from building your dream life? What are you waiting for? Stop waiting/wishing and start working towards your dreams!