Quick Get A Plate!

My step-sister-in-law writes a fabulous blog all about pizza- Girl Loves Pizza.  She has inspired me to make my own dough (really not that hard!) and get creative with toppings.  I also find that it helps us to be a little healthier than ordering a pizza in.  This is what my crust recipe looks like all rolled out:

#1.  My top choice for toppings will always be buffalo chicken.  I heart buffalo chicken anything.  I used a ranch dressing base, 2 chicken breasts, mild wing sauce (I prefer the thickness of this to hot sauce), blue cheese, and mozzarella.  Oh yea- a little taste of near home.

#2.  My next favorite pizza was my eggplant Parmesan pizza.  I roasted my eggplant in olive oil in a 425 degree oven, threw it on top of some marinara sauce and topped the eggplant with turkey pepperoni, fresh basil, Parmesan, and mozzarella.

#3.  For this next pizza, I was inspired by a DC restaurant called Matchbox.  They have this great veggie pizza that I wanted to recreate.  While my dough was rising, I roasted some very thin potato slices in olive oil in a 425 degree oven and sauteed some peppers, onions, and mushrooms with some minced garlic.  I put my sauteed veggies on first, followed by some fontina and mozzarella, and topped it off with my potato crisps.  Delicious.

#4.  My roasted garlic, spinach, mushroom, and prosciutto pizza was thrown together in a hurry to watch KU during March Madness.  While the dough was rising, I chopped off a head of garlic and added some olive oil, salt, and pepper, wrapped it up in foil and popped it in the oven to roast and moved on to sautee my mushrooms and spinach.  I squeezed my roasted garlic directly onto the dough and topped with the spinach/mushroom combo.  Then I had some prosciutto and fontina left over from my veggie pizza so I threw that on top.  And KU won.

#5.  My latest creation was a chicken fajita pizza.  I topped my crust with salsa verde (the King was a little leery of this...green salsa?!), sauteed peppers and onions, 2 chicken breasts, and some Mexican cheese.  It's a good one!

#6.  In a hurry...try french bread pizzas.  There is no time wasted waiting for the dough to rise!

#7.  I am also including these tasty pizza bites...better than those rolls from your freezer section!

The Queen's Pizza Dough

• 1 cup warm water
• 1 Tablespoon honey
• 1 packet of yeast (2 1/2 teaspoons of yeast)
• 1 1/2 cups of bread flour
• 1 cup of whole wheat flour
• 1/4 teaspoon of salt
• 1 Tablespoon olive oil

1. Combine honey and warm water in bowl (works great in a stand mixer).  Add yeast and wait for it to foam (~approx 10 minutes).
2. Add a flour/salt mix to yeast mixture and stir to combine.
3. Knead into a well formed ball.
4. Pour oil over the dough and set aside in a bowl in a warm place.  Allow dough to double in size (~approx 1 hour).
5. Roll dough out and add your toppings!

Happy Birthday Crouton King!

Happy Birthday to my wonderful husband!  I wanted to make him a special birthday meal tonight, even though his real birthday isn't until later this week but at that point I won't be doing much more than sitting/napping/reading in a lounge chair on a beach and trekking to the snack bar when I get hungry.  With this meal one would not believe I plan on putting on a bathing suit in 2 days, but here it is...the meal I have made for the Crouton King's birthday.  

Chicken Divan...a kindergartener at my school told me it was her favorite food.  Now we know why.  YUM.  Crunchy on the outside and cheesy-gooey on the inside.

A close up:

And for dessert...Oreo Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies!  When I first mentioned these to the King he asked me if the inventor was married or willing to take on a second husband.  Thankfully, I think I've got the recipe down enough to keep the King around.

The close up of the insides of these beauties (good thing I bought him an electric toothbrush for his birthday!):

Chicken Divan 
Based on Campbell's Kitchen recipe (with some minor alterations/additions)

• 1 pound fresh broccoli, cut into spears
• 1 1/2 cups cubed cooked chicken (I bought a rotisserie chicken at the grocery store and it worked like a charm)
• 1 (10.75 ounce) can Campbell's® Condensed Broccoli Cheese Soup
• 1/3 cup milk
• 1/2 cup sour cream (I used fat free to help make it more figure friendly)
• 1 teaspoon Goya Adobe seasoning
• 1/2 cup shredded Cheddar cheese
• 2 tablespoons Panko breadcrumbs
• 1 tablespoon butter or margarine, melted

1. Arrange broccoli and chicken in 9 x 11 inch baking dish.
2. Mix soup, milk, sour cream, cheese and Adobe seasoning and pour over the top of your chicken and broccoli.
3. Mix bread crumbs with butter and sprinkle on top.
4. Bake 400 degrees F for 25 minutes or until hot.

 

Queen's Night In...

Last night the Crouton King took off to have some guy time to play (*geek alert) Warhammer.  This allowed me to have some much needed girly alone time.  Of course to me this meant experimenting in the kitchen and a Lifetime movie(not the Crouton King's TV-watching of choice).  Netflix had been so kind as to provide "Speak" with Kristen Stewart (better known as Bella from the Twilight movies).  My sister and I had watched this movie before the whole Twilight hullabaloo.  And I wanted to see Kristen Stewart at her Lifetime Movie finest sans Robert Pattinson once again.  So I popped it in the PlayStation and waited patiently for it to load up...and waited...and waited...I searched for it...switched between users to try to find it...ejected it and put it back in...and waited some more.  By this time, my patience was wearing thin.  I stalked over to the PS3 and pulled out the disc.  Turns out my plans with Kristen Stewart were not going to pan out as there was a huge crack through the DVD.  Nerds!  The perfect night without the Crouton King had a definite cramp in it's style.  I however, went straight to the source...the Lifetime Channel...and watched me some TV for women.  "Tell Me No Lies" had just started and it was dramatic, suspenseful, and of course a little cheesy-everything a Lifetime Movie should be.

Thankfully, I think my night in may have been saved anyway by the meal I had prepared- homemade flatbread, filled with falafel and a side of sweet potato fries.  I was on a mission at the grocery store to find a delicious flatbread...thick, buttery and chewy.  When I realized that was not in the cards at my local Giant, I decided to give making my own a try and this is what came out of it:

They were everything I had hoped and more- I got grill marks!  I can never get grill marks to look authentic without a grill.  In all their grill mark glory, I was worried that they only looked pretty so I decided to eat one while I rolled and cooked the others.  Yum.  They were thick and chewy, but not necessarily buttery (this of course could be solved by drizzling a little melted butter in).  I would compare their flavor to Indian Naan bread.

Some may worry about the time it takes for dough to rise, but I made good use of this time and roasted up my sweet potato fries and prepped everything else for my flatbread so that no time was wasted waiting around.  The dough was super simple to roll out especially with this handy little guy from Pampered Chef:

When my flatbreads were finished, I loaded one up with romaine, red onion, and cucumber and then topped it off with Trader Joe's falafel and Trader Joe's Greek Style Feta Dressing.  I splashed my sweet potato fries on the side and went to town devouring this scrumptious meal.

   

This is what it looked like prior to the devouring:

Homemade Flatbread

(Recipe courtesy Kathleen Daelemans at foodnetwork.com)

• 1 package active yeast (or 2 and a 1/2 teaspoons of active yeast)
• 1/2 teaspoon of sugar
• 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon course salt
• 1 Tablespoon fresh thyme leaves
• 3/4 cup warm water (more may be needed)
• 1 teaspoon of Extra Virgin Olive Oil

1.  Using my trusty kitchen aid stand mixer, I tossed in the yeast, sugar, flour, salt, and thyme.

2.  Turn on the mixer to low and slowly pour in the water.

3.  When the dough looks well formed, knead it in your hands for a couple minutes into a well formed ball.

4.  Pour the olive oil over it and put in a bowl in a warm spot with a damp cloth over it.  Allow it to double in size (about an hour).

5.  Take some aggression out on the dough (punch it) and then knead it back into a smooth ball.  Divide into approximately 8 pieces.

6.  Roll the dough out into 5-6 inch small circles.

7.  Preheat a stove top grill pan over medium high. Do not oil. Place bread on hot grill and cook without touching it until you see bubbles on the surface, about 1 to 2 minutes. Turn and continue to cook 1 to 2 minutes more or until bread has puffed up. Serve immediately.

Sweet Potato Fries

• Sweet potato
• 1 Tablespoon Extra virgin olive oil
• Salt and pepper

1.  Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

2.  Slice your sweet potato in half the short way and then stand it on it's newly flat side and cut it in half again.  Then slice into thin wedges.

3.  Toss with olive oil, salt, and pepper.  Place in a single layer on a baking sheet covered with non-stick foil.

4.  Cook for 35-40 minutes turning halfway through.