Mom tips on pizza

Mom says:

I smoosh the pizza crust into the pan and put it in a hot (about 400 or
450) oven for 6 or 8 min, til it starts to look dry and firm (but not
brown).

Then I take it out and top it with whatever. Then bake at 400 or 450
til the topping looks hot and bubbly. That will be about 15 or 20
minutes, depending on how thick the toppings you put on. More meat and
cheese, etc, more time to cook.

Everything we use for toppings are already cooked, so it just needs to
get hot and the cheese needs to melt and bubble. Low in the oven is
good to crisp up the crust on the bottom, about 1/3 from the bottom.

Chicken-Fried Steak and King Ranch Chicken

It ain't healthy, but you'll be happy. Soak good meat overnight in
milk, dip small pieces in flour with a dash of salt and pepper, and fry
in pretty hot oil; serve with mashed potatoes and corn on the cob.

Haven't tried this King Ranch Chicken, but it looks OK:

10 oz cream of chicken soup
10 oz cream of mushroom soup (or replace both these with 20 oz poblano
cream of chicken soup)
2 cups chicken broth
10 oz can of RoTel
16 corn tortillas, cut in pieces
1 whole cooked chicken (or cook chicken breasts in the broth)
1 large chopped onion
4 cups grated cheddar cheese

Cook chicken breasts in broth, cool and shred.
Grease a 3-qt casserole
Add soup and Rotel to broth
Layer: 1/2 of the tortillas, chicken, onion and cheese
Pour half the broth over
Layer again, and pour rest of broth on.
Bake at 350 degrees for 45 to 60 minutes.

Week 1: Garlic pork loin, pot roast, salmon

OK, it's crunch time. I'm under a tight budget for the next 6 weeks and it's time to really give this a run. Here's the plan for Week 1:

Garlic Pork Loin with raspberry chipotle sauce and wild rice
Bobbie's Pot Roast
Ginger Soy Salmon
lots of almond haricots verts

Grocery list

from HEB: frozen haricots verts

4 salmon fillets
Chuck roast, 3 lb
2 1/2 to 3 1/2 pound boned pork loin

2 lemons
3-4 carrots
2-3 russet potatoes
2 lb new potatoes

Can of mushroom soup
Packet of onion soup mix
Can Ortega diced green chiles
Uncle Ben's wild rice
garlic (2 cloves for potatoes, a few for pot roast, 8 for pork)
ginger (4 tsp for salmon)
dried thyme
sliced turkey breast
wheat bread

have on hand: butter, olive oil, fresh rosemary, salt, pepper, soy sauce, sugar, garlic salt, sliced almonds, F&W raspberry chipotle sauce, Miracle Whip

Plan of attack: Pick up the haricots verts Friday on way home. Shop for the rest Saturday, chop the garlic and make the rosemary potatoes, eat a turkey sandwich and go to Kelly's party. Sunday, start the pot roast, chop veggies, make the salmon, wild rice and haricots verts. Monday night after work, roast the pork loin.

Rosemary Potatoes

2 lb. new potatoes, scrubbed & quartered
1 tbsp. olive oil or cooking oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tsp. snipped fresh rosemary or 1/2 tsp. dried rosemary, crushed
2 tsp. snipped fresh thyme or 1/2 tsp. dried thyme, crushed
1/4 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. pepper

Roasting directions: In a greased 13 x 9 x 2 inch baking dish arrange raw potatoes. In a bowl stir together oil, garlic, rosemary, thyme, salt and pepper. Pour over potatoes; toss to coat. Bake, uncovered, in a 450 degree oven about 25 minutes or until brown and tender.

one to try: Ginger Soy Salmon

(double recipe)

6 pats melted butter
4 tsp ground ginger
2 Tbsp soy
juice of 2 lemons
4 tsp sugar
4 salmon fillets

Mix first 5 ingredients (if lemon juice is warm, it will blend with butter easily)
Sear the fillets in a buttered pan, then add lemon-butter-soy mixture
Cook on high heat, turning to coat, until ginger-colored.
Turn down heat and simmer 5 min each side.
Pour sauce over to serve.

Bobbie's Pot Roast

With love to my lifelong friend Bobbie, who knew me when I was young and even more annoying than I am now (I think). May have evolved from original slightly.

Chuck roast, 3 lb
Can of mushroom soup
Packet of onion soup mix
Can Ortega diced green chiles
dash garlic salt (try also garlic cloves?)
1/2 can of water
Carrots, diced
Potatoes, cubed

Preheat oven to 450. (Sear roast in pan?)
Mix together mushroom soup, onion soup mix, chiles, garlic salt (garlic cloves?)
Place roast in a stock pot, pour mixture over, and cover. (I pour a little on bottom first)
Place roast in oven and turn heat down to 250 for 6 hours.
Toss the carrots and potatoes in halfway through.

semi-quick: Pizza alla Mom

Mom makes killer homemade pizzas. She uses Brick Oven pizza sauce from the grocery store (may need to squish it through a strainer so it's not too watery first). Her signature toppings are garlic, mozzarella, ground sirloin and fresh jalapeños. The dough she makes with Fleischmann's yeast (comes in packets or jar) according to the Mario Batali recipe appended below.

The dough is pretty quick, but all the chopping could slow the project down. I might try to roast some garlic and pay homage to the "Bela Lugosi," a pizza from Frank & Angie's that is studded with garlic cloves every square inch, I swear.

Notes from the Mom herself:

I slice garlic cloves very thinly with my ceramic knife and I used to lay them around on top of the tomato sauce, but last night I just stirred them into the sauce and spread the sauce on the pizza. They were distributed evenly and it was quicker. This only works if everyone wants garlic. Then, for one kind of pizza I use fresh mozzarella, thinly sliced, and chopped fresh jalapeno. For the other kind, I use shredded Stella d'Oro mozzarella from Sam's, good lean ground sirloin (cooked and crumbled), pepperoni, and chopped fresh jalapeno.

I am very complimented that you like the pizza.

Pizza dough (from Mario Batali)

1 cup tepid water
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, plus more as needed
2 teaspoons sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
3 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for kneading
1 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast

Stir the water, oil, sugar, and salt in a liquid measuring cup until the sugar dissolves. Whisk the flour and yeast in a large bowl, make a well in the center and add the liquid mixture. With a wooden spoon or your hand, gradually stir the flour into the liquid to make a rough dough. Pull the dough together into a ball (if there is a bit of flour left, don't fret).

Turn the dough out onto a clean work surface dusted with flour. Knead until the dough is smooth and elastic, about 5 minutes, using more flour if necessary to keep from sticking. Divide into 4 equal portions, form into balls, and put on a lightly oiled baking sheet. Brush the tops of the dough with oil, cover with plastic wrap, and set aside to rise at room temperature until doubled, about 45 minutes.

Yield: 1 (12-inch) pizza dough
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Inactive Prep Time: 45 minutes

Baking:

Place oven rack pretty low, about 1/3 from the bottom, and preheat to 400 or 450. Smoosh the pizza crust into the pan and bake 6 or 8 min, til it starts to look dry and firm (but not brown).

Then take it out and top it with whatever. Bake at 400 or 450 til the topping looks hot and bubbly. That will be about 15 or 20 minutes, depending on how thick the toppings you put on. Since all toppings are precooked, it just needs to get hot and the cheese needs to melt and bubble.

Garlic toast alla Mom

A day or two before (if you want), soften some butter and stir in minced garlic and dried parsley. Stick it back in the fridge.

When it's spaghetti time, re-soften the butter/herb mix, slice the bread (baguette, etc.), spread it thickly and warm up in the oven. Snarf!

something to try: Garlic Pork Loin

adapted (i.e. simplified beyond recognition) from an Emeril TV recipe:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/
0,,FOOD_9936_20527,00.html

Uncle Ben's wild rice, F&W raspberry chipotle sauce, and garlic green
beans (haricots verts in big frozen package from HEB recommended by
Kitty?)

Garlic Roasted Pork Loin
2 1/2 to 3 1/2 pound boned pork loin
8 large cloves garlic
1 Tbsp rosemary
1 Tbsp sage
1 Tbsp thyme
Olive oil
2 Tbsp salt
2 tsp black pepper

Preheat oven to 500.
Cream the garlic, rosemary, sage and thyme into a paste (add olive oil,
salt, pepper if needed)
Put large roasting pan over 2 burners and add a little oil.
Season pork with salt & pepper and sear all sides, 2-3 min per side.
Rub garlic-herb paste over the pork (which will be hot -- careful).
Roast pork 40-45 min until center is 140 degrees. Make the rice.
5 min before taking roast out, glaze with some of the raspberry sauce.
Let it rest 10-15 minutes. Stir-fry the green beans with garlic salt
and almond slivers.

Slice the pork loin, set atop rice and drizzle some more sauce on it.

Kitty's tortilla soup

This is actually modified from Kitty's original.

1 lb chicken breasts
32 or more oz (giant can plus a little one) chicken broth
16 oz diced tomatoes/green peppers/cilantro (RoTel Fiesta)
11 oz sweet corn
1 med to small yellow onion, chopped
At least half a head of garlic, minced
Juice of 1 lime

8-10 corn tortillas
Grated cheese to garnish

Tortilla strips: 

Fold 2 tortillas in half and snip into strips with kitchen scissors -- very quick.

Heat a quarter-inch or so of oil (less, and they burn instead of frying). Oil should be warm enough that they fry briskly -- stir 'em around a minute or two and pull them out fast with tongs. If it's not hot enough, the strips just sit there and soak up oil -- pull them out, turn heat up a little and return them to the pan. Drain them on a paper towel.

Soup: 

Toss the chicken breasts in the broth in a big pot, bring to boil and simmer 20 minutes or so till cooked.

Chop the garlic and onions.
When cooked, pull the chicken breasts out to cool.
Toss the garlic, onion, Ro-Tel, corn and lime juice into the broth.
Trim and shred the chicken and add to broth.

To serve, spoon out a portion, stir in some tortilla strips and shake a little cheese over it.

Notes:

Buddy's organic chicken breasts have so little fat you barely have to trim at all, which almost eliminates my least favorite part of this operation!

Yield: High -- 6-7 meals
Flavor: High
Cost: Low -- about $17 for 6 meals = $2.80 apiece
Difficulty: Pretty low. About 1 hour, especially if you get the Buddy's chicken; 15 min chopping, 15 min frying, 10 min shredding chicken.

Meals and Yields -- a plan for a month

Nine meals will get me through a work week (throw in a sandwich here
and there); 12 is for overachieving weeks.

Meals and Yields

Quick Hatch Enchiladas: 5 meals
Doofer Squares: 3 meals
Kitty's Tortilla Soup: 6 meals
Red Beans and Rice with Chicken: 5 meals
Lemon Herb Chicken/Popcorn Chicken: 7 meals
Bobbie's Pot Roast: 5 meals
CFS with green beans and mashed potatoes: 4 meals
Potstickers/Spaghetti with Meatballs: 9 meals
Lemon Stir-Fry Beef with snow peas: 3 meals

One month's worth of possible combinations: No thinking, all eating!

Week 1 (light): Bobbie's Pot Roast: 5 meals; Honey Soy Salmon and
rosemary potatoes, 4 meals
Week 2 (light): Lemon Stir-Fry Beef with snow peas: 3 meals; Kitty's
Tortilla Soup: 6 meals
Week 3 (more work, more food): Lemon Herb Chicken and Popcorn Chicken:
7 meals; Quick Hatch Enchiladas: 5 meals
Week 4 (light): Red Beans and Rice with Chicken: 5 meals; CFS with
green beans and mashed potatoes: 4 meals
Week 1: (more work, more food) Potstickers and Spaghetti with
Meatballs: 9 meals; Doofer Squares: 3 meals

Notes on Quick Enchiladas

Yield from 1.25 lb ground beef = 9 enchiladas, or 4.5 servings (could
be stretched to 5 full servings easily, though). The Taco Bell
seasoning packet, if I can say this without being evicted from my home
state, was actually pretty good, so I'd use it again.

Made the rice and the beef simultaneously and completed all cooking and
assembly in about 30 minutes. Nice!

The Uncle Ben's Mexican rice is great and makes 4.5 servings. It's not
like rice in a Tex-Mex restaurant but it has a good, different flavor
of its own.

Super-quick: Hatch Enchiladas, Red Beans & Rice, Beef Ravioli

Super quick, low-cost and high-yield:

Hatch Enchiladas Verdes

1.25 lb ground beef
1 packet taco seasoning
small package grated Mexican cheeses
1 can Hatch green chile enchilada sauce
12 flour tortillas

Brown and season the beef per packet instructions. Store beef in
plastic container, or assemble enchiladas and store them. Spoon beef
into a tortilla, sprinkle cheese, roll and press to flatten; pour sauce
on top, sprinkle with cheese and microwave 1 minute to warm filling and
melt cheese.

Testing: Uncle Ben's Mexican Rice mix -- haven't cooked it yet, but it
was the only one not cut with pasta products.

Cost: LOW -- $15 ($3 each per meal)
Yield: GOOD -- 4-5 meals
Difficulty: LOW.
Flavor: GREAT.

Possibly even easier is the trick of adding precooked seasoned/chopped
chicken to Zatarain's red beans and rice mix. A box makes a big pot of
food, maybe 4-5 servings, and the chicken plus mix can't cost more than
$9, or about $2 per meal.

Prepared ravioli and pasta sauce are a 10-minute substitute for any
week when ground beef is not on the shopping list but plain spaghetti
does not sound appealing. Cost is probably about $7 total if you don't
use the whole jar of sauce, and for 3 meals = $2.30 each.

(I include these latter two not as recipes per se, but as a reminder to
myself that they can mix easily into any week's plan. They should all
be paired with salads though.)

Notes on Short & Fruity Chicken; add Pot Roast?

Cost: $30 for 8 meals including orange-spinach salads = $3.75 each --
not bad
Yield: 8 meals.... a little more than half a week
Taste: High
Difficulty: Average. Probably spent 45 min chopping veggies/garlic and
half an hour trimming/breading chicken. Cook time is about 7 minutes
for the Popcorn Chicken and 30 for the Lemon-Herb Chicken.

Egg seemed to help bond the chicken coating and the sauce; I also
tossed in a little cornstarch which seemed to help thicken a bit.
However, do NOT go nuts and dump in enough broth to fill a huge pan.
Doesn't cook down fast enough. Be moderate.

Keep lots of butter handy -- it takes plenty to brown the pieces, and
if you do it in waves you will need to toss more butter each time.

This might be a good match with Bobbie's Pot Roast, since you are
already chopping carrots and would just add potatoes? Can brown the
roast in the pan before simmering the chicken. Yum!

------------------------
Next half-week plan: CFS with mashed potatoes and green beans

Short & Fruity Chicken Week

Lemon Herb Chicken (with an egg) plus carrots and rice
Popcorn Chicken and spinach/orange/walnut salads
Apples & bananas for snacks

Make tea. Trim chicken breasts for Popcorn Chicken and toss with bread
crumbs.
-----------
Trim and pound chicken breasts. Chop a snack pack of baby carrots and
cook a bowl of brown rice.

Fill a large glass with:

Zest and juice of 2 lemons
2 long sprigs rosemary, washed and chopped
8 cloves garlic, minced
1 Tbsp sugar
Most of a can of chicken broth
(possibly some tarragon or thyme?)

Egg, flour and brown the chicken breasts, then dump the stirred
contents of the glass (and the chopped carrots) into the pan with them.
Bring to boil, cover and simmer 30 minutes. Pull out the chicken and
simmer the sauce to thicken. Serve over the rice.
-----------
Peel orange and assemble salads.

Beef enchiladas, ginger potstickers, spaghetti

This makes: beef enchiladas verdes (6 meals), ginger beef potstickers (6 meals), meatballs and spaghetti (3 meals), with sides of spinach-pecan salad, Waldorf salad and apple-cheddar snacks.

(Could make after Cream tacos, thereby utilizing the extra half-and-half and shredded cheese)

Cost: Low
Flavor: High.... everything here is good.
Labor: High
Yield: Good; 15 meals

Fancy store: Potsticker wrappers

Regular store: 2.5 lb ground beef, red & yellow apples, orange, ginger, garlic, green onions, spinach, corn tortillas, Newman pasta sauce, Hatch green enchilada sauce or Herdez salsa verde, taco seasoning packet, whipping cream, cheddar, grated jack/cheddar mix

Have on hand: lots of chicken broth; spaghetti; soy, rice wine, sesame oil; fennel, garlic salt and Italian bread crumbs; pecans and salad dressing.

Day 1 (est. 1 hr)

Chop spinach, green onions, garlic, and grate ginger for potstickers; add 2T soy, 2t rice wine, 1t sesame.
Grind fennel for meatballs and blend with garlic salt and Italian breadcrumbs.

Divide the ground beef and season it:
--- 1 lb into the spinach mix for potstickers
--- 1 lb into the frying pan, then cook with taco seasoning mix
--- 0.5 lb into the fennel/breadcrumbs for meatballs.

When done cooking the taco meat, store in plastic container, then fry the meatballs.

Cook the spaghetti and divide up with the meatballs and sauce.

Day 2 (est 1.5 hr)

Assemble potstickers. Cook a dozen or so at a time: fry quickly on all three sides, then fill pan 2/3 full with chicken broth and simmer a half-hour or so till most of the liquid has cooked off.

Assemble the spinach salads.
Slice apples and toss with pecans in a little cream/sugar/lemon juice/mayo.

Assemble enchiladas: Spoon some taco meat into a tortilla, roll, press flat, top with sauce and cheese. (Microwave 1 min to reheat.)

Nutritional trivia -- This works out, surprisingly consistently, to about 2.6 oz. beef per serving, which is even less than the recommended 3 oz. servings (RDA is two 3oz. servings per day).

Mom's Crisp Oat Cookies

The best cookies ever, bar none.

Mix together:
1 1/2 cups flour
3 cups quick oats
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
Pinch (1/8 tsp) each of mace, ginger; 2 pinches (1/2 tsp) of cinnamon
(Mom says "Only a tiny bit, if any; this is not a spice cookie")

Cream in bowl:
3/4 cup butter
1 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar

Add:
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla

Stir in flour mixture. Divide into 2 or 3 rolls; cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate. To bake, cut in 1/2 inch slices, bake on ungreased sheet 10-12 minutes at 350 degrees.

Lemon Meltaways – 3rd best cookie ever

After my mom's oatmeal cookies, the best cookies in the world come from the butter people. These days, you can be old-school and write off for the Land O' Lakes Holiday Cookies booklet, or just go to www.landolakes.com. I reproduce here my favorite (my favorite to make, that is -- it's quite easy but looks fancy and is delicate, great to bring to girly tea parties) exactly as they print it. It's a little time-consuming but easy to split into two days (mix and chill, then bake and frost) if you're doing them before a party or something.

Notes: The lemon zest makes a HUGE difference (don't skip it) and the frosting recipe makes WAY too much (half it). My friend Russell says the name is accurate because they are so light they really do feel as though they're melting when you eat them.

Also: In case anyone's counting, the 2nd best cookie ever is the Final Exam Cookie. That recipe TK later.

LEMON MELTAWAYS

These lemon-flavored cookies are so tender that they seem to melt in your mouth.

Preparation	45 min.
Baking	8 min.

Cookie Ingredients:

• 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup LAND O LAKES® Butter, softened*
• 1/2 cup cornstarch
• 1/3 cup powdered sugar
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon freshly grated lemon peel

Frosting Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup powdered sugar
• 1/4 cup LAND O LAKES® Butter, softened*
• 1 teaspoon freshly grated lemon peel
• 1 teaspoon lemon juice

Instructions:

Combine all cookie ingredients in large bowl. Beat at low speed, scraping bowl often, until well mixed.

Divide dough in half. Shape each half into 8x1-inch log. Wrap each in plastic food wrap. Refrigerate until firm (1 to 2 hours).

Heat oven to 350°F. Cut each log into 1/4-inch slices with sharp knife. Place 2 inches apart onto ungreased cookie sheet. Bake for 8 to 12 minutes or until set. (Cookies will not brown.) Cool completely.

Combine all frosting ingredients in small bowl. Beat at medium speed, scraping bowl often, until fluffy. Frost cooled cookies.

*Substitute LAND O LAKES® Soft Baking Butter with Canola Oil right from the refrigerator.

Tips for successful Lemon Meltaways:

• This cookie is a shortbread-type cookie with a high proportion of butter to flour and sugar. The dough may seem slightly more crumbly. Egg is not an ingredient in this type of cookie.
  
  
• Be sure to measure all ingredients accurately using the proper measuring cups. For dry ingredients use graduated metal or plastic measuring cups. Spoon the dry ingredient lightly into a measuring cup. Do not tap or shake the cup or scoop the ingredient into the cup. Level off any excess amount by running a straight-edge or table knife across the top.
  
  
• Use measuring spoons to measure liquids in this recipe rather than tableware spoons for accuracy.
  
  
• The butter in this recipe should be softened, but not melted. For best results let butter stand at room temperature for 20 to 30 minutes before mixing the cookie dough. Or, cut the butter into chunks or pieces for easier mixing. Also, 3/4 cup butter equals 1 1/2 sticks of butter.
  
  
• If the dough is dry and crumbly after beating, add 1 to 2 tablespoons cream or soft butter, adding 1 tablespoon at a time until dough forms.

Lemon herb chicken SOLVED!

Very simple, it turns out: just 3 main ingredients, all fresh.

Chop a snack pack of baby carrots and cook a bowl of brown rice.

Fill a large glass with:

Zest and juice of 2 lemons
2 long sprigs rosemary, washed and chopped
8 cloves garlic, minced
1 Tbsp sugar
Most of a can of chicken broth

Flour and brown chicken breasts, then dump the stirred contents of the glass (and the chopped carrots) into the pan with them. Bring to boil, cover and simmer 30 minutes. Pull out the chicken and simmer the sauce to thicken. Serve over the rice!

I'd like the sauce to be thicker, but I'll settle for this watery stuff as long as it's richly flavored, which it is. Mystery solved!

Football season's here: Corny Dog Bites

I was looking for a meaty appetizer recipe to bring to my fantasy football league's draft, and these worked perfectly. They are perfect for fall (reminding me of the State Fair) and for football-fan snacking. The batter could use a little extra flavor of some sort -- they are not as flavorful as Fletcher's -- but otherwise these were very appealing snacks, both visually and as convenient food-on-a-stick.

The frying worked extraordinarily well in my wok, using enough oil pooled at the bottom to deep-fry about six doglets at a time. They fry up fast -- if you have an assembly line going, you'll be yanking them out as quick as you can get the next ones battered up -- and putting the flour in a coffee cup and the batter in a tall cereal bowl worked neatly.

Late-breaking: Apparently Alton Brown puts cayenne in his batter. And this just in from the Travel Channel... According to Bill Fletcher (son of the man who invented the original Corny Dog) the primary ingredients are corn meal, a lot of eggs, a little bit of flour, salt and pepper of course. Beyond that, the recipe is secret.


Corny Dog Bites

Vegetable oil (for deep frying)
1/2 cup flour (for dredging)
2/3 cup yellow cornmeal
1/3 cup flour
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup milk
1 egg, well beaten
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
10 ready-to-eat frankfurters (1 pound)
Toothpicks

Place 1/2 cup dredging flour in coffee cup; set aside.

Mix cornmeal, 1/3 cup flour and salt in 2-cup glass measure. Add milk, egg, and 2 tablespoons vegetable oil. Mix well and set aside.

Chop and spear frankfurters. Stir in dredging flour to coat, shaking off excess. Dip frankfurters, one at a time, in cornmeal batter, then fry in 375 degree F oil until golden brown, about 2 to 3 minutes. Serve warm.