Easy As {pizza} Pie !!

What in the world is up with Wednesdays? The past three have been loooooong and busy. Although I keep complaining about how hard and long my work days are, I must say I am extremely fortunate and thankful to have a job and would NOT change it for the world.

At some point today, I was thinking of what I was going to make for dinner. Even though I told Don I was going to make homemade alfredo ( will post recipe at some point ), I remembered I finally got my March issue of Martha Stewart Living. In the this months magazine, Martha gave a recipe for ‘Skillet Pizza’. I was craving pizza at the time and I knew we had all the fixins’ for homemade pizza. The recipe states you can use homemade OR store bought dough.

Recipe for Skillet Pizza

1. Preheat oven to 500 degrees. Brush 12” cast-iron skillet with 1 teaspoon oil. Press dough flat in skillet, spreading to the edge ( If the edge retracts, let the dough sit for 5 minutes before continuing) Brush 1” border around edge with 1 teaspoon oil

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2. Use your favorite ingredients to cover the pizza. We used pepperoni, sausage, mozzarella and Parmesan! ( of course only things don will eat). Cook on the stove over medium heat until the bottom is golden brown ( just about 4-5 minutes). Transfer to oven.

3. Cook in oven until edge of crust is golden and dough is cooked through ( about 10 minutes ).

Image4. ENJOY.

We were introduced to a store bought pizza crust awhile back. I will tell you, we aren’t huge fans of it. Publix typically has fresh dough in the bakery. Its way better then the store bought, pre-packaged stuff, in my opinion.

The pizza came out alot better then what I thought it was going to. It was a thicker crust, BUT not to thick. I would like to try this again maybe with pears, gorgonzola and arugula.

Hope you try this recipe out and find it easy and quick like I did. Our house is now under construction with our very first DIY project inside the home. Of course I will blog about it soon :)

Accident Prone

Don and I woke up Saturday morning and started the day with a bike ride. We decided to grab a bagel for breakfast at Einsteins Bagel Company ( The Asiago Cheese Bagel is my favorite with chive cream cheese ). Anyways… We began our ride back home and the wind was incredible. It did make for a good work out though :0) My legs started to reallllly burn so I decided to stand and ride like we do in spin classes.  I stood up on my bike for about three strides and all of sudden on my next down stride my right foot slipped off my peddle ( at the time I thought it slipped ) and hit the cement. Next thing I know my bike is zigzagging back and forth and I finally fall flat on my back along with the bike.

FIRST let me say that I was completely embarrassed because where we live there are tons of bike riders and on nice Saturday mornings riders are everywhere. My fall definitely did not go unnoticed.

SECONDLY my foot did not slip of the bike. My foot peddle completely fell off and flew off my bike. As don and I were walking home I was curious if it was my weight that broke the peddle…Don said NO,, It fortunately was a defect with the bike and the way the peddle was installed on the bike. I had an Immediate sigh of relief.

LASTLY as the day went by several large and small bruises started to appear. UGH !!!! I thought I broke my right hand some how.. I am so glad that didn’t happen. How could I clean someones teeth???

Well that’s not it…Yesterday we had our first swim in the pool for this year. We decided instead of going out to dinner, we would stay home and grill out. Every now and then we really enjoy a good juicy burger from steak and shake so last night we tried to mimic those burgers. We had some cubed steak in the freezer we were going to try because they were skinny and we needed to use them. Well as they were cooking Don started to cut cheese with one of my really sharp knifes. I insisted on him to stop and use the mandolin…. Why I chose the mandolin over the CHEESE grater I have NO IDEA. Well after a few slices of cheese my right middle, ring and pinky finger ALMOST joined. Ahhh!!!! I have always been warned about that and I finally learned. I can’t catch a break…How would I work with two fingers ?

Hope you didn’t have such bad luck this weekend. No new recipes this week, Just a delicious REPEAT.

Skillet Cheesy Chicken and Rice

Today I pulled out my recipe book to find out what I was going to cook for dinner! I got really excited because we chose to do a standing rib roast. That idea did not last long when I told Don to look up the current price for the meat. To say the least, we will keep the standing rib roast up the the folks for Christmas time.

As I threw that recipe back into the book, a small little paper fell out. It was literally tiny – appx 2in x 2 in ( if that ). It was a Campbell’s recipe for Skillet Cheesy Chicken and Rice . It was perfect for a picky eater. Chicken..CHECK… Cheese..CHECK..Rice…CHECK!! All I needed to do was omit the veggies and add them on the side for myself.

(Picture courtesy of Campbell’s Kitchen)

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

1 1/4 pounds skinless, boneless chicken breast halves

1 can (10 3/4 ounces) Campbell’s® Condensed Cream of Chicken Soup (Regular or 98% Fat Free)

1 1/2 cups water

1/2 teaspoon onion powder

1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

1 cup uncooked regular long-grain white rice

2 cups frozen mixed vegetables

1/2 cup shredded Cheddar cheese.. We used slightly more. HUGE CHEESE FANS HERE !

  • Heat the oil in a 12-inch skillet over medium-high heat.  Add the chicken and cook for 10 minutes or until well browned on both sides.  Remove the chicken from the skillet.
  • Stir the soup, water, onion powder, black pepper and rice in the skillet and heat to a boil.  Reduce the heat to low.  Cover and cook for 15 minutes, stirring once halfway through the cooking time. I noticed during the rice cooking, a lot of water evaporated leaving the rice undercooked. I simply pulled out some beef broth I had in the fridge and kept adding as much as I needed till the rice was fully cooked.
  • Stir in the vegetables.  Return the chicken to the skillet.  Sprinkle with the cheese.  Cover and cook for 5 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through and the rice is tender.

I really enjoyed this chicken dish and will be enjoying it again in the future. I hope you and your family do also !

Off to watch The Oscars !

Last Minute Chicken

Monday … Monday…Monday …

My day acutally started off pretty darn well for a Monday morning..except how chilly it was ! By the time I started cleaning my second patients teeth my stomach started to growl. Naturally I began to think of food.. thinking of food made me think of what I was going to cook for dinner!

Shoot….I completely forgot to take something out of the freezer to defrost ! Ahhhh – not to panic! I remembered this delish BBQ Crock pot chicken I came across on one of the blogs I follow.

(Picture Courtesy of Stick A Fork In It)

As soon as I finished with my patient, I scrambled for my phone to email Don the recipe.

4-6 pieces boneless skinless chicken breasts (i threw them in frozen… even easier!)
1 bottle BBQ sauce (sweet baby ray’s all the way!)
1/4 c vinegar
1 tsp. red pepper flakes
1/4 c brown sugar
1/2 – 1 tsp. garlic powder

mix BBQ sauce with all ingredients listed under it. place chicken in crockpot. pour sauce over it and cook on LOW for 4-6 hours. you pretty much don’t even have to stir it… how easy is that!?  !!!!!

All I did when I got home was make rice to go along with it!

Whew… Saved by a blog :0)

 

 


Time for dinner !

Tonight for dinner, I made crockpot swiss chicken casserole.  It was not my first time making it, however it is a fairly new reciepe I tried. It is acutally very delicious. The first time I put it in the crockpot, the chicken was cooked perfectly. . .  very tender and juicy. To help  me save time,  I had Don put all the ingredients in the crockpot so when I got home from working out ( more on this later), We could dive into this delicious meal!

My crockpot has a mind of its own. It wants to be on low when IT wants to and on HIGH when IT wants to. Tonight my chicken was a little over cooked… BOO… who likes dry chicken ..NOT ME! The flavor of the other ingredients really helped out on the dryness though. Its easy. Simple. And you can not go wrong cooking this reciepe (well except when you have a crazy crock pot.) I had a serving of veggies on the side to make it a little healthy ! Reciepe Below :)

Ingredients:
6 boneless/skinless chicken breasts ( I will use however may we are going to eat, usually three )
6 slices Swiss cheese (if you aren’t a Swiss fan, put your fav cheese on there)
1 can cream of mushroom soup (I used cream of chicken … esp for the picky eater in the house )
1/4 cup milk
2 cups stuffing mix (flavored stuffing makes it awesome – I used the herb flavored stuffing )
1/2 cup butter or margarine, melted 

Directions:
1. Lightly grease crockpot ( I used the new crock pot bags to help with clean up :D )
2. Place chicken breasts in crockpot. Top with a cheese slice.
3. Combine soup and milk, stirring well. Spoon over cheese.
4. Sprinkle with stuffing mix.
5. Drizzle melted butter over stuffing mix.
6. Cook on low 8 to 10 hours or high 4 to 6 hours.

Enjoy !!

Okay about working out : Since my first blog post , I have been running ( and a little walking ) two miles every day except on sunday! So proud of myself. Tonight I actually did not run however I did still work out. I went to Z-U-M-B-A and sweated my booty off.  One of my neighbors mentioned a new route that is about 4.2 miles. I think I am going to walk that route Saturday morning ! We will see about that !!!

Thank the Lord tomorrow is WEDNESDAY ! We are half way there folks !