Homemade Pizza

Dough made in the bread machine with Italian herbs? Can you imagine the aroma that fills the house? For the toppings, we started with sweet Italian sausage pinched out of the casings and browned in a skillet with a little olive oil.

The dough from the bread machine looks speckled from the Italian herbs. Mike spun it out like back in his Pizza Hut days and stretched it out to the edges of the pizza pan.

Add your favorite toppings. There’s really no right or wrong here; just try and stick with a theme if you want to make sure the flavors will go together or try to replicate an old favorite. For example, cheeseburger–what do you like on your cheeseburger? Put it on the dough! *Meats, unless precooked, need browned beforehand. You’re really just cooking the dough in the oven. Anything else as toppings need to be safe eaten uncooked or without further cooking. Don’t forget your sauce: red, white, pesto, olive oil would work, too!

We topped it with marinara sauce, Italian sausage, pepperoni, mushrooms, and of course, mozzarella cheese!

In the oven at 375°F for 20 minutes-ish. I suggest you check on it after ten minutes depending on what you packed on it and how thick your crust is. Watch the crust for a golden brown, and the cheese in the center should be melted. Voilà! You’re a cook!

Taco Ring

A friend of mine who is also a chef, sent me a similar recipe she had done at home with her kids. Naturally, I have to attempt to recreate it. She challenges me that way. The good thing about that is…she never holds back on the kuddos!

She went to culinary school while I was studying Dietetics and the intricacies of food science and human nutrition, so in working out substitutions and proportions, I get validation from her in what I’ve created thanks to that prior knowledge (along with my 30+ years of cooking/experimenting). I actually have two best friends who are chefs, but I digress.

The Taco seasoning, of course, I make at home saving from added preservatives or inexplicable additives you can’t pronounce incorporated during processing. I love these little Ball jars with shaker tops! They’re great for the extra spice mix or making bulk for multiple recipes!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Taco Seasoning:

2 T (tablespoons) chili powder

T ground cumin

½ t (teaspoons) garlic powder

½ t onion powder

½ t dried oregano

t paprika

2 t each sea salt and ground black pepper

Optional– ½ t crushed red pepper

 

Brown 1-1/4 lb ground turkey, drain fat. Sprinkle 3 to 5 tablespoons, depending on how spicy you like your Mexican food, over turkey meat. Allow to warm and release the oils (smells) of the spices. Remove from heat. Allow to cool so it doesn’t cook the pastry while you’re filling it.

Separate two tubes of refrigerator croissants. Overlap triangles into a ring. You may have to adjust it, but it will be okay as long as the dough stays cold. Stir cheese into meat and spoon onto overlapping sections of the croissant dough.

Gently wrap opposite end of dough over the meat and tuck the point under the inside of the ring. Cook according to croissant baking instructions.

Taco Ring ingredients:

2 tubes refrigerator croissants

1-1/4 lb ground turkey

3 to 5 T taco seasoning or one packet

2 cups of Mexican or Fiesta blend cheese, cheddar also works well

Sour cream, chopped fresh tomatoes, salsa, and cilantro to garnish

Classic Fried Rice

Childhood favorite, versatile, personalize-able, simple, quick, filling, tasty…so many words to describe this dish. It’s quick if you have rice ready or a rice cooker. I like to think of fried rice as the Asian equivalent to lasagna; it’s all your leftovers thrown together, or at least, that’s how I figure lasagna was first made, but layered! For lasagna, you need pasta and cheese; everything else is by selection. For fried rice, you need rice and egg. You can virtually put whatever else in it you choose. My mom had several versions of fried rice: hamburger fried rice, SPAM fried rice (like you see here), spicy fried rice…

SPAM is easily a kid-favorite food because it’s salty. It balances well with these light-flavored vegetables, peas and carrots. I like to use frozen vegetables for this because they keep their shape (don’t get mushy while being tossed around in this mix), are inexpensive but have similar nutritional integrity as fresh vegetables, and they’re ready to cook (no chopping, cleaning, etc).

I’m basically defrosting them in about 1/4 cup of water or chicken stock in a pan on medium-high while I chop the SPAM.

Probably shouldn’t have the kids chop this up…they like to sneak tastes!

I’ve added the SPAM to the veggies to warm it up. I just think it tastes better this way. Once that’s done, add three scrambled eggs, salt and pepper. I’ve opened up a space in the center of the mix to cook the egg as you will see any Asian cooking fried rice will do. Drop some olive oil in there before the eggs. You could cook the eggs first and set them aside; this will also save from dirtying another pan.

Rice is done. Add it when everything else is done cooking. Don’t forget your sauce! Soy sauce, fish sauce, hoisin…whatever you like. You really have to experiment. Most Asians don’t use recipes.