Sunday, July 25, 2010

Taco Pizza

Tonia and I decided to honor weekend food by each posting a favorite pizza recipe.  I've been adjusting the recipe for my Taco Pizza for about 2 years and I've finally got it the way I want it.  It is an excellent way to celebrate the flavor of Mexico with the delivery of an Italian pizza.

Serves: 4

Ingredients
  • Pizza crust (see crust notes below)
  • 1 lb ground beef
  • 1 can refried beans
  • 1 15oz can diced tomatoes and green chiles (such as Rotel)
  • 1 small can sliced black olives
  • 1/2 cup chopped white onion
  • 1 tsp taco seasoning
  • 1 cup favorite cheese, shredded
  • Handfull finely chopped cilantro
Directions
  1. Prepare crust however necessary, depending on the type you choose.  This will probably involve preheating the oven.
  2. In skillet, brown meat with onion
  3. Drain fat from meat mixture
  4. To meat mixture, add tomatoes, taco seasoning, and olives.  Cook until heated through
  5. Spread refried beans on pizza crust.  They will serve as the "pizza sauce".  To make them easier to spread, heat them in a small saucepan first.
  6. Spread the meat mixture over the refried beans
  7. Bake as directed by crust instructions.
  8. Sprinkle on cheese and cilantro for the final 5 minutes of baking
  9. Serve, if desired, with salsa and sour cream
We love it so much we dove in before getting the picture!  Oops!















A note on crusts.  There are various ways to handle the crust.  Below are three:
  1. Dry Store-Bought Crust: This is the stuff that comes looking like pizza crust, such as Boboli.  This is the easiest but, as you may imagine, it's taste is fine but nothing to write home about.  But it works!
  2. Wet Store-Bought Crust:  This is the stuff that comes as moist dough in a tube such as Pillsbury.  I've had lots of instances with this where the exposed crust on the outside was done but the heat didn't quite bake the bottom well enough.  The solution to this is to throw the crust in by itself for 5 minutes alone before adding the toppings and completing the baking process.  I find the taste of this crust to be very good.
  3. Homemade: I've only tried this on one occasion.  I used this recipe and LOVED IT!  Same with the wet store-bought crust above, I baked it for about 5 minutes before topping it with anything, then baked it with everything on it for the remaining time.


Buffalo Chicken Pizza

Hello from the Midwest. The first thing you should know about me is that I love to cook and bad at following directions and really bad at measuring how much of ingredient to use. I will try my best, if you have any questions please let me know. This is a recipe that I made up because I LOVE buffalo chicken pizza but it's so fatting to eat it out and expensive.

Two chicken breasts
Greek Salad dressing (I like to use: Kraft made with olive oil)
Parmesan Cheese
Green onion's - maybe 2 chopped up
Wing sauce - I use Cookies wings and things sauce
Ranch Dressing - 3 tablespoons
One pre-made pizza crust
Blue Cheese - 3 Tablespoons
One package mozzarella cheese
Goat Cheese

I marinade the chicken for 24 hours (give or take) in the Greek salad dressing. Then grill and slice into small pieces.

I use the whole wheat pizza crust that is pre-made. I have also been known to use two small whole grain wraps if I would like a thin crust pizza. You can use any pizza crust that you fits you best!

On the top of the crust I put a thin layer of of buffalo sauce down, along with a thin layer of parmesan cheese and green onions...

Place cut up chicken on top ... place cheese on top! (I used half mozzarell and half pepper jack for a bit of a kick!)

Place in the oven at at whatever the pizza package says.  I put it at 450 (preheated) and cooked for about ten minutes. While that is cooking I put about 3 tablespoons of Ranch and mix it with about 2 tablespoons of Wing sauce and mix together. When the pizza is almost done I take it out of the oven and sprinkle some goat cheese on top and then put the wing/ranch mixture on top and place back in the oven for another 3 to 5min. Take out, cut and enjoy!!

A friend made me some buffalo chicken pizza and mixed the wing sauce with pizza sauce for the base of the pizza.. it was GREAT! Next time I have pizza sauce I might try that again. I always find it fun to mix things up and try something new!



Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Bananas Foster

Perhaps you've heard of it, perhaps you haven't.  I'd never heard of Bananas Foster until I was served some at a church event a couple months back.  But I think everyone should have a couple impressive dessert recipes up their sleeve to make for company.  This, is one of ours (and by "ours", I mean my husband's and mine).

Servings: 2

Ingredients
  • 2 tbsp unsalted butter or butter substitute
  • 2 tbsp dark brown sugar - regular brown sugar works too but if you are going to the store anyway, get the dark stuff.  Thank me later :)
  • 1/8 tsp ground all spice
  • 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
  • 1 tbsp banaba liqueur - yes I know you can't buy this in small quantities.  But you'll just have enough to make this recipe for dinner parties to come!  It's not like it goes bad!
  • 2 under-ripe bananas, sliced lengthwise
  • 1/4 cup dark rum, 151 proof

Directions
  1. In a skillet, melt the butter over low heat
  2. Add brown sugar, nutmeg, and all spice and stir CONSTANTLY until they melt into the butter
  3. Add banana liqueur and bring to light simmer, continuing to stir.
  4. Add bananas and cook 1 minute on each side. Cover with sauce as they cook.
  5. Carefully remove bananas and set aside.
  6. If needed, bring sauce back to a simmer.  Then add the rum and stir well.
  7. Using a long igniting device (such as a long fireplace match or a triggered lighter), light the fumes coming from the rum.  Be careful please!  If there is a microwave or something else over your stovetop, you may hold the skillet away from that!
  8. Allow flames to cook off the alcohol, approximately 1 to 2 minutes.  This is important, especially if your guests plan on driving home. If not, feel free to extinguish early :)
  9. Place bananas in serving dishes with vanilla ice cream.  
  10. Drizzle syrup from skillet over bananas and ice cream
  11. Serve and enjoy immediately
Please note that the pictures below are not my own.  I will be posting legit pics of my recipes but I just recently made this one and am not sure when I will make it again, but wanted to have a picture to go with the post:




Enjoy and feel free to comment back about how it went!

Keep It Real!

Welcome!

We are Tonia, from Iowa, and Maggie, from New Mexico.

After months of sharing good recipes with each other, we've decided to share them with anyone who will peruse our blog.  Whether it is an appetizer, side, main dish, or dessert, we'll be posting the good ones here.

Please stop by and share this blog with your friends!

God bless!