Pizza Night: BBQ Pizza

A few years into our marriage, my husband decided he wanted to have a signature dish he could call his own, one that only he could create. After flipping through some of my cookbooks and magazines, he found his own pizza dough recipe.


McPizza Dough
This will make either one very large crust or two smaller ones. We usually make two
1 1/2 cups hot water
1 package of active dry yeast
1 tbsp sugar

Dissolve yeast in hot water along with sugar. Let rest for 5 minutes covered with hot damp towel.

1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1 1/2 cups unbleached all purpose flour
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp oregano
1 clove garlic minced
1 tbsp olive oil

Mix above ingredients together and then gradually add yeast mixture. Make sure all ingredients are combined until "tacky" texture. Let rise with hot damp towel in warm area of kitchen, or house, for 1 hour. Dough should double in size. Once dough is ready, turn out on floured surface, toss and spread on pizza stone or sheet.

BBQ Pizza

Prepare above pizza dough recipe
1 lb. boneless, skinless chicken breast
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. pepper
2 cups water

I cooked my chicken in a crockpot to save time and allow for me to use it for other recipes since I was not going to use it all for the pizza topping.

Sauce
1 can salt free organic tomato sauce
1 tsp organic Woresterhire Sauce (There is a great vegetarian version too!)
1 tsp yellow mustard
1/4 cups apple cider vinegar
1 tsp garlic powder
2 tsp chili powder
1 tbsp agave nectar
Mix ingredients in medium saucepan and heat for 5 minutes. Once heated add 2 cups shredded chicken and stir. Allow chicken to cook for 10 minutes and remove from heat.
Once dough is ready rub 1 tbsp olive oil and spread chicken over pizza. Add 1/2 sliced red onion, 1 cup shredded spinach, 1 red pepper diced, 2 cups shredded sharp cheddar cheese and 1 cup Monterery jack cheese.
Bake at 350degrees for 15 minutes or until the cheese is how you like it!

Roasted Chicken Orzo Salad

About two years ago I finally got up enough courage to roast my first chicken. I don't really know why I had always thought it was so hard I mean come on...I've cooked a couple of turkeys for Thanksgiving and never had them turn out raw, burnt or worse, explode. Last year I was on such a chicken kick that we roasted one about every other Sunday afternoon. There are so many ways you can prep your chicken to turn out with great flavor. The first time I tried roasting the chicken I used two cut up lemons with a couple of cloves of garlic and olive oil. That was great but this time I wanted a chicken with more spice so here's what I did.

1 medium Organic, Free-Range Fryer Chicken
4 peeled, garlic cloves, press two and use two whole
1 tbsp. olive oil
2 tsp coarse Sea Salt
1 tsp pepper
1 tsp chili powder
1 tsp dried oregano
1 cup chicken broth

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Prepare chicken. Massage oil under skin of breast and over entire chicken. Mix spices and salt and add a little oil to make a paste. Pat on entire chicken. Stuff garlic cloves in cavity and pour chicken broth around the sides and bottom of roasting pan. You can either use a lid or make a tent out of foil. Bake for 45minutes or until meat reaches 160degrees or higher. Hint- it's okay if the skin gets a little crispy...adds extra flavor. That is if you enjoy the skins. Wink, wink

For the salad. I cooked up some whole wheat orzo. Followed box instructions. Then pulled off about 2 cups of white meat and shredded it for the salad.

 

Orzo salad
1/3 cup olive oil
3 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 tbsp agave nectar
1 tsp salt
1 tsp garlic powder
1 roasted red pepper diced
1/2 cup diced kalamata olives
1/2 cup diced artichoke hearts
2 cups chopped broccoli (I had to lightly steam mine to get my girls to eat it)

Whisk oil, vinegar and spices. Pour over cooled orzo and toss. Add chicken and following ingredients. Mix together and serve.

National Food Bloggers Bake Sale

I am really excited to share some great news with you! I have partnered up along with some other talented food bloggers to support Share Our Strength, an organization helping to end childhood hunger in America. Nearly 17 million— almost one in four—children in America face hunger. Despite the good efforts of governments, private-sector institutions and everyday Americans, millions of our children still don’t have daily access to the nutritious meals they need to live active, healthy lives. Check out the link above to learn more about the organization and childhood hunger.

Here's the yummy part, on April 17th, 2010, in all different states across the country, we, lots of great food bloggers, will hold a HUGE bake sale and all proceeds will go to Share Our Strength.

Why are we doing this? Well...as Gaby, one of the organizers says- "Food is obviously something that is very important to all of us Food Bloggers so we want to do something about it! We will all be baking our favorite goodies from our blogs and selling them for everyone to try!" Best of all- ALL of the proceeds will go to SOS!

I am finalizing plans for a multiple locations in Central Kentucky but still need other KY folks to jump in and host more locations. I can help give you guidelines and materials to make your sale the best! Just email me. You can also check out Gaby with WhatsGabyCooking, to see the other states and contacts.

How NOT to cut an Avocado

I debated whether or not to devote a post to my kitchen accidents or not, but, realizing this would show how we all have these "issues", I decided to let everyone in on why I have not been able to post anything for the past week.

Let me first recap my history of kitchen accidents. My first trip to the ER was cutting basil (the wrong way) in our first kitchen, an adorable '50's style kitchen in Portland, Oregon. It was my first try at pesto. Needless to say, I did not end up with pesto but rather a stitch or two on my left index finger. (Tip #1-you really don't need to use a paring knife for this type of kitchen project--I now use a pair of scissors for cutting my herbs.)

The second trip to the ER was, unfortunately, six months to the day of my first trip. This time it involved a serrated knife and one very large pumpkin. We were having friends over and I wanted to introduce our company to their first pumpkin pie. (Tip #2-there is NO reason to ever use a serrated knife on any hard skinned foods. Breads are the only reason for these utensils.)

My third trip--Super Bowl Sunday of this year--my mom and dad had invited us over for a fun dinner of Mexican layered pizzas and avocado salad. I love hanging out with my mom in the kitchen, so what better way to help than to cut the avocados. (Tip #3-you should NEVER stab the pit of an avocado!) You can see from the picture, I stabbed my hand instead. Three stitches later, and with very limited us of my hand, I have researched better ways of taking out that darn pit!

A View From the Kitchen

Today was a dreary, rainy day, but perfect for picture taking with the great lighting, so I thought it would be fun to get take some shots of our kitchen. To give you a glimpse of where I spend a lot of my time.

This is a baking table we picked up from an antique store when we lived in Portland, Oregon. It has a neat porcelain top that is perfect fix our yummy treats. When we're not getting it dirty with baked goods, the girls use it as their breakfast table. Funny thing...this was where my husband and I ate most of our meals our first year or two of our marriage. Great memories!!




After my oldest got home from school she threw her apron on and jumped in and started helping me make up some fun creations. She threw it on the floor when she finished cooking so I picked it up and caught the combination of colors.




Hope you all are having a great beginning to your weekend! We have LOTS to do this weekend. Dinner with best friends, valentine making and the Super Bowl! Found a great recipe from another food blogger that I have got to try. You will have to just wait and see.

Monday, Monday...(meatless)

Once we, my oldest daughter and I, made the agreement to support the Meatless Monday Movement, we had to be creative with our choices since they also had to be kid friendly. When I lived in Portland, Oregon, it was not an unusual occurrence for us to have many meals without meat since I was a vegetarian at the time. But, cooking for two adults is totally different than cooking for two sweet kiddos. My usual standby for these type of nights, which occur more than just once a week, is typically a tofu or tempheh dish mixed with plenty of veggies. So, over the snowy, ill weekend my husband and I went through a HUGE stack of my old Cooking Light magazines and found lots of fun, newer or long forgotten recipes to whip up the next couple months. In this stack I found a great dish for tonight. I altered the recipe a bit in the nutrition and spice area, but WOW- what a great turn out!

Southwestern Falafel with Avocado Spread
adapted from Cooking Light

1 can of pinto beans, rinsed and drained (I prefer Whole Foods 365 salt free beans)
1/2 cup Monterey Jack cheese, shredded
1/4 cup crushed baked tortilla chips (I went with yellow corn chips but blue corn would be good too!)
1 clove garlic, minced
2 tbsp red onion, diced finely
2 tbsp cilantro, chopped
1/4 cup spinach, chopped
1 tsp coarse salt
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp chili powder
1 large egg white
2 tbsp canola oil



Place beans in medium bowl and mash. Add following 8 ingredients and stir until mixed well. Heat large skillet with oil to medium high and made 6 patties. Cook 5 minutes on each side, or until patties are browned and thoroughly cooked.
Serve with sauce in warm pita pocket.

Avocado Spread

1 mashed peeled avocado
1/4 cup tomato, diced
1 tbsp red onion, diced finely
2 tbsp reduced fat sour cream
1 tbsp fresh lime juice
1/2 tsp salt

Mix all ingredients together in small bowl and let chill until ready to use. Spread 2tbsp on patty in pita pocket.