Clean jars with basic ingredients

Not a food related post, but after finishing a jar of pesto a while back, it got me thinking. It was such a cute little mason jar, I couldn't not keep it around for something.

I've seen a lot of different methods on Pinterest about ways to remove the labels from jars, but a lot of them use things I don't normally have on hand, like coconut oil. At least in my house, we don't use this for anything, so I really don't feel like buying it to see if it works, or wasting my peanut butter as I've seen done also.

My mom always uses rubbing alcohol to remove sticky things from easy plastic, like stickers on plastic folders and the like. So I did an experiment. I tried straight rubbing alcohol on my jar to see if it worked. Alas, it did not. Time to get creative. I got out the trusty baking soda and sprinkled some on the label. I then squirted a little rubbing alcohol on the spot, grabbed a paper towel and what do you know, it rubbed right off!

I think this is a much handier way to remove labels since it's likely most people have these two items on hand. If not, there are tons of other uses for these two products!

I still don't know what I'm going to do with this jar, but for now it's shiny clean!

Homemade Pizza and Sauce

Friday nights are pizza night at our house. It's been that way even before we were married. In college we would order a pizza to share at one of our apartments (for $5 or so usually! I really miss those campus deals). Now, we make our homemade pizza every Friday. We've gone through several different recipes for the dough, but found our favorite in the book Bread Machine: How to Prepare the Perfect Loaf.  It also has a great recipe for homemade calzones.

This is my bread machine. I am absolutely in love with this hand me down and I'm not sure what I did without it before!

I'll admit, it used to take me forever to roll out the dough. My hubby could do it in just a few minutes and it was irritating to me! I have finally discovered the trick; begin rolling on one side, then flip it over to the other! Continue flipping if needed, but this does wonders!

Another trick we do for our pizza is to let it rise additional time after rolling it out. I normally place it in the oven for a few hours to let it do its thing.

Making our own pizza sauce is the best part! I used to use Penzeys pizza spice but I only get that when my mother-in-law makes a trip to the store in Chicago. So I recently started mixing my own. I don't really measure too much, but I'll give approximate measures for what I use:

Pizza Seasoning

8 oz. Tomato sauce with garlic flavor
3/4 tsp. Oregano
1/2 tsp. Basil (I usually do extra because I love basil)
1/4 tsp. Onion powder
1/4 tsp. Garlic powder
dash Salt
dash Pepper
pinch Red Pepper flakes

(You might need to double the total amounts if you like it extra flavorful).

I usually pour the tomato sauce into a bowl and sprinkle my seasonings into the sauce.

Mix well and spread onto your pizza! You can always adjust the amounts, as I said, these are guesses since I taste as I go. Sometimes it tastes different depending on my mood!

Here is our finished product:

Pepperoni and tomatoes this week!
We used mini pepperonis because I got a great deal on them!

We also always have on hand Parmesan cheese and additional red pepper flakes for my hubby to add on top of his pizza.

Do you have any weekly meal traditions?