Pizza Party

So on Saturday we had the Pizza party! It was so much fun, but as usual, I made way too much food. Saturday morning we made the dough, and gave them plenty of time to rise. The I made the sauce in the afternoon, I made a vat of sauce, literally ally, I filled the largest pot available with sauce, not realizing you barely need any sauce for a pizza. We have lots of left overs, but this is possibly the best sauce I ever made, so it's getting eaten. We made 3 pizzas, a pepperoni, a mushroom, and a flat crust onion. The flat crust was my favorite, but apparently that is debatable, so I guess they were all good. It was really fun and super messy to make. We had 2 doughs, a ton of sauce, and an army of cheeses left over. So then Sunday night, well afternoon really, I made spaghetti with left over sauce and sauteed mushrooms and tomatoes, plus cheese. Then Last night I used one of the extra pizza doughs (recipe here) to make a delicious roll up, which I liked better than the pizza, so that is the sorta-recipe I am going to share.

Pizza Roll Up:
1 pizza dough
Toppings of your choice (I used pepperoni, onions, and spinach)
Shredded Mozzarella Cheese
Parmesan cheese
Sauce for dipping

Pre-heat the oven to 375. Roll out the pizza dough as thin as you can get it, and into a squarish shape. Spread your toppings all over then top with the mozzarella (heavy handed). Roll the dough like you would a jelly roll or a crescent roll (except end to end, not diagonal). It should look like a long tube. Pinch ends together so nothing can escape while baking. Spray a baking sheet with non stick spray, and put roll on sheet. Brush with olive oil and sprinkle the top with Parmesan cheese. Cook for about 30-35 min, until the dough is cooked. Let cool slightly, then slice, serve with sauce for dipping and enjoy!

Happy Eating.

Fried Rice

I am looking forward to another lazy weekend, I am cooking and crafting bound. But until then...

Let's talk about fried rice.

It is probably my favorite quick dinner, ever. I usually make it with chicken, but every once in awhile I have it with steak (especially if there is some left over in the freezer), so good. When you home make fried rice, it does not taste like what you get at the Chinese restaurant, it is so much more magical!

Fried Rice:
1 Yellow Onion
1 Tbsp of butter
2 Garlic cloves
1 cup of white rice
2 cups of boiling water
1 chicken breast or steak (optional)
1 Egg
Soy sauce
Salt, pepper, chili powder

Spicy Mayo
Siracha
Mayo

Salt and boil the water and put in rice, reduce heat and simmer with lid on. Dice onion and garlic. Heat butter in the pan and throw onion and garlic in. Salt and pepper. Let brown a little, but not too much. Let cook down. Slice the chicken or steak into bite size pieces. Salt, pepper, and chili powder the meat and put in pan. Mix in a little soy sauce (and oil if it looks to dry) (if you are not using meat do not put soy in now). Let meat brown a little and then reduce heat and cover. When meat is cooked and rice is cooked add the egg to the onion/meat mixtures and scramble. Add the rice and mix around. Add soy sauce, salt, and pepper to taste. When it is the flavor you like, turn the heat on the pan all the way up and let bottom of the rice brown and crispy. Mix the Spicy mayo in the mean time by combining mayo with siracha, to taste. You can mix this in or serve it on the side. Turn heat down and mix the crispy rice parts threw out. Serve, right out of the pan.

Yum Yum Yum.

Happy Eating!

Weekend Cooks and Crafts

Well, I had a very marvelous, relaxing weekend. I love a long weekend (who doesn't). Plenty of time to cook and craft! I only cooked twice (had to enjoy some nights out and football), but I crafted and knitted a ton to make up for it.

On Friday, I made fried rice, which is one of my staples and go a to quick dinner. But, I will talk about it another time.

First crafting! On Saturday I hit the clearance sale at Micheal's hard. I bought a ton of paper, card stock, glitter, ribbon and other general supplies. And then spent the weekend (in addition to knitting, of course) making cards and frou-frou Valentine's Day crafts (mostly inspired from the Martha Stewart website's Valentine's day section). Now I am not a major Valentine's day person, but I do love to craft and I love hand made cards. I will post some pictures of them later today (if I can). The cat also enjoyed crafting, he kept jumping on the paper to stop it from moving, very adorable.

Monday night, which was this week's Sunday (roasting night!), I made pot roast and mash potatoes (using the left over butter milk from the corn muffins). It was in the slow cooker, so not really roasting, but has that patient, lazy Sunday, flavorful feel to it. Plus the meat is guaranteed to be moist and no knives are necessary to eat it.

Pot Roast:
2-3 Lbs of chuck roast
2 yellow onions
2-3 Tbsp of Flour
2-3 Tbsp brown sugar
3 leeks
3 Carrots
3 garlic cloves
Fresh Thyme
Fresh Parsley
Avocado Oil (or another high heat oil)
2 Cups beef stock
1/2 a large can of grape tomatoes
Salt, pepper, red pepper flakes.

Heat the oil in a pan. Salt and pepper the meat, and rub with a sprinkling of fresh thyme. Then lightly flour the the roast, then rub brown sugar all over as well. Brown meat of both sides in the hot pan, so that sugar caramelizes (a minute or 2 on both sides). Put meat in the slow cooker. Give onions, garlic and leeks a rough chop. Lower heat on pan, and slightly brown the onions, garlic and leeks, let cook down on low for about 5 minutes. In the mean time, chop carrots and put in slow cooker. Add stock, and tomatoes and juice (from the can) to slow cooker as well. Add thyme, parsley, salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes. When the onion mixture has cooked down a bit, add that as well. Stir so that meat is more on the top and veggies are all mixed in. Cook on low for 8 hours.

Take meat out of the slow cooker and let stand for 10 minutes before slicing (it will fall apart like slow cooker goodness should). Serve meat with the veggies and gravy on the side or on top (and mash potatoes on the side)

Happy Eating.

Tapas People

I will get to the Tapas in a minute, but first, Truffled Pasta.

It was delicious, the boyfriend walked back into the kitchen for more, and was so upset when he saw the empty pan (I let him finish my bowl, though). I don't really have a recipe for you, I was not even close to keeping track to how much of each ingredient went in, but I will tell you what I used and a little about the truffle oil. First of all, we were out of spaghetti (whoops) so my choices were whole wheat elbows or left-over ziti noodles, I went with ziti (something about elbows and truffles seems so very wrong). Then it took me 15 minutes to find the extra virgin olive oil, which was literally sitting in front of me on the counter the entire time. Finally I was ready for action. I sautéed some mushrooms, garlic and a whole lot of spinach (I love watching a giant thing of spinach shrink down to almost nothing). I set the spinach asides and threw a good amount of the elusive olive oil in the pan with the mushrooms, and added some more salt pepper and red pepper flakes, then a couple of tablespoons of the pasta water (starchy goodness) and some chicken Better than Base. Better that base is a small jar of extra concentrated chicken (beef, lobster, etc) something, it's like a bouillon but 1000 times better (and can be found in the same aisle in your local super market). Then I tossed everything together, pasta, oil-sauce-mushrooms, spinach and added just a touch of the white truffle oil. Delicious.

The truffle oil is intense, like really intense. Take a good whiff of it before you use it, and you'll see what I mean. It doesn't really smell so great in the bottle, way to intense mushroominess (and I know how mushrooms are grown, disturbing). So a very small amount does just fine. Use to little, you can always add more, it's much harder to add less. The flavor (in small doses) is so wonderful though and rich and decadent (like eating tasty gold, I think its more than gold, oz for oz). So a special thanks to the boyfriend, who went to 3 stores to find it for me. A fantastic gift.

So now a little about Tapas (because that's what we had last night).

We are tapas people, my family that is. Food is meant for sharing, only the aggressive get full, let someone (usually me, because of my knowledge of the Spanish language and loud voice) order everything, and on you go. I did not know we were going to a tapas restaurant last night (my brother's Bon Voyage dinner, before he heads to Rome for 6 months, oh college days). The boyfriend kept telling me it was and I kept saying no, no, no (the restaurant was Distrito, by the way, the Mexican themed restaurant byrecently named iron chef Jose Garces restaurant, in University City), but I was wrong, it is most certainly tapas.

One of my brother's friends looked at the menu and went, I wish this was in English (some of it was, most was in pseudo-Spanish), then the adults tried to pass around 1 set of reading glasses (for 6 people). The waiter came (bearing margaritas, of course) and recommended we do the tasting menu, which was immediately vetoed (what do we look like, amateurs). My dad looks at the waiter, points at me and says she'll be ordering. I ordered for everyone, we ate (kobe tacos, hamachi ceviche, and tres leches cake were my favorites), we drank, and were merry. Oh and I tried rabbit for the first time, but it was mole rabbit, and it just tasted like chicken, so I will have to try again. The boyfriend keeps calling us tapas people (think noodle people from Kung Foo Panda) because every out meal he has had with my family has been tapas (so I guess that's fair, we do love our tapas). My dad only said, all she needs is an unlimited credit card or you better make a lot of money to the poor boyfriend like 4 times, so we'll call that a victory.

Well I am done cooking for the week, wedding festivities bound. We will see what the new week brings on Sunday, but maybe I will try to make a tres leches cake of my very own...

Happy Eating!

Success in a Slow Cooker

While the debate rages on about whose slow cooker I used to make the chili, there is no debate that it a, it was in fact chili and the b, it was good.

So, it wasn't your classic chili and certainly would be disqualified from any chili competition but it sure was tasty and super easy to make. I will share my pseudo-recipe with you.

1 Yellow Onion (or half if it is very large)
1 Green Pepper
2 Garlic Cloves
2 to 3 chillies of your favorite variety (I used 2 greens and a shrivel-y orange one)
1 29 oz can of stewed tomatoes with juices (the big can)
1 29 oz can of tomato puree (the big can again)
1 cup of dried black beans
1 cup of dried kidney beans
1 to 1.5 pounds of lean chuck stew meat (trust me)
Salt, pepper, garlic powder, chili powder and a whole lot of cumin
Sour cream, cheese, and cilantro for serving

Dump the 2 cans of tomato product into a Croc Pot. Dice the onion, pepper, chillies and garlic and throw them in the Croc Pot as well. Rinse the beans in cold water (ignore the instructions on the back of the bag, they are not for a slow cooker, just rinse in cold water and drain) then throw them in the pot. Stir everything together. Season with salt, pepper, garlic powder, chili powder and cumin (use a lot of this) to taste. The flavor will intensify and be less tomato-y when its cooked, but it should still taste good. When you are satisfied that you have seasoned it enough, season the meat with salt, pepper and cumin then throw it in. Stir again. Put the lid on and cook on low for 8-10 hours (I'm guessing 5-6 hours on high would also work, but I didn't try it). Mine cooked for about 10, because I was at work and the mystery owned Croc Pot did not have an automatic go to warm on it, if your's does feel free to use it after 8 or 9 hours, but if it doesn't don't worry about it. Serve with sour cream, cheese and a little fresh cilantro (if you have it handy) and some bread if you, like me cannot eat a meal without bread.

It was so tasty, and the meat just falls apart and is so tender, you can eat it with a spoon. Definitely something I will be making again!

Happy Eating