Nancy's Pizza

I invented a recipe. It was sort of a Pinterest-inspired amalgam of all my favorite things. Well, all my favorite non-dessert things. Minus potatoes. You get the picture. Speaking of pictures: I took one. Because I made it once and it was so good that I made it again just so I could take a picture (and then eat it again).



Ingredients:
Pizza Crust
Philadelphia Cream cheese cooking cream (italian herbs)
Asparagus spears
Tomatoes
Salt and Pepper
Parmesan cheese


OK, for the pizza crust, I just used the jiffy mix that costs 58 cents a box. You could use a real recipe if you want. Or the wal-mart mix costs 50 cents and is pretty much the same as the jiffy, so you are saving 8 cents.

I like the "just add water"-ness of the jiff/walmart mix. But I am morally opposed to walmart, so I feel ok about spending 8 cents more on the jiffy.

Make it up according to the box directions. Bake your pizza crust (whether jiffy or walmart or overly ambitious) for 5-6 minutes, then pull it out to top it.

Spread a couple of spoonfuls of the cooking cream on top. This works as your pizza sauce. You could totally use one of the other flavors of cooking cream if you want, they are all really good. But the italian herbs version reminds me of one of my favorite french cheeses called Boursin.

Slice tomatoes and asparagus. The first time, I didn't feel as though I had enough tomatoes on it. But then, I really love tomatoes. You can either trim up the asparagus so it is thin enough to chew and swallow, OR you can shred it onto the pizza using a potato peeler. I thought it tasted fine both ways. The potato peeler method makes it easier to deal with if you have children, but the slicing method makes it look prettier. (see picture above)

Lightly salt and pepper. (This does make a big difference. I generally don't advocate using pepper, but in this case, it really gives it a nice flavor)

Sprinkle the parmesan accross the top. Now here's a confession. I used the gross fake processed can of parmesan powder that mysteriously exists in my fridge due to the cheese transgression of a past roommate. I did it because I wanted a white cheese like substance to sort of seal in some moisture and it seemed sort of appropriate. I did it the first time because I knew I would be refining the recipe if I ever chose to post it. I did it the second time because I didn't totally hate it the first time, in fact, I might have sort of liked it.

So there.

Don't tell any French or Italian people you know if you choose this step. In fact, don't tell any French or Italian people you know that I did it. I already feel as though I should go to confession over this.

SO now tht your pizza is topped, you can bake it for 15-20 minutes, until the crust is golden-y. (If you used the fake powder parmesan, don't rely on it "melting". It won't)

Enjoy!

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Fruit Moose, or is that Mousse?

Yet another recipe from Our Best Bites. It is becoming a mild obsession around here. (And, by "around here," I mean all of the Waseca Branch and any missionaries who pass through it.)

I made this for the Easter Egg Hunt, but due to an abundance of candy and other desserts that were more familiar to the kids, not a lot got eaten. So, we brought it to Tom's family the next day.

It was supposed to be for dessert. But, a good portion of it was missing before dinner was over. At dessert time, it went quick. Even my own kids, who had snubbed it the day before, devored it. (And then declared how cruel it was that we never made it at home.)

Here's the very complicated recipe:

1 large package or two small ones of jello
2 cups of boiling water

Throw those in a blender together. (The blender really does work best.)

Add 1 8 oz brick of cream cheese. Blend until smooth. Fold in 8 oz of cool-whip. (According to the OBB site, cool whip is really ideal here. Don't decide to be fancy and make your own whipped cream on this one.)

That's it. Pour it in something and let it sit for 3 hours. I did this a few times to make layers. You can do individual servings cups, layers, etc.

I topped mine with the remaining cool-whip. You can get fancier than that, but I liked it that way.

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Aaron’s Honey-Oatmeal-Wheat Bread

Super simple:

½ Cup Honey

2 Cups Hot Water
½ Cup Bread Flour
1 Tsp Instant Yeast.

Mix lightly, then allow to rest 10 Minutes.

Add
1-1/2 Cups Cooked Oatmeal
2 Cups Wheat Flour
2 Cups Bread Flour

Mix completely, then allow it to rest 10 Minutes.

Knead in an additional 1-1/2 Cups each of Wheat and Bread Flour.

Rise to double - 1-2 hours typically.

Punch Down, Pan (greased), rise again 1 hour.

Bake at 475 Degrees for 10 minutes, then 375 for 30-35 Minutes.

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2012 February-november challenge

Make A recipe with these Ingredients.or as many as you can. 1 point for most ingredients, but there are more for some.

cheese 1 point

bacon 2 points

salsa 4 points

chicken 1 point

chocolate 5 points

beef/steak 2 points

deli meat 1 point

onion 1 point

candy 2 points

chips 1 point

picture of you eating it 5 points

I don't care what it is, but if you win you get...um...I dunno...a recipe for what I enjoy having for lunch when I can......................................

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Aaron's Sourdough Rye

490 Grams Flour

13 Grams Salt

262 Grams starter

290 Grams Warm Water

1.       Combine/mix.  Cover with plastic wrap (coated with spray oil). Let rest 10 MINUTES.

2.      

Knead for 6-7 minutes, working in a little more Bread Flour or White Flour as necessary to keep your hands from sticking.  Form in to a ball. Place in to a resting pan (such as a pie plate) coated with spray oil. Cover with plastic wrap (coated with spray oil). Let rest 2 TO 6 HOURS.  It will spread and rise, but probably not double in size.

3.       Deflate back in to a ball (pack down) without tearing or kneading. Place on the baking stone or in stoneware that has been dusted with corn meal or lined with parchment paper. Let rest 1 TO 3 HOURS.

4.       Make 3-4 slits in the top of the loaf with a wet knife.  Heat oven to 500 degrees. Bake 45 MINUTES.

5.       Feed starter with 131 Grams of water and 131 Grams of flour.

I use about 80% Bread Flour and 20% Rye.  Wheat flour could also be added to the mix.

.

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Mom's Cornbread, or at least close to it

I used to love it when Mom made cornbread with chili. I tried to make it, too, but it never turned out the same. I remembered Jiffy cornbread mixes in her cupboard, but those were dry and crumbling, and not like Mom's. I tried various homemade recipes that said they were moist, but they weren't like Mom's.

Then, one day, while talking with Amy on the phone, she said, "you know how mom uses yellow cake mix in her cornbread?" What??? I had no idea that was the secret ingredient.

Sure enough, cornbread is now a hit at our house:

2 packages Jiffy cornbread mix
1 package Jiffy yellow cake mix
3 eggs
2/3 cup milk
1/2 cup water

Really, just make them according to the directions on the package. This fits nicely in a 13x9 pan.

I baked it at 350. One box says 350, one says 400. It did fine at 350. I have no idea how long, because I rarely use timers.

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Garbage Cookies

Enticing, right?

Well this is as seen on one of those Food Network shows where the celebirty chef personality goes around to local shops and talks about how great they are. One of the shops made what they called "garbage cookies". They took their extra cookie doughs and added them to a basic cookie recipe along with all of the leftover fixin's from their kitchen. They were throwing everything from licorice chunks to potato chips into that giant industrial sized mixer. It looked glorious.

And then this morning I was thinking about how I needed to used up the peanut butter cookie dough in my fridge and I wanted to get rid of the coconut that is starting to go stale and I remembered the show and decided to give it a shot.

I started with my own cookie dough base. Its a little like the recipe on the chocolate chip bag, only with my own twists and turns. If you don't have your own cookie recipe, start with the nestle toll house recipe. To make it softer, shift to a little less brown sugar and a little more white. (Only if you trust yourself though. Brown sugar adds a lot of flavor, and since you are going to dump all sorts of extras in there, you might want a little more bland base.)

Ok, when your base is ready, go to town. Clean out your cupboard. I threw in the end of the oatmeal container, the rest of the peanut butter cookie dough from the fridge, the rest of the coconut leftover from the holidays, two half-bags of chocolate chips (one milk chocolate, one semi-sweet) and several handfuls of pretzels that I crunched just a little as I threw them in. Oh. And a couple of chopped up fun sized candy bars.

Guys.

Yum.

I might make pretzels in the chocolate chip cookies my rule from now on.

And all I was doing was cleaning out my cupboards.

Here's the deal. How many times do you want to make cookies but there are no chocolate chips in the house? I know it happens to me more often than I like to admit. (Tangent: I don't know what I'm more ashamed of, the frequency with which I like to make cookies, or the fact that I don't have chocolate chips in my cupboard.)

I don't know why this never occured to me before. We all have stashes of some sort of junk food or another, and its likely there for use in "emergencies" because we don't ever really feel like eating that particular thing. Seriously. Try throwing it in the cookie dough!

That is all the wisdom I have to expound for the day. I need to refill my mug of milk.

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