the "little black dress" of pizzas: garlic chicken pizza

I feel like I need to be completely honest about something that I don't think anybody really knows: I love pizza. But not like everybody loves pizza. I LOVE pizza. "Like a fat kid loves cake"? No, that would be "kind of liking" pizza. Every chance I get to eat pizza, I take it. I really honestly don't think I'd be sick of it if I ate a different flavor of pizza every day (which I did, for a few months of my life. I worked at Empire Pizza as a senior, and I wanted to try all of them. If you want a recommendation, should you be in that part of South Florida, mashed potato bacon is my favorite).
So I think it fair to say that I'm somewhat of a pizza connoisseur. Yes, I will (often gladly) eat pizzas that are below elite rank, but when there is a more elite pizza available, I will be there, trying to shovel it down in the classiest way possible.

Now, pizza is rarely a classy thing. In fact, I don't know that, even with my choice of title, pizza is ever classy. But you can certainly dress it up. Especially if you're making your own, you cut it into squares instead of triangular slices, and your pizza is a wonderful mix of looking delicious and being healthy (little to no grease). Throw together individual side salads, and you could have a dinner party (probably not a black tie event though. Pizza's name still hasn't been cleared of "frat parties," "tailgate parties," and other events where daisy dukes and beer pong might be involved).

So here we have a pizza that you can dress up or dress down. It is delicious AND healthy. I've used it for birthdays, FIFA nights, post-football game meals that turned into FIFA nights, and date night with stemware. I probably wouldn't wear a little black dress to most of those things, but. You get the idea.

You can use what you have on hand and omit some of the cheeses or vegetables (in the one pictured, we omitted a few things), or you can make a trip to the store if you're feeling up to it, especially if you want to pick up soda. Or sparkling cider :)

Garlic Chicken Pizza

• 2 tbsp red wine vinegar
• 1 1/2 tbsp Dijon mustard
• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 ready-made pizza crust (I make my own- recipe at the end)
• 1 1/2 c shredded cooked chicken
• 1 c chopped tomato
• 1 c chopped mushroom
• 1 c shredded mozzarella cheese
• 1/4 c crumbled feta cheese
• 1/4 c finely shredded Parmesan
• 1/4 c chopped green onion

1. Preheat oven to temperature listed on the package (or 375 if you've made your own pizza crust).
2. Combine first 3 ingredients, stirring well with a whisk. Place crust on baking sheet; brush vinegar mixture over crust.
3. Top with chicken, tomato, and mushrooms. Sprinkle with cheeses and green onion.
4. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until cheeses melt.

With this pizza, I made the crust, and I left out green onions, mushrooms, and feta cheese. I rarely have those on hand, so more often than not, our pizza is like this. Still pretty dang delicious.

No-Rise Pizza Crust

• 2 1/4 tsp yeast (or 1 packet)
• 1 tbsp sugar
• 1 c lukewarm water
• 2 tbsp vegetable oil 
• 1 tsp salt
• ~3 c flour

1. Combine the yeast and sugar in a bowl, then add the cup of water. Let react for 5-10 minutes. 
2. Preheat oven to 375.
3. Add the last 3 ingredients, starting with 2 cups of flour and then adding a little bit more at a time as needed.
4. Roll out in desired shape. Put on a greased pan, top, and bake for 20-25 minutes. 

If you decide to make your own crust, here's a tip: if you don't already have a can of cooked chicken (or want to save it for a more rushed day), use a chicken breast. Start the chicken boiling while you're waiting for the yeast to react, then it will be done cooking about the time you're done with your crust. Let the chicken cool while you prepare the vinegar mix, and after you've spread it on the crust, the chicken should be cool enough that you can handle it to shred it or dice it.

Enjoy!

Inside Out Tacos

Food has become our excuse to be social. Between the amount of traveling we do and the number of activities in which we've involved ourselves, we don't leave many opportunities to be incredibly social, especially on weekends. Our desire to be social, however, hasn't gone away, so we've tried to find ways to be social during the week. How? Inviting people over for dinner. We always have to eat, everyone we know also happens to really enjoy eating (let's be honest: who doesn't love eating?), and it definitely makes our weekdays more interesting. Some days I think it's pathetic that this is true, other days I think that we're brilliant. Depends on my mood. And how recently we've seen the friends we're inviting over.

Sometimes though, we don't really plan a night with friends. We just start to make dinner, something happens, and we have friends over. Not to make our other friends like we love them less because we plan for them, but these impromptu dinner parties are usually the best.

Earlier this week, my brother- and sister-in-law were coming over to plan a party (by this we mean the girls were planning a party and the boys were playing FIFA. They don't care what the reason is, if it means they'll end up at the same house with an xbox, they're in).  My sister-in-law texted me to ask what time they should come over, and I said, "We're just starting dinner. If you guys haven't eaten yet, you're welcome to come eat with us." It was already 6:30, and I had just gotten off the phone with my sister who had made a dinner recommendation when I whined about needing to make dinner and not having even a bad idea about what to make. She suggested this fabulous recipe, and I needed to run to the store because we'd just run out of chicken, but otherwise, I already had most of these things from other meals that week.

• 2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into halves
• 2 tbsp. vegetable oil, divided
• Green onions, diced finely
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 3/4 c chicken broth
• 5 cups tortilla chips, broken into large pieces
• 2 tomatoes, diced
• 1 c shredded cheddar cheese, shredded (or whatever you have. I usually have either a giant bag of Colby Jack or a smaller back of a Mexican blend. Both work great)
• 2 tbsp. chopped fresh cilantro

1. Pat the chicken breast halves dry and season with salt and pepper.  Heat 1 tablespoon of oil in a large stainless steel (or otherwise oven-safe) pot over medium-high heat.  Add the chicken to the pan and cook until golden brown on both sides (your chicken doesn't need to be fully cooked right now, just the outsides.)  Transfer to a plate and set aside.
2. Add the remaining oil, green onions, garlic, and 1/4 teaspoon of salt.  Cook just until it starts to smell wonderful, about 30 seconds (and it will smell wonderful).  Add the chicken broth, scrape the browned bits from the bottom of the pan, and let it start to simmer. 
3. Stir in half of the tortilla chips. Put the chicken into the broth so that the chicken is covered as much as possible (I cut the pieces in half again, so that they cook faster and fit in the pot better) and cook over medium-low heat until cooked through, which is about 10 minutes.  When the chicken is cooked through, take the chicken pieces out, let them cool enough to be able to handle, and then shred the chicken. Put the chicken back in the pot. 
4. Add the tomatoes, 1/2 c cheese, and 1 tablespoon of cilantro. Stir in the other half of the tortilla chips until the chips are moist. 
5. Sprinkle the rest of the cheese on top and place the pot in your oven with the broiler on high for 2-3, just to melt and slightly brown the top. Top with the remaining cilantro and serve! 

My in-laws asked if they could bring anything, and I said, "It's kind of a casserole, so there's not really anything you can add... maybe fun drinks?" So they went to Sodalicious and bought us each a soda. Man, I don't even like soda very much and I love that place. 

This recipe has been passed around from blog to blog, and my sister sent it to me from a blog but suggested some alterations. I made some of my own alterations, and then I really wanted a different name. Throwing "casserole" into anything makes it sound less appealing to me, for whatever reason. So when we started to eat it, my husband asked, "What are we eating?" and I said, "It's kind of like the inside of a taco." But the shell is inside too. Inside out tacos? Duh. Why didn't they think of that a long time ago?!

Thanks Brid :)

Microwave Mug Omelettes

I have a ridiculously hard time getting out of bed lately. So when I have to be up early for something, I usually want a really great breakfast. But I also don't want to get up any earlier than I have to to make aforementioned great breakfast.

So this morning, I found this:

Of course, I found this 15 minutes after my alarm went off, while I was laying in bed justifying that I was at least not falling back asleep. I was searching on my phone for a recipe, just something worth eating, while actually battling my desire to look presentable when I went to work and my desire to sleep for another 45 minutes. 

• 1 egg
• 2 egg whites
• 2 tbsp diced ham
• 1 tbsp diced bell peppers
• 2 tbsp shredded cheese

Thoroughly coat the inside of a mug with cooking spray. Mix all of the ingredients in the mug, microwave for 1 minute on high. Stir, then microwave for another 1 1/2 minutes.

I found this recipe and got a little bit excited about it. So vanity won.

We didn't have bell peppers or ham, so I just made these with eggs and cheese. I also threw some bacon on a cookie sheet in the oven and bread in the toaster, in between blow drying my hair and putting on my makeup. Jeremy came in while I was finishing up all of the food and asked what he could do, so I told him to make hot chocolate.

"Didn't I just watch you make hot chocolate?"

"No, you just watched me make omelettes."

"...in cups?"

"Yes."

Breakfast was a success. Arguably, not as time efficient as I was expecting (or I just shouldn't have laid in bed for so long) because we were still a few minutes late getting out the door, but we were all well-fed... so I didn't complain.

on babies and busy schedules- new spin on lasagna.

Jeremy and I have a couple of good friends that just had their first baby, and we were (and still are!) so excited for them. It was especially fun to tease the mom, Kana, about how enormously huge she was not even 5 months into her pregnancy. We were also excited about being able to bring them dinner one night the first week that Kana and her baby came home from the hospital.

Only we weren't actually home the week they came home from the hospital.


Fortunately, there were lots of other great people around to help them get back into the normal routine of things and brought them dinner for a week or two. But Jeremy and I felt terrible for not being around to offer any assistance, nutritional, social, or otherwise, so we decided we'd make it up to them. By texting them in the middle of the week.

"It's already in the works, so don't make anything for dinner tonight."

Both Kana and Ed laughed at us. But as Ed was also in the middle of his last finals, Kana was happy to postpone whatever they planned to eat that night (and yelled at Ed as soon as he started making lunch, "DON'T MAKE DINNER!" Poor Ed. "I was just making lunch!" Kana- "Well... I guess that's okay.").

So I found a great lasagna recipe; it's unlike any other lasagna I've tried before. And it was delicious.

Chili-Cheese Lasagna

• 1 lb. ground beef
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 jar (24 oz.) spaghetti sauce)
• 1/4 c. water
• 1 can (15 oz.) black beans, rinsed
• 1 green pepper, finely chopped
• 3/4 c. salsa
• 1 Tbsp. chili powder
• 9 lasagna noodles, cooked
• 1-1/2 c. cottage cheese
• 1-1/2 cup Mexican style shredded cheese 

Preheat the oven to 375°F. Brown beef and garlic in a large skillet. Add next 6 ingredients; stir. Simmer 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Grease a 13x9-inch baking pan, then spread 2 cups of the meat sauce on the bottom of the pan. Cover with layers of 3 noodles, 1/2 cup of cottage cheese, 1/2 cup of shredded cheese, and 2 cups of the remaining meat sauce. Repeat these layers twice, and then top with the remaining shredded cheese. Cover the dish with aluminum foil and bake for 1 hour- after an hour, remove the foil and bake for an additional 10 minutes. Let the lasagna stand for 10 minutes before cutting to serve.


Thanks to kraftrecipes.com for the great recipe!

Venison: A Trial of Lots and Lots of Deer Meat

When Jeremy and I went to visit my family for Christmas, Bridian gave us what seemed like a thousand pounds of "meat"- most of it was definitely homemade packaging, some of it said "sausage", some had little boxes on it that a hunter marks (and each had different marks, don't worry), but Bridian explained it was all deer meat, just stored in different ways. She lives in Texas and works with hunters. Go figure.

The conversation preceding us possessing 10 (okay, not a thousand) pounds of venison went something like this:

"Hey, do you guys want some deer meat?"

"...uh. What?"

"Deer meat."

"I heard you."

"It cooks just like ground beef. Except for the sausage. We had that for lunch today."

(I remembered lunch, that it was good and then wondered if I really wanted to remember it being good anymore. I really was very, very hesitant to this deer idea.)

Jeremy said, "Sure!" remembering how much he had loved lunch, and we put it in the back of our car. It was December, so it stayed in the trunk very well preserved until we got home. And I had to figure out what to do with that.

So this is part 1 of what I did with the deer meat. And I have to say, especially to anyone else who is hesitant about venison and not wanting to continue reading this, it's pretty tasty. Good things ahead, I promise. And if you want to just use ground beef, most of the recipes are intended for ground beef. Either is good.

[Just an insert- we finished the deer a while ago, I just haven't posted in a very long time. I don't know if deer really will keep forever or not. So we just... used it.]


Quesadilla Casserole

• 1 lb. ground venison
• 1/2 cup chopped onion
• 2- 8oz. cans tomato sauce
• 1 can (15 oz) black beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 can (4.5 oz.) chopped green chiles, undrained
• 1 can (8.75 oz) whole kernel corn, undrained
• 6 flour tortillas (8-inch)
• 2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
• 2 tsp chili powder
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1 tsp minced garlic
• 1/2 tsp oregano leaves
• 1/2 tsp crushed red pepper

1. Brown venison and onion in a large skillet on medium-high heat; drain. [Draining is especially important. Deer fat's gross]
2. Add tomato sauce, beans, corn, and green chiles; mix well.
3. Stir in all of the spices except red pepper. Bring to a boil. 
4. Reduce to low heat and simmer 5 minutes. Add red pepper to taste.
5. Spread 1/2 cup of the venison mixture on the bottom of a 13x9 baking dish sprayed with no-stick cooking spray. Top with 3 of the tortillas, overlapping as needed. Layer with 1/2 of the remaining beef mixture and 1/2 of the cheese. Repeat with remaining tortillas, venison mixture, and cheese.
6. Bake at 350 for 15 minutes or until heated through. Let stand about 5 minutes before serving.

So good :)