Bird Butt

We drove up to Haleakala's Hosmer's Grove on this lovely day. At a little over 10,000 ft in elevation, Hosmer's Grove is one of my favorite places to visit, have lunch, and just get away from all of the hustle and bustle of life. 

My dad and I went on the little trail hike that goes through the forest. We stopped at the lookout area where you can spot birds native to Hawaii. I got a few snapshots of the birds, but today there weren't very many compared to what we have seen before.

Birdy #1 

Birdy #2

Birdy #3

Here is where the fun began! This little bird was very quick and kept hopping from berry bunch to berry bunch, the camera just couldn't keep up ("yeah, blame the camera", haha) Most of the pictures I got of this little guy were out of focus and blurry. 

This picture that I took was not so bad, but it didn't come out as clear as I would have liked. 

The butt shot however, seemed to be perfectly in focus! Well, now at least you know what the back side of this bird looks like.

After our short hike/walk, we had a nice little picnic as a family, including my mom, dad, obaachyan, and Ace, our dog. I will more than likely be coming here again before I leave for school in August. 

Much love,

Crystal

Punch It Pizza

Pizza party Friday night! As Jonathan Sacconejoly would say. *Side Note* I love the Sacconejolys, they are such amazing people and their children are so adorable!! 

Starting with the dough, I used Food Network's recipe. I was browsing through many recipes for pizza dough and I decided to try my hand at this variation. 

What you need:

1 packet of instant yeast

1+1/4 C. lukewarm water

1+1/2 C. whole wheat flour

2 C all-purpose flour

1 TB olive oil

1 TB honey

1/2 TSP salt

The how to:

1. Add the yeast to the water, stir it around for a second, and let it do its thing while you gather the rest of the ingredients

2. Combine all the ingredients in a bowl until it forms a ball, Food Network says to use a food processor, I used my trusty two hands.

3. Place the dough ball in a well oiled bowl and cover with a damp towel for 45 minutes

It grew!! This is what the dough looked like after about 45 minutes of letting the dough rise.

4. Now this is when you get to....Punch it!  BAM! 

5. I kneaded the dough a bit then separated it into these two portions, wrapped each with plastic wrap, and put them in the fridge for about 4 hours. The recipe says to let it rest in the fridge for at least 2 hours before use.

6. Rolling out the dough to the thickness you like. 

Next time I'm going to try do do a thinner crust because that is what I prefer.

7. Add your toppings, being careful not to overload it or else it may not cook throughout.

Here is one of my favorite combinations of toppings to make my own version of a margarita pizza. YUM! This one has shrimp, mozzarella cheese, tomatoes, fresh basil from the garden, and what was left of the provolone cheese (not much).

Here's the pizza I made for my dad. He likes to have provolone and pepperoni on his.

This was the first time I used a pizza stone and it was a little messy to tell the truth as you can see the cheese had melted quite a bit and when I was taking it out of the oven, the toppings started to move with the cheese around the pizza.

8. I put the pizza in the oven at 450 degrees Fahrenheit until the crust was crispy and the toppings were all cooked nicely.

Sorry for the bad photography skills with this picture, but this is the end product of the shrimp pizza. I actually added some left over caramelized onions on the top of it and it added SOOOO much to the flavor of the pizza. I highly recommend it. I would definitely have this pizza again, but I think I will experiment with another recipe for the dough and see how it turns out. I'll let you know how that turns out later, until then...

Much love,

Crystal

Guess Who?

This, my friends, is my wonderful obaachyan (grandma). She came to visit us for about a month from Japan.  This is a quick snapshot of one of our many morning walks along the beach and through parks. She gets up at the crack of dawn just like I do, so we can have a nice walk before it starts to get too hot outside.

Here's a very pretty purple flower that my obaachyan pointed out as we were walking in our neighborhood.

I love being able to go for little morning strolls because I have the warmth of the sun rays on my skin, it gets my body moving and stretched out for the day, and to top it all off, I get to talk story with my obaachyan the whole time and hear about some of her own pretty amazing adventures. 

Later on that day, I went to play some tennis as well. Good morning walks, lead to other good decisions, I guess. It has been a while since I have practiced playing tennis, and this was a great day to start. I am so glad I went to hit some balls around the court, it reminded me of why I liked it so much in high school. I will definitely not wait so long to pick up my racket again. 

Much love,

Crystal

Surprise Banana Muffins

On this particular morning, I noticed that our bananas were getting pretty ripe. So my mind went straight to using them to make yummy banana muffins of course! 

Muffin Ingredients

4 large ripe bananas-mashed (the more the merrier though!)

1/2 cup sugar (the more ripe the bananas, the less sugar you have to add)

1 egg

1/4 cup + 1 TB butter (melted in microwave for about 15 sec)

1+1/2 cups flour

1 TSP baking soda

1 TSP baking powder

1 pinch of salt

...and for the filling

1+1/2 TB nutella "chocolate spread"

1 TB plain greek yogurt

**Any filling will work for this as long as it is not too runny, to make it thicker you can add greek yogurt to it, but keep in mind that doing so can make the filling a bit tart, so the more yogurt that is added, the more sweetness you will want to add balance the flavor. 

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 400 F

2. Sift the flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and salt to get out any lumps (sifting will also help to make the muffins fluffy)

3. Cream together the sugar, egg, and melted  butter then add the mashed bananas 

4. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix until just combined (don't over mix!)

5. Spray the muffin tin with non-stick spray and fill each little well about 3/4 of the way full and bake for about 15 min or until a toothpick comes out clean.

6. Once they are done, set them on a rack to cool completely

7. While you're waiting for those babies to cool, mix together the nutella chocolate spread and the greek yogurt. Go ahead and experiment with the chocolate to yogurt ratio to the flavor that you like.

After all, thats what cooking and baking is all about!

Once the muffins were cooled, I cut out a hole for the filling, being careful not to make a mess of the part I was cutting out because after I filled it, I put that "lid" of the muffin back on.

Look at that delicious filling, it almost looks like pudding. Actually, thinking on that now, that wouldn't be a bad idea. 

 I do recommend that you fill them right before serving so that both the filling and the muffin keep their textures. However, I did set aside a muffin with the filling in it overnight to see what would happen, and good news, it still held up pretty well. 

Here I popped the top back on and hid the cut as well as I could. There you have it, surprise banana muffins that are so moist, fluffy, and delicious! Enjoy~

Much love,

Crystal