Grilled Pizza Take 2

So I decided to try grilled pizza again, but I did a few things different this time. I used the same recipe for pizza dough but added 1 T. of honey instead of 1 T. of the sugar in the dough recipe. I also used corn meal when rolling out the dough and that worked a lot better when rolling the dough out. I also sprinkled some corn meal on the baking sheet and that made it easier to get the dough off the pan. It was so yummy and I will be trying it again!

BBQ Chicken Pizza

1 Dough Recipe
1 Rotisserie Chicken, shredded and covered with 1 cup BBQ Sauce
1 small red onion, cut into thin pieces
1 cup cilantro, torn
1 cup Parmesan Cheese (or however much you want)
More BBQ sauce (about 1/2 cup) for putting on the pizza crust

Make the pizza dough and while it rests for 20-30 minutes, heat the grill, cut the onion and cilantro and let the chicken marinate in the BBQ sauce. When the dough and grill are ready, cook the dough on low heat, flipping once. When the dough is cooked, transfer to a baking sheet. Cover the dough with BBQ sauce, then layer the chicken, onions, cilantro and cheese (I like to heat the chicken back up in the microwave for 3 minutes and then put it on the pizza so it is warm). Put the baking sheet with the pizza on it on the grill and heat until cheese melts. Enjoy!

Pug Cake

The Birthday Girl

My niece just turned 1! She is adorable and I love her to death. She has a pug dog, Roxy, and likes to squish her nose up like her dog. So for her cake, we made a pug. I have to give credit to my sister for this one, she did most of the cutting, I did most of the piping and she put the finishing touches on it. I think it turned out amazing!

We used an 8 inch round cake for the head, an 8 inch square cake for the body and from another round cake cut out the ears, sides and feet. The frosting was tricky. We used April's recipe for cream cheese butter cream frosting. Instead of dying the frosting and changing the taste we added store bought chocolate frosting for the main body and a little black dye to make the gray color. We had fun learning how to pipe. It's a lot of work though and I'm not sure it's worth it.

Cream Cheese Butter Cream Icing

(Makes a lot of frosting and you could cut in 1/2 or 1/3 for one cake)

6 lb. powdered sugar (3 bags)
1 c. water
2/3 lb cream cheese (10 1/2 oz., softened)
1 c. butter (2 sticks, softened)
1 1/2 c. Crisco

Place powdered sugar into mixer or large bowl. Make an opening in the middle of the powdered sugar with a scoop or large spatula. Pour the water in the center of the powdered sugar. Place the cream cheese in the microwave until just warm (about 30 seconds) and put in the middle with the water. Using beaters begin to mix. Add the butter and crisco into the sugar mixture and mix well until it's smooth and creamy.**I also made this ahead of time. Be sure to store it in the fridge in an airtight container or bowl. Place plastic wrap on top of the frosting to keep from drying out. Rewhip before using.**

Need Ideas

I had some people from Michigan stay with us this past week. As a gift, they brought us Michigan Dried Cherries. I have never eaten or cooked with dried cherries, so does any one have any ideas what I should make with them?

Weekly Menu

I know that this is early, but here is my weekly menu for next week. Work is super slow today, so I thought I would get a jump on it.

Monday: Burger and Brats (gotta use what's in the freezer)
Tuesday: BBQ Chicken Pizza-that's right I'm trying grilled pizza again
Wednesday: Creamy Ranch Pork (Creamy Ranch Chicken recipe from Stephanie's Kitchen, but I'm using pork so we don't overload on chicken next week)
Thursday: Chicken Quesadillas
Friday: Mystery!

Cards

These are some cards that I made. The first one is a birthday card that I made for my friend Melanie. The second card I made for my friend Michelles baby shower. This is a new hobby of mine and I love to try new things and make each card different. I think that making a card is more special than buying one and it means more to the person who receives it. And it's fun!

Lemon Raspberry Cheesecake

I love that my friends love cheesecake, that means lots of experimenting! I have started a "tradition" (I guess) of making my friends cheesecake for their birthdays. Melanie requested lemon raspberry cheesecake so here it is. The recipe is from myrecipe.com. The graham cracker crust was a little soggy and the cheesecake was very lemony. Everyone loved it! Melanie said that this cheesecake tasted almost like the version made by the Cheesecake Factory. Oh my gosh! I think that is the best compliment ever!!!

Ingredients

1 cup graham cracker crumbs
5 tablespoons butter or margarine, melted
3 tablespoons sugar
3 (8-ounce) packages cream cheese, softened
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 tablespoon grated lemon rind
3/4 cup fresh lemon juice
2 teaspoons all-purpose flour
4 large eggs
1 pint fresh raspberries

Preparation

Combine graham cracker crumbs, butter, and 3 tablespoons sugar. Press into bottom of an 8-inch springform pan; set aside.

Beat cream cheese at medium speed with an electric mixer until smooth. Add 1 1/2 cups sugar and next 3 ingredients, beating until blended. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition.

Pour half of batter into prepared pan. Sprinkle with raspberries; pour remaining batter over raspberries. Bake at 325° for 1 hour and 30 minutes or until cheesecake is almost set. Turn oven off, and partially open door; leave cake in oven 1 hour. Remove from oven; run a knife around edge of pan, and release sides. Cool completely on a wire rack. Cover and chill 8 hours. Store in refrigerator.

Makes 10 servings

Cheese Fondue

A few posts ago I talked about our Girls Night Out Fondue Party. Well Michelle posted her cheese recipe, so I stole it to post here!

Cheese Fondue
8 oz. shredded Sharp cheddar cheese
8 oz. shredded Swiss cheese
2 tablespoons flour
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 clove garlic (or 1/2 teaspoon minced garlic)
1 can beer (or 1 1/2 cups chicken stalk)
1 dash Tabasco

Mix all ingredients together and melt. Put in a fondue pot and dip bread and whatever else into fondue.

I Need Help Bobby Flay!

I have been wanting to try grilled pizza for awhile and finally tried it!

I made homemade pizza dough using the recipe from Stephanie's Kitchen. I made it in the morning and put it in the fridge until I needed it that evening. I decided to make an all meat pizza so while I was cooking Italian Sausage I rolled the dough out into a rectangle on my SilPat, which I thought was a good idea. When the grill was ready I oiled the dough and went to flip it. I thought it was just come off since I used the SilPat but it still stuck. So I quickly tried to pull it off while not ripping the dough, which didn't work so well. So I ended up with this horse shape pizza. I had the grill on medium heat but had to crank it way down because the dough was getting crispy. I flipped the dough and quickly put on pizza sauce, mozzarella, Parmesan cheese, pepperoni, Italian Sausage and Canadian bacon. The dough was done cooking, but the cheese had not melted so I turned the grill off and closed the lid and let the heat finish melting the cheese.

The pizza was really crispy, but really good! I plan to try it again. I had the idea to make a Mexican pizza and a BBQ Chicken pizza. Next time I will double the dough recipe to make it thicker and I am thinking it would be better to roll the dough out on a cookie sheet with some cornmeal on it so it won't stick. If anyone has better ideas on how to easily flip the dough onto the grill let me know. I really liked the pizza and want to keep making it.

Here is how to make the dough:
2 T. Sugar

2 1/2 all purpose flour

1 (1/4 ounce) package active dry yeast

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup warm water

1/2-1 tablespoon olive oil

cornmeal, for sprinkling

1. Mix the sugar into the warm water
2. Sprinkle yeast on top
3. Wait for 10 minutes or until it gets all foamy
4. Pour into a large bowl
5. Add flour, salt, olive oil
6. Combine
7. Knead for 6-8 minutes until you have a moderately stiff dough that is smooth and elastic (add a bit more flour if you need to)
8. Cover and let rest for 20-30 minutes
9. Lightly grease two 12-inch pizza pans
10. Sprinkle with a little bit of cornmeal
11. Divide dough in half
12. Place each half on a pizza pan and pat it with your fingers until it stretches over the whole pan
13. Try to make it thicker around the edge
14. If desired, pre-bake at 425 F for 10 minutes (I don't always do this)
15. Then spread with pizza sauce and use the toppings of your choice
16. Bake at 425 F for 10-20 minutes longer or until bubbly and hot
17. Makes 2 12-inch pizzas
18. If you don't want to use all the dough, you can freeze it
19. Take a portion of dough, form into a ball, rub olive oil over it and place it in a freezer bag (the oil makes it easier to take out of the bag)
20. When you want to make a pizza, take dough out of freezer and allow to thaw before using

Spaghetti Sauce

Dusty asked me for a marinara sauce, so here is one. I made these for neighbor gifts and friend gifts for Christmas and froze the rest. We love it! The recipe is Giadas from foodnetwork.com.

Simple Tomato Sauce:
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 small onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 stalk celery, chopped
1 carrot, chopped
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 (32-ounce) cans crushed tomatoes
2 dried bay leaves
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, optional

In a large casserole pot, heat oil over medium high heat. Add onion and garlic and saute until soft and translucent, about 5 to 10 minutes. Add celery and carrots and season with salt and pepper. Saute until all the vegetables are soft, about 5 to 10 minutes. Add tomatoes and bay leaves and simmer uncovered on low heat for 1 hour or until thick. Remove bay leaves and check for seasoning. If sauce still tastes acidic, add unsalted butter, 1 tablespoon at a time to round out the flavors.
Add 1/2 the tomato sauce into the bowl of a food processor. Process until smooth. Continue with remaining tomato sauce.
If not using all the sauce, allow it to cool completely and pour 1 to 2 cup portions into freezer plastic bags. This will freeze up to 6 months.

Yield: 6 cups

No Weekly Menu and an Oops!

There will not be a weekly menu this week, we are not eating, Just Kidding. The hubby is going to Wyoming and I hate to cook for 1, so nothing exciting will be cooked this week. Also, I just realized that I didn't include the recipe for the homemade oreo cookies-oops. I will post that tonight, sorry!

What I Love Right Now

I added a new element to my page. It is called "What I Love Right Now" and I will post pictures about products that I try and love! It is located on the right side of my blog about half way down.

Homemade Oreos

We had some new neighbors move in so I took that as an excuse to bake and welcome them with cookies! I love homemade oreos and have ever since I was little so I decided to bake some. These cookies also have a special meaning to them. Every year at Christmas my mom's neighbor would bring a plate of assorted cookies to our house and it was a fight to get one of the 4 oreos. I would've eaten all of them had my mom let me. I looked forward to them every year. A gal that I work with brought some in one day and I had to have the recipe. Luckily, Debbie likes me and gave the recipe to me! They are super easy to make and so yummy. Enjoy!

2 boxes of chocolate cake mix
1 1/2 cups Crisco
4 eggs
Frosting:
8 oz. cream cheese
1/4 cup butter
1 Tablespoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon vanilla
Powdered sugar (reg. bag)

Mix the cake mix, Crisco and eggs. Roll into balls and bake 8-10 minutes at 350 degrees on 2nd to top rack. Mix the remaining ingredients to make the frosting. Use as much powdered sugar to get make it as thick or thin as you want. Let the cookies cool, then frost.

Chocolate Caramel Fondue

The Spread

The Girls Eating Yummy Food

The Best Part-Chocolate Caramel Fondue

I hosted Girls Night Out last month and we had a fondue party! I had some fondue pots that had never been used, so we busted them out. We had 2 cheese fondues served with crackers, steak, ham and fruit. I was not in charge of the cheese fondues, so I don't have those recipes. But I was in charge of the Chocolate Caramel Fondue and it was dang good! It made a ton, so make sure you are hungry.

Ingredients

• 1 14-ounce can (1-1/4 cups) sweetened condensed milk
• 1 12- to 12-1/2-ounce container caramel ice cream topping
• 9 ounces semisweet chocolate, coarsely chopped, or 1-1/2 cups semisweet chocolate pieces
• Assorted dippers, such as angel food or pound cake cubes, large marshmallows, dried apricots, or fresh fruit including strawberries, banana slices, and/or pineapple chunks
• Milk

Directions

1. In a 1-1/2-quart slow cooker stir together sweetened condensed milk, ice cream topping, and chocolate.

2. Cover and cook on low-heat setting, if available, for 2 hours. Stir until mixture is smooth. Serve immediately or keep warm, covered, on low-heat setting for up to 1 hour (chocolate mixture will become grainy if held longer).

3. To serve, spear dippers with fondue forks. Dip into chocolate mixture, swirling as you dip. If the mixture thickens, stir in a little warm milk to make fondue of desired consistency. Makes 12 servings (3-1/4 cups).

Note: Some 1-1/2-quart slow cookers include variable heat settings; others offer only one standard (low) setting. The 1-1/2-quart slow cooker recipes in this book were only tested on the low-heat setting, if one was present.

Recipe is from Better Homes and Garden website.

Parmesean Chicken and Frys

Thank you Prudence Penny Wise for the link to this recipe. This was such a great dinner, all fried, but great! I have never breaded chicken before, but is was so easy. I wanted to add some jazz to this recipe so I added a packet of dry Zesty Italian Salad Dressing mix into the bread crumbs for the chicken and I also sprinkled some on the frys when they came out of the oil. This recipe will be made over and over again because it was so good!

The frys were made by peeling potatoes and cutting them into small pieces. Then dropping them into an inch of hot oil. Cook until golden brown and then drain on paper towels. Serve with ketchup!

Ina's Parmesan Chicken:
4 to 6 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 extra-large eggs
1 tablespoon water
1 1/4 cups seasoned dry bread crumbs
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan, plus extra for serving
Unsalted butter
Good olive oil

Pound the chicken breasts until they are 1/4-inch thick. You can use either a meat mallet or a rolling pin.

Combine the flour, salt, and pepper on a dinner plate. On a second plate, beat the eggs with 1 tablespoon of water. On a third plate, combine the bread crumbs and 1/2 cup grated Parmesan. Coat the chicken breasts on both sides with the flour mixture, then dip both sides into the egg mixture and dredge both sides in the bread-crumb mixture, pressing lightly.

Heat 1 tablespoon of butter and 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a large saute pan and cook 2 or 3 chicken breasts on medium-low heat for 2 to 3 minutes on each side, until cooked through. Add more butter and oil and cook the rest of the chicken breasts.