Homemade Pizza

Homemade pizza dough:

- 1 cup of all purpose flour
- 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp salt
- glug of olive oil
- 1/2 cup lukewarm water

Instructions: 
1. Put the dry ingredient in a bowl.
2. Add a 'glug' of olive oil (my guess for that measurement would be 1/2 tsp-ish)
3. Stir with a spoon and add little by little the 1/2 cup of water.
4. After the dough starts to come together it is easier to use your hands to form it into a ball.

** If there is still an excess of flour in the bowl after the 1/2 cup of water, slowly add a little more water. The dough should feel moist, but not too sticky. If you add too much water, just sprinkle in a little more flour. 

5. Roll out dough to desired shape/size. With this recipe I always roll out the dough so it is a thin crust.
** It is a good idea to sprinkle surface and rolling pin with a little flour so the dough does not stick.
6. Preheat the oven to 400. ** If your oven takes a long time to heat up, do this before making the dough.
7. Top dough with desired topping and bake for 20 minutes.

Favourite tomato sauce topping: some plain tomato sauce, sprinkle with dried basil, thyme, and chopped garlic. 

Variations that I've made: 
1. Simple: tomato sauce (with dried basil, thyme and garlic), cheddar cheese. For a plain pizza, this was delicious.
2. Sausage # 1: tomato sauce (with dried basil, thyme and garlic), cooked spicy italian sausage, broccoli, mozzarella cheese. (Maybe also some fried onions, I can't remember).
3. Sausage #2: tomato sauce (with dried basil, thyme and garlic), cooked spicy italian sausage, feta, arugula and spinach.
4. Bacon, mushroom, spinach: tomato sauce (with dried basil, thyme and garlic), cheddar cheese, cooked bacon, friend mushrooms and garlic spinach.
5. BBQ Chicken & Bacon Pizza: tomato sauce (with garlic, splash of red wine vinegar, salt and pepper), cooked chicken mixed in BBQ sauce, cooked bacon, leeks, cheddar cheese, extra BBQ Sauce. 

As you can see, I like to make pizza a lot. This is really easy and takes only about 30 minutes!  

Shepherd's Pie with Sweet Potato

I'm pretty broke so I didn't want to go to the grocery store... plus I'm pretty lazy. However, I was lucky enough to have all the ingredients for Shepherd's Pie... sort of. I only had sweet potato, not normal potatoes. But sweet potato being my new found love, I didn't see why it wouldn't work for a Shepherd's Pie.

My dad has always made Shepherd's Pie for the family. And a good Shepherd's Pie at that. His recipe is very simple and delicious, but I jazzed it up a bit because I was feeling fancy.

I don't have measurements because I buy meat in bulk and then freeze it in different portion sizes. Then I guess for the rest of the ingredients depending on how much meat I'm using. Any questions on how much of what to put in it though, I'd be happy to hazard a guess!

Ingredients:
for the meat part...
ground beef
onions
garlic
BBQ Sauce (this is me being fancy)
Oregano
S & P

for the potatoes...

sweet potatoes (or normal potatoes if you have them)
milk

butter

S & P

garlic (this is me being fancy)

extra...

frozen corn

cheddar cheese

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350.

2. Fry up ground beef in a pan. While the beef is frying, dice up onions and garlic. Also chop up potatoes and put into a pot of water. Bring to a boil.

3. When cooked, drain the grease from the ground beef. Add the onions, garlic, oregano, s & p, and BBQ to the meat. Mix around. 

4. When the potatoes have cooked, drain and mash. Add milk, butter, s & p, and garlic.

5. Transfer the meat into an oven safe baking dish. Add a layer of frozen corn and then a layer of mashed potatoes on top of the ground beef. Cover with shredded cheddar cheese.

6. Bake for 40 minutes. You can also put it under the broiler for a couple of minutes (keep an eye on it!) to crisp up the top a little more.

I really liked the addition of the BBQ sauce. It made the meat part really yummy. My only criticism for this dish was there wasn't enough meat (because I didn't defrost enough)!

Pasta with Roasted Red Pepper Sauce

Another recipe from Pioneer Woman tonight. I'm 'bringing back' this roasted red pepper sauce . My sister found it on Pioneer Women's website a while ago and has made it a few times for dinner back in Toronto.

It's a nice change up from a red tomato sauce. The hardest part is roasting the peppers, but it's not even hard. Plus, you could always buy already roasted peppers from the grocery store. Here is a straight forward and easy way to roast peppers.

Pioneer Woman's instructions are straight forward and very easy to follow. I didn't do anything different!

Enjoy!

Mediterranean Tilapia

I tried my hand at fish again last night! I made tilapia sometime last year and although I enjoyed it, I said that next time I'd make it, it would be more flavourful. I made Mediterranean tilapia for dinner last night and it was great! Much better flavour than the last one. I used this recipe as a start, and played around with it.

As I said last time, I'm not a big fish eater. Tilapia is not very fishy, so if you're trying to start eating fish, tilapia is a good place to start. 

For two people: in order of appearance
1 onion, sliced into rings

salt and pepper

2 tilapia filets

splash of white wine (enough to just cover the bottom of the pan)
2-3 tomatoes, diced

1 clove of garlic, crushed

5 kalamata olives, chopped (or more depending on how much you like olives)

1/2-1 tsp oregano, 1/2-1 tsp basil, 1-4-1/2 tsp hot pepper flakes (depends on how your'e feeling)
'glug' olive oil
squeeze of lemon juice (x 2)
feta (however much you want. I love feta)

1. Preheat the oven to 350.
2. Layer bottom of your pan with onion slices. Salt and pepper the tilapia and then place on top of the onions. Pour in splash of white wine so it just covers the bottom of the pan. 

3. In a bowl, mix diced tomatoes, garlic, olives, spices, with some olive oil to moisten the mixture and a squeeze of lemon juice. Place mixture on top of the tilapia. 

4. Drizzle with a little extra olive oil, cover with tin foil and bake for 20 minutes. 

5. Uncover, squeeze a little more lemon on top. Top with desired amount of feta and bake for 15 more minutes.

The fish is done when it flakes at the top of the fork and has turned white. Served with garlic spinach and rice. I made this for my housemate and I. She eats fish and other seafood, but had never had tilapia so was 'scared' (her words) to eat it. She really enjoyed it though! 

Thai Chicken Wraps

 Dinner for two! My housemate Lindsey is a 'wrap' girl. When I think of a wrap, I think of her. That may be weird, but it's true. When I was on pioneer women yesterday finding my dinner, I also stumbled upon this recipe for thai chicken wraps.

I thought it looked pretty good and so did she, so we made it for dinner tonight. It exceeded all my expectations. I thought it'd be good... but it was phenomenal. I will definitely be making it again. The sauce was delicious, and then the fresh vegetable crunch and peanut crunch just added something so good.

Her post for this gets a little confusing, so I'm just going to write it out here (with my adjustments).

In a bowl, mix together the 1 tbs rice wine vinegar, 1/4 cup soy sauce, 1 tsp sesame oil, 1 tsp sriracha, juice of 2 limes, 1 tbs ginger (fresh or powder - whichever you have), 1 clove of crushed garlic . Whisk it together, then pour off half the liquid into a separate bowl.

For the peanut sauce: To make the peanut sauce, combine all the 1/2 cup of peanut butter, 3 tbs soy sauce, 3 tablespoons honey, 1 tsp (or more) sriracha, juice of 1 lime and then add water until it gets to a nice drizzle-able consistency. Taste and add more of what it needs: spice, sweetness, etc. Set aside.

Dice the 2 chicken breasts into bite-sized pieces and put them into the bowl you used to make the marinade. Throw in the squeezed lime halves and set this aside to marinate for a bit.

Into the small bowl with the other half of the marinade, whisk in the 1 tsp cornstarch and 3 tbs honey.

In a heavy skillet over high heat, pour in a small amount of oil. When it's hot, add the chicken pieces in a single layer. Let it sit on one side, undisturbed, for about a minute, then stir the chicken around and cook it until it's totally done, about 3 to 4 minutes. Reduce the heat to low, then pour in the sauce that you mixed in a separate bowl. Stir it around; the sauce will immediately start to thicken. Cook over low heat for 1 minute, then remove from heat and allow to cool.

Cut up your carrots into thin strips. For the cucumber, scoop out the inside that is more soft, and then cut into thin strips. 

Assembly: lay a whole wheat tortilla on a cutting board. Add lettuce, chicken pieces, carrot and cucumber strips. Drizzle on peanut sauce and some extra peanuts. Roll the tortilla up tightly and enjoy! I cut mine in half so it was easier to eat. 

Butternut Squash Risotto

I love pioneer woman. She always has the best recipes. I spent way too much time on her website today  looking at recipes. I had a butternut squash that I wanted to use, but I didn't want to make the butternut squash pasta I usually make (although I love it, I just wanted to try something else). I found pioneer woman's recipe for butternut squash risotto. I trust her greatness so followed the recipe pretty closely.

My adjustments to the recipe:

• Before I added the chicken stock, I put in some wine. I think every risotto should have wine. 
• The measurements I used were a little different because I didn't want to make enough for 8 people. 
• I didn't have any tumeric, so I didn't put that in. 
• I added garlic to the sweet potato and the onions. 
• I'd never put cream in risotto before, but I went for it. Probably less than she suggested. 
• I didn't have any parsley, but I added a bunch of kale to the risotto. Excellent choice. 

Blue Cheese Burger and Sweet Potato Fries

A housemate suggested that I make homemade burgers with blue cheese. I thought what a wonderful idea. Now, I'm not the biggest fan of blue cheese, but I've had it a few times and when it's mild, it's quite delicious.

To make the burger: mix ground beef, chopped onions, egg, ketchup, worcestershire sauce, garlic, salt, pepper, and bread crumbs. I don't measure any of this and the measurements will vary depending on how much beef you're using. Form a 'smaller' patty than what you want and  put a 'crater' in it. Fill with cheese. Make a small patty and put on top, moulding it closed. I cooked mine on the George Foreman, probably for about 15 minutes. The blue cheese ended up sort of melting through the burger instead of all being in the middle. I liked this because it made the blue cheese more subtle and sort of all out.

I topped it with fried onions, mushrooms, kale, bacon and bbq sauce. YUM.

For the sweet potato fries: pre-heat the oven at 450. Wash potato, cut into desired size. I cut mine in half first and then worked off that for desired pieces. Mix with olive oil (not too much, you don't want them to be soggy), salt, pepper, thyme and garlic. Bake for 15 minutes and then turn over. Bake for another 10 minutes.

Sweet Potato Skins

I don't really understand it, but I used to hate sweet potatoes (or so I thought). Even this past summer someone asked me 'why didn't you get the sweet potato fries?! they're so much better than regular fries!' and I simply replied with 'I don't like sweet potato'. I guess i'd never really had them. Oh god. I take after my grandpa. For years and years he would say he hated some sort of food (i.e., pumpkin pie) until my grandma or parents would give it to him and tell him it was something completely different and he'd exclaim 'what is this? it's delicious!' and boom, it'd become his favourite. Well... I guess I'm growing up because I love sweet potatoes!

I recently made a garlic sweet potato mash and it was scrumptious. Last night I was still having my craving for sweet potato from the day before so I went onto yummly and searched 'sweet potato' to see how I wanted to cook them. I found a few intriguing recipes, but the winner was sweet potato skins with bacon . YUM! They were good. The picture shows that there is only half a potato on my plate... I'll admit, after I took a bite I put the second half on my plate. Don't judge me. 

I followed the directions pretty much. I took my sweet potato out at 40 minutes and it seemed done enough. It cut in half very easily, but some part on the inside were still not quite cooked so they were a little hard to scrape out. Next time I'll keep it in for 45 minutes. As for my additions, I added garlic and fresh thyme to the potato mixture. Because why not. I also did not have any heavy cream so I just used a little butter and some milk. 

Served with: baked chicken (dijon, lemon, thyme, garlic, olive oil, s&p) and broccoli. 

Penne with Chicken and a Feta Sauce

I couldn't decide what to make for dinner last night. I had sweet potatoes and wanted to do something with them, but I really wanted pasta for some reasoning (what else is new...). Early in the day I saw a recipe for a feta cheese sauce over chicken on Pinterest. I was intrigued, but in seemed like a weird recipe to me. I was telling my sister about this and she tried to find the recipe but ended up finding a different one. I liked this recipe better because I didn't have to do go the grocery store. The recipe I used was served on flank steak, which I unfortunately did not have, so I stuck with chicken. 

Back to me wanting pasta... I decided to turn the feta sauce into a pasta sauce. I followed the instructions, but after only 1/4 of a cup of feta it wasn't cheesy enough for me. I probably added, in total, 3/4 of a cup of feta. After finally tasting it and with invisioning how the rest of the dinner would come together, I tossed in a few pinches of thyme for more flavour.

While making the sauce, I fried up some mushrooms, onions and garlic. When the sauce was done I added the fried mushrooms/onions/garlic to it. In that pan, I then fried up some bite size chicken pieces. I didn't marinate the chicken at all, just put some salt and pepper and a little garlic in the pan with some olive oil. When the chicken was done I tossed in some spinach and let it wilt. When this was all done also added it to the sauce. Should I make this again, I'd add way more spinach. I was nearing the end of my container so just through what I had left in, but I really like what it added.

I mixed it with some penne and added a sprinkle of feta on top. This was definitely something that should be filed under 'delicious but totally not healthy'. It reminded me of homemade macaroni and cheese. It basically was, just with feta instead of cheddar or some other type of cheese. Tossing this in a casserole dish and putting some bread crumbs and feta on top and tossing it under the broiler for a bit would probably have been delicious, but I always find that not entirely necessary. It just takes longer and I'm pretty impatient. 

Beef Pockets

Working from the Chicken Pocket recipe from the other night, I made a beef version. I can't decide which I liked better. I think the chicken one. Maybe if I had put more cheese in the beef pocket, it would have been better.

Before you start, make sure your puff pastry has 'defrosted' for 2 hours in the fridge or overnight.

1. Preheat the oven to 400.
2. Fry up some ground beef, put aside.
3. Fry up onions and peppers (I used red, yellow and orange) in some butter (in the ground beef pan). Add some garlic and continue to fry.
4. Add the beef back to the pan and add some taco seasoning to taste. (I had some left over from when I made tacos a while ago - maybe 1/2 a package).
5. Unfold your pastry sheet (onto a floured surface - or keep it on the parchment paper it came with)
6. Spread softened cream cheese evenly over pastry sheet leaving about 1/2 inch space along the edges.
7. Evenly spread fresh spinach over 1/2 the puff pastry sheet, again leaving 1/2 inch space along the edges.
8. Evenly spread the beef/vegetable mixture on top of the spinach, again leaving 1/2 inch space along the edges.
9. Top with desired amount of cheese. (I used mozzarella because I had it. Cheddar would have been good too. Or both. Maybe do both).
10. Bake for 20 minutes and enjoy! Be careful, the insides get very hot!

I think these puff pastry things are going to be my new thing. I'm going to try making a dessert. I'm thinking raspberry, strawberry and cream cheese filled or something. We shall see!

My sister made her own 'vegetarian' version of this tonight as well. She filled it with caramelized onions, roasted butternut squash (bite sized pieces tossed with olive oil, salt & pepper, and hot pepper flakes and bake for 30-40 minutes at 400), spinach, parmesan, cream cheese and mozzarella. She said it was super tasty... and it sounds like it to me!

She also folded it differently, but it looks kind of cool this way. Perhaps I will do my dessert like this!

Greek Spinach Feta Chicken Pockets

Judging from the amount of cheese in this recipe, I'm going to go with it was not healthy... but oh boy was it delicious! Tonight I was able to make the Greek Spinach Feta Chicken Pockets.

Besides the fact that I marinated the chicken 'Greek style' (olive oil, lemon, garlic, oregano, s&p, and some hot pepper flakes), which was not suggested by the original blogger, the only thing 'Greek' about this was the use of feta cheese. Nonetheless, I like what the feta added (on top of just having mozzarella and cream cheese).

I ate it with a little Greek salad I whipped up (cucumber, feta, tomato with olive oil, lemon juice, s&p and oregano on top) for some added Greek-ness.

I'd never made anything like this before and as I was adding ingredient after ingredient like the instructions suggested I started to worry that my puff pastry sheet wasn't big enough (it was!). Cheese on top of cheese, on top of chicken and onions, on top of spinach... it was getting pretty piled high! Surprisingly, for me who loves cheese so much, I didn't even put all the mozzarella it suggested because I didn't think it'd close.

It did in fact end up closing, fairly easily. You just have to stretch the pastry over top and work with the insides. After i'd closed it up I was able to push it down with no fight. I probably could have put the remaining cheese in, but I didn't want to open it again!

The only thing I did differently than the original instructions suggested was using fresh spinach instead of frozen (and then thawed) spinach. I had a container of spinach and didn't feel the need to go buy frozen spinach. I think the fresh spinach worked just perfectly!

The original recipe did not say how many servings this would yield, but my guess is anywhere from 2-6 people. Depending on what else you're serving it with and how hungry people are. It's pretty big and filling, so not suggested to eat the whole thing at once!

Apple Cinnamon Quinoa Bites

I whipped up some apple cinnamon quinoa bites this morning! According to the blog I found them on these are relatively healthy little breakfast treats. The first batch I made (I didn't have a big enough muffin tin to make them all at once) wasn't as flavourful as I imagined them to be. Still good, but I guess I just really wanted the sugars/cinnamon/maple syrup to pop. Before I tossed in the second batch, I added more white sugar, cinnamon and maple syrup and mixed it around.

Besides the additions mentioned above and using 1 egg instead of two (it was very moist as is and I didn't think it needed the additional egg), I followed the instructions! I wasn't sure what they were supposed to look like when they were done, but when I looked at them at 15 it didn't seem ready. I put them in for 20 and they started to get some nice colour!

The second batch tasted better. I even had some of the first batch after they cooled off a bit and they weren't bad. Definitely a 'healthy' tasting snack.

Baked Chicken Parmesan

I came home from the library with plans to make Greek Spinach Feta Chicken Pockets. I had the chicken out defrosting and I was going over the ingredients in my head when I realized I should take a look at the puff pastry in the freezer. At this point I was getting VERY hungry. I read the directions on the puff pastry box which said "defrost for 2 hours or in fridge over night". I could not wait that long. My belly was rumbling.

Now here I was with a defrosted chicken breast and no idea what I was making for dinner. I decided to take a look at what food recipes I'd bookmarked recently incase there was something simple and with chicken. Baked Chicken Parmesan to the rescue!!

This recipe is incredible easy and simple. Ingredients: desired chicken amount (I used 1 chicken breast),   seasoned breadcrumbs (or plain breadcrumbs you can season yourself), parmesan cheese, butter, garlic, mozzarella cheese, marinara sauce (I made my own - can use store bought).

Step 1: Preheat the oven to 450 (I had it at about 400-425 and it worked just fine). I just realized it says to spray your baking sheet... I did not and I didn't have any problem with sticking. Spray lightly, if at all.

Step 2: Combine breadcrumbs with parmesan in a bowl. Because my breadcrumbs were not seasoned, I also added chopped fresh thyme and s&p. 

Step 3: Melt butter in a bowl. The original recipe does not call for garlic, but I chopped up some garlic and put it in with the butter. Excellent decision, if I do say so myself.

Step 4: Now it says to 'lightly brush' butter onto the chicken and then dip it into the bread crumbs... I dipped it in the garlic butter and made sure it got nice and covered and then dipped it in the the breadcrumbs (perhaps this is why I didn't need to grease the pan). Put finished pieces on the baking sheet. Drizzle some of the extra butter (if there is some) on top of the chicken pieces.

Step 5: Bake in the oven for 20 minutes. Turn chicken over and bake for another 5. 

Step 6: While the chicken is baking, heat up marinara sauce. I made a very simple sauce using a splash of red wine, garlic, thyme, salt/pepper, red pepper flakes and Passata sauce (a tomato purée I use for all my tomato sauces - look into it, it's very handy!).

Step 7: When the chicken is done baking, spoon sauce over each piece of chicken and then top each piece with shredded mozzarella. The original recipe says 1 tbsp sauce and 1 1/2 tbsp of cheese, but I put as much as I wanted. Cause I do what I want. Bake for 5 more minutes or until the cheese is melted!

Bon Appetit!