bbq chicken pizza

We had pizza on Saturday night and I wanted to share the recipe for the BBQ Chicken Pizza because I found it especially tasty for homemade pizza (mine always seems rather bland/unbalanced for some reason). I used one of the pizza crust recipes from Hot Providence to create a thin crust, and then I adapted this recipe to fit our needs/tastes. Here’s the recipe that we ended up with:

to make 2 crusts:

Mix 1 cup warm water and a scant tablespoon of dry yeast in a small bowl and set aside. In your Kitchen Aid mix together 2 3/4 cups of flour and one teaspoon of salt. Add the yeast mixture to the flour mixture along with 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil.

Mix for one minute, then switch to the dough hook and knead for 3 to 5 minutes, adding flour until it all sticks together on its own. Shape into two balls and let rise in a greased bowl under plastic wrap for about an hour at room temperature.

to make the pizza:

Preheat your oven to 475 and put your pizza stone in to get it all nice and toasty. Heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add a cup or two of cubed chicken and saute until golden brown. Remove from the heat and dice up into little bits. In a bowl, mix the chicken with 2-4 tablespoons of barbecue sauce (we used the Sweet Baby Ray’s or whatever it is – I got it at Wal-Mart). Set that aside.

On a floured surface, roll out one of the dough balls till it’s nice and thin. Pull your pizza stone out of the oven and sprinkle it with cornmeal. Carefully transfer the rolled out pizza dough to the pizza stone and do whatever reshaping necessary to get it to fit well. Put the pizza dough in the oven for a few minutes to get it started cooking. Pull the dough out of the oven and spread it with about a quarter of a cup of barbecue sauce and a quarter of a cup of tomato paste. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, and spread a cup or two of shredded mozzarella and a half cup of shredded Italian cheese mix on top (enough to make a nice layer). Spread some very thinly sliced red onions on top of the cheese and then sprinkle the chicken all over the pizza. Bake until the cheese is bubbly and turning brown and the onions are starting to shrivel a bit. Remove from the oven and serve!

You can use the other ball of pizza dough to make something a little more traditional like pepperoni pizza just in case your family isn’t a fan of “chicken pizza”.

Egg, Bread and Brie

Slice and halve a baguette, spread maple, honey or agave syrup lightly over the top. Place chunks of brie on top of each slice and toast in oven for a couple minutes until the brie has slightly softened. Top with pieces of fried bacon and serve.

Also shown, farm fresh eggs from the Steven’s farm,  scrambled with havarti dill and salsa, seasoned with salt. Topped with flat leaf parsley.

Lunch Quesadillas

In our house, lunch is frequently prepared by frying a flour tortilla in some butter, layering  leftovers and cheese and topping it with another tortilla. Frying it until lightly browned, and flipping it over to brown the other tortilla.  Sound gross? It’s really very good. We’ve done all sorts of cheeses;  swiss, sharp cheddar  or  gruyere.  Leftovers have ranged from prepared tuna, or leftover roast beef, or chicken in spaghetti sauce. If there are no suitable leftovers, we simply dip our cheese quesadillas in ranch dressing. You’d be surprised how much the kids love having a hot lunch and you’ll love a one pan meal that puts those pesky leftovers to good use.

Mushroom Reminders

• You want to you buy organic mushrooms. Why? Because to wash a mushroom is to ruin it. Mushrooms are sponges, they will taste like whatever you cook them with. So if you run them under water to wash them, they will absorb some water and be rather rubbery and tasteless. If you must wash them, take a dry paper towel and dust off the dirt.
• When browning mushrooms,  do not use salted butter or add any salt until after they have browned.  For more tips click here.

One Pan. Vegetarian. Healthy. Affordable.

Not to worry, we aren’t going vegan or anything. Ben and I have just been contemplating the amount of meat we consume. Questions along the lines of, yes, God gave us permission to eat steak, but still some cow has to die and shouldn’t we show respect by not eating beef every night of the week? That’s another tangent, but my point was, that we are cutting back on meat. We have been finding other places to gain protein through food (I’m not a big fan of vitamin supplements). Lots of legumes and cheeses. I’ve learned to soak the beans in salt water to add flavor and to slow cook lentils for 12 hours to make very filling and delicious soups. But sometimes life gets in the way of meal prep and I’m stranded at 6 o’clock with no dinner on the table and not an idea of what to do about it. Yesterday was one such night. I’ve been reading a lot of Alice Water’s The Art of Simple Food, in which she provides a list of food to keep on hand for such emergencies. It is because of that inspiration that I did have potatoes, olive oil, thyme and frozen asparagus on hand. I prefer red or little golden potatoes, which have so much flavor and are easy to quarter into bite sized pieces, but you could just as easily use russets. I washed and quartered my reds and spread them into a glass cake pan. I laid full sprigs of thyme (stripping them takes so much time and I didn’t have it!) on top, and poured a generous amount of olive oil on top of the whole she-bang. Fresh ground sea salt and pepper topped it, of course. I baked it at 375′ turning the potatoes occasionally, which allows for the cooking thyme leafs to fall off and mix in. Once the potatoes were soft, I turned up the heat to 425′ and placed some frozen asparagus spears on top of the potatoes. I kept it in there about 10 minutes until the asparagus had heated through. Ben and I like to dip our roast potatoes in prepared horseradish for an extra kick.

Approximate cost for serving 3 (1/2)

• red potatoes  =  $1.75
• fresh thyme = $2.00
• 1/8 c. olive oil = $1.00
• s & p = $0.25
• frozen asparagus = $1.00
  ____________________
  Total meal cost: $6.00
  Cost per serving: $2.00

Optional prepared horseradish will make each serving about 15 to 20 cents more.

Caesar Salad

One of my favorite simple dinners is a nice big meaty Chicken Caesar Salad with lots of fresh grated parmesan. It’s easy to throw together and if you let people assemble their own, you can present it pretty nicely on the table. Add a loaf of tasty bread and you’re set!

Ophelia Yogurt

I am feeling a bit under the weather today so for breakfast I just asked what Ophelia wanted. She asked for yogurt with honey and cinnamon.  We usually buy Brown Cow Maple yogurt, but they didn’t have it at Trader Joes last week so we have Un-flavored Greek Yogurt. We added a bit of local honey and a pinch of cinnamon. Not only did Ophelia love it, so did Mira and I!

Honey Sesame Pork Chops

I made this shortly before Andrew left for Seattle, and am just now getting around to posting it. Here you go.

Honey Sesame Pork Chops

2 1/2 tbsp soy sauce
1 garlic clove, crushed
2 tsp dry sherry
1 1/2 tbsp honey
1/8 tsp five-spice powder
1/4 tsp toasted sesame oil
1/4 tsp sesame seeds
8 pork chops

To prepare marinade, combine all ingredients in a bowl and stir thoroughly.

Place pork chops in a shallow dish and add the marinade. Cover and refrigerate for several hours or overnight.

Preheat oven to 350.

Place pork chops on a wire rack over a baking dish. Bake for about 35 minutes, brushing with marinade occasionally, or until tender (internal temperature should theoretically be 145, but mine never got that hot after nearly an hour).

Serve with grilled summer veggies.

Life at the Parents’

We’re all still alive over here, I swear. It’s just that Andrew has been in Seattle for the past six weeks for school and the girls and I have moved in with my parents for the time being, so cooking has been light and relaxing has been heavy. But I earn my keep by gardening, hanging curtains, making headboards, and cooking occasionally. Here’s dinner from a few weeks ago. Lemon Chicken with croutons, green beans with roasted veggies, and simple dinner rolls rolled in various seeds.

And this is of course all done while the littlest one does this:

(that was actually just an excuse to post a picture of her, but can you blame me?)

Crostini with Avocado and Green Pea Hummus

We’ve been busy. I promise.  But we did find the time to try out these babies taken from Nigella Express and they are mmm, mmm, good! I couldn’t find the pumpernickel bread anywhere in Moscow (Idaho) where I was making them, so I just used a regular old baguette and toasted slices in the oven prior to making the avocado/pea mixture. I may have also topped them with some fresh ground pepper. I can’t help it, pepper is the best season out there! My father in law (we were visiting them) was teasing me about making “Scarlet Lillie stuff” as I prepared these. I told him that they were way to simple to post. In retrospect, I knew that is exactly why I needed to post them.

Ingredients

• 1 ripe avocado
• 2 tablespoons lime juice
• ½ clove garlic, minced
• 2 4.9-oz cans sweet green peas, drained
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt or ½ teaspoon table salt
• 30 small pumpernickel rounds or 8 regular pumpernickel slices, each cut into 4 little squares

Directions

Spoon out the flesh of the avocado and put it in a food processor; add the lime juice and the garlic.

Add the drained peas and salt and then process until you have a Kermit-colored puree.

Spread the pumpernickel rounds softly with the avocado and pea mixture and arrange on a large platter for serving.