Pizza Party

 

Hope everyone is enjoying the long holiday weekend!

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So far, the weather has been glorious here. Sunshine, blue skies, and high 80 temps. My mom came down to visit for the weekend and we decided to take advantage of the summer season and head to the closest State Park. People were swimming, fishing, barbequing, and just hanging out.

So most people BBQ and go all out on picnic foods and such for Memorial Day, so come Tuesday when the work week picks back up and things are back to the daily grind, you may want to base a meal on packaged foods to make dinner a little easier and faster. This is just as fast as ordering delivery, but much better!

Wingless Buffalo Chicken Pizza

Ingredients:

• 1 (6oz) bag Tyson Grilled Chicken Breast Strips

• 1 pre-made pizza crust, such as Boboli
• 2 Tbsp butter
• 1 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
• 2 to 3 Tbsp hot sauce, such as Frank’s Red Hot

• 1/2 c tomato sauce
• 1 c shredded Monterey Jack cheese,
• 1/2 c blue cheese crumbles
• 3 scallions, thinly sliced
• 2 tsp grill seasoning

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.
• Set pizza on pizza pan.
• In a medium skillet over medium heat, melt butter and stir in Worcestershire, hot sauce, and tomato sauce. Add chicken to sauce and coat. Cover the pizza dough with the saucy Buffalo chicken, cheeses, and scallions. Bake 18 minutes or until crisp.

And of course, breadsticks are a must!

These are a quick-fix, and comparable to Pizza Huts. Plus, you get sauce right in the package—perfect!

Speaking of Pizza Hut, have you heard of their new Eat Well menu? A little about it:

“To help its customers make healthy choices Pizza Hut has launched an "Eat Well" menu that includes items that fall under the Heart and Stroke Foundation's Health Check program.

The menu, which was developed in Canada, now includes pizzas made on multi-grain dough and oven-baked whole-grain pastas. A logo showing a red circle with a white check mark is guiding diners to healthy menu choices.”

The new choices include:

• Grilled Chicken Arabbiatta Pizza
• Grilled Chicken Rustico Pizza
• Giardino Fresco Pizza
• Margherita Pizza
• Tuscani Mediterranean Vegetable Pasta
• Tuscani Mediterranean con Polo Pasta

I think this concept is great! Have you tried their new menu?

 

The Other Half and Home

What an awesome vacation I ended up having! It was short but sweet—just what I needed to push through the last 1/4 of the semester. Now I am blogging on the way home from the sky—so fun! I love to travel—wonder where I will head next? Do you have any fun trips coming up?

I spent Tuesday hanging out with my brother who I only to see once a year if I am lucky, so it’s really refreshing to catch up with him! We went out for lunch at a little diner up the road and had sandwiches..I had a buffalo chicken sandwich which was spicy, but  delish! I am not a huge sandwich fan, but I love trying new flavor combos that I wouldn’t have thought of—now I will have to try making it. =) Then we decided to take advantage of the sunshine and balmy temps, so we walked and got some new pictures of us!

And yes single ladies, he’s currently available!

We ended the day with a needed trip to Olive Garden—hello endless breadsticks (can’t get to Olive Garden? Try making their breadsticks like I did! Recipe here.) and salad! But of course that never fills the gap, so I got the Chicken Marsala for my main dish. I did however sub the marsala sauce for their standard marinara sauce—what can I say? I’m a red sauced girl at heart!

Wednesday I decided to pack in the afternoon because I knew I’d be out semi-late come night time, and Thursday I had the alarm set for 3 a.m. I took the car out and decided to drive to the local grocery store to make the rounds and browse some east coast food. I found lots of great stuff I would’ve loved to have, but unfortunately my suitcase was way over packed full already, so all I could squeeze in was the bars I’ve been dying to try!

I ended my vacation Wednesday night with the best meal ever! It was simple, yet good—we ate at Danielle’s Diner in Grafton which has been there for quite sometime. There is a bar atmosphere, or a dining which is always a nice option to have. My two aunts and I sat for an hour—chitchat + good food= priceless. I just couldn’t resist the baked haddock stuffed with a lobster stuffing—major yum! With sweet potato fries and steamed baby carrots on the side it was a well-rounded meal that satisfied my appetite! I even had enough fries for leftovers which is always nice when you know you have a traveling day ahead of you.

Restaurant leftovers are always good —now I’m just an hour flight from home, and have been sitting for a 3 hour layover in Minneapolis. I ate my packed lunch plus some help from Subway—leftover chicken marsala from Olive Garden, wrapped up in a Flat-Out wrap with spinach, mushrooms, and parmesan cheese, leftover sweet potato fries from Danielle’s Diner, a garden salad with light Italian dressing from Subway, and some roasted kabocha squash with cinnamon—hey what can I say, traveling gives a girl an appetite!!’

 

Boston in the morning

Charles River

 

Enjoy your week!

Olive Garden at Home + Giveaway

I was so glad you all liked my my method of making pizza—one of the reasons I love the blogging world is the endless amount of inspiration in the art of cooking that I can both give and receive.. which brings me to a giveaway! This is only the second giveaway since I started my blog almost a year ago, which in my opinion is much too long—I love free stuff! Since a good portion of commenter’s on my last post said they didn’t have access to Joseph’s Lavash bread, but would like to try it, I figured I’d be the one to help ya out! (I would love to send everyone some, but unfortunately, that isn’t in my college budget!) Btw, the lovely Kelly from the Pink Apron recommended the book American Pie to anyone who has struggled with the search for finding the perfect pizza—thanks Kelly! :-)

All you have to do to enter is:

#1-Shoot me an email or comment in this post about what blog you go to for the most culinary inspiration.

#2-Drop me a note letting me know you linked back to this post—the more the merrier!

The contest ends this Friday at 12 pm Central Time & the winner will be chose via random integer.(And this is open to US residents only)

Onto the food business…

I have always loved Olive Garden, but not for the usual reason—most people head there for the pasta, but I am not a huge pasta fan—instead I tag along and eat all the breadsticks :-) And yes, I do order a dish—minestrone to be exact. So much to my delight, when I received the recent issue of Food Network Magazine and their Top Secret Recipe Revealed was how to make Olive Garden’s breadsticks, I couldn’t help but do a little dance!

 

Making breadsticks sounds a bit daunting, but once you see the ingredients and the simple steps, you should be on your way to making these also! My kitchen smelled like an exact replica of Olive Garden, and the taste test definitely passed with flying colors! Now I can have Olive Garden Breadsticks any day the craving strikes! You can check out the recipe here.

But first, check out my breadstick-making adventure..

 

 

See you tomorrow!

Fast and Cheap and Delicious—Oh My!

If you guessed, the title of this post is supposed to be in the tune of “Lions and Tigers and Bears—Oh my!” Yes I love Wizard of Oz and I am happy to say that Judy Garland’s hometown is only about 45 minutes from where I live! I guess the whole reason I am rambling on about the Wizard of Oz is because it’s windier than a tornado outside(they said 40 mph winds!), and tornadoes immediately get me thinking about Wizard of Oz! I think they should make a remake, do you?

Anyhoo, I won’t make you put up with my random thoughts for the day more than I already have! =) Today’s recipe is based on a challenge I am trying to do which involves only using the food items we already have in our overloaded cupboards and basement versus going out and buying things that I may already have. Of course this rule does not apply to things like fresh produce, cheeses, or milk.(check out my top money saving tricks for produce below!) Anything perishable that we use up fast. Other than that though I am really going to try hard to base recipes on the abundance of canned goods, boxed goods, and other things—because before I know it, they could go bad, and there goes some money down the drain. And who likes to waste money? Especially in this economy?! :-| I encourage you to try this challenge as well—if you do, let me in on your recipes PLEASE! =)

A Couple of CaSaundra’s Tips for Saving on Produce

* Bell peppers are something I always buy. But make sure you always weigh the peppers even if the two you are buying are identical in size. Why? Because one could have more seeds which can significantly increase the net weight ending up in you having to pay more for seeds in a pepper which you throw away!

*If the vegetable misters just sprayed the veggies, make sure you shake it off good because even a little water can add weight which again will end up in you paying more.

*If you want a fruit or vegetable for a recipe that is not in season, don’t fork out big bucks just to get it, try heading to the frozen department and see if you can get it there. Frozen fruits/veggies are frozen at their peak which means they retain tons more nutrients than fresh.

One of my standby products I love to use in recipes is Pillsbury Crescent rolls or Breadsticks because they always offer up great coupons either online or in your local newspaper’s flier. (I am happy to say I saved a whopping $14.00 last week with coupons—whoo hoo!) I don’t use these products just because they offer coupons, but because with some fresh and gooey dough ready at your fingertips, the possibilities are endless. I couldn’t wait to share my yesterday’s dinner creation with you =)

Peppery Sausage Pizza Bundles

Serves: 4 Prep Time: 25 minutes

Ingredients:

• 1 package of Pillsbury refrigerated breadsticks
• 1/4 C chopped green pepper
• 1/4 C chopped onion
• 3 TBSP pizza sauce + extra for drizzling/dipping
• 1/4 C shredded cheese(any flavor you like—I used mixed)
• 3/4 C of finely chopped sausage(the choice of what you use is completely up to you—I used Harvest Apple Chicken Sausage from Whole Foods

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 375 F. Then unroll breadsticks and section into 4 squares each consisting of 3 breadsticks placing on a greased/tinfoiled cookie sheet. Pinch together the seams, so they no longer look like they can be ripped apart.(Picture below)

• Sauté onions, peppers, and sausage until veggies are fork tender (3 minutes), then take off burner and stir in 3 TBSP of pizza sauce.
• Take cheese and sprinkle evenly onto breadsticks, and then top each square with filling.(Try to get each one even.
• Then wet fingers with water and bring all four sides around the filling and pinch together. Sprinkle with additional cheese if desired.
• Pop in the preheated oven for 15-18 minutes, or until golden. Once out of the oven, you can slather with more sauce or put some in a dish for dipping!

And since this recipe couldn’t bear to be served alone, I continued my challenge of using only what we had to make--->

Easy Cheesy Tomato Gumbo

Serves:4 Prep Time: 10 minutes

Ingredients:

• 2 cans of Campbell’s Healthy Request Tomato Soup with Tomato Pieces
• 1 bag of Boil-in-Bag Rice
• 1 bag of California Blend frozen veggies
• 2 TBSP Parmesan cheese
• 1/4 C of milk
• 1 TBSP Worcestershire Sauce

Directions:

• Boil rice in microwave. Meanwhile pour soup into a saucepan adding the vegetables, sauce and milk. Once rice is done add that.
• Turn burner on to medium heat and let soup simmer. Stir in the cheese before serving. And of course add additional seasonings to jazz it up a bit!