Pizza

We had pizza for dinner tonight. Andy said the crust had a nice taste and texture, and voted it the best yet. It was a thin crust, but flexible. And he liked how I did the sauce. He loves lots of sauce on his, but I find tomato sauce too thin and tomato paste too thick. So, use both and you get it right, lol.

Pizza

For the crust:
Use one recipe crescent roll dough
Roll the dough out and place on pizza pan (I used one with holes in it).
Bake at 350 degrees for 10 - 12 minutes. Add toppings, then bake for another 10 -15 minutes.

Sauce:
1 can tomato sauce (I used no salt)
1 can tomato paste
some dried minced onions
some Italian seasoning
some garlic powder
some grated Parmesan cheese (like Kraft jar)
Whisk together the tomato sauce and paste, then whisk in other ingredients. I don't measure the other ingredients, but go by what looks good.
Place a thin layer of olive oil on the crust before adding the sauce.

For our pizza today, we used the Montina version of this dough. Really, it was a very healthy pizza. We topped with part-skim mozzarella and turkey pepperoni (under the cheese). If I had remembered earlier that I had a green bell pepper, I would have used that, too (but it takes me forever to chop vegetables, and I had already started topping the pizza).
My favorite pizza is alfredo sauce, chicken, and mozzarella. Hmmm... I think I will make pizza again soon. :)

Andy's Easy, Yummy Chili

Yes, I know it's in a Diego Dixie bowl, but sometimes I just don't want to wash the dishes.

Andy made this chili yesterday, and it was really good. What did he put in it? you ask. Not a whole lot, actually.

Andy's Easy, Yummy Chili

1 pound ground beef, cooked
1 can kidney beans
1 can black beans
1 can Ready for Chili Tomatoes (it has spices and stuff in it - we used Wal-Mart's Great Value brand)
And a little brown sugar

Simmer for about 20 minutes.

If you want to sneak in a little more nutrition, you could add some pureed spinach (no one will even notice) and/or some ground flax seeds. Enjoy!

Taco Soup

One of my favorite soups of all time - Taco Soup. I got this recipe from Terri on the Delphi Celiac Forum. Yum.

Taco Soup

1 & 1/2 lb. hamburger meat
2 Tbs. minced onion flakes
2 cups water
1 can Rotel (diced tomatoes and green chilies)
1 can pinto beans
1 can corn
1 package McCormick's taco seasoning mix

Brown ground beef and add onion flakes in a soup pot. Put other ingredients in. Simmer 20 minutes. Serve in large bowls with Mission Corn Tortilla Strips and a healthy covering of shredded cheddar cheese. VERY good and VERY easy to make.

Easy Bean and Ham Soup

Mom asked me to get her 2 packages of beans while I was at the store the other day, and then she asked me to soak the beans for her (since she was coming in the early morning to watch my kids yesterday). So I soaked 2 packages of beans. That's a lot of beans. So she made some soup for me in my Crockpot.

Easy Bean and Ham Soup

1 package of dried Great Northern beans (about a pound), soaked overnight
Some ham (I had a package of ham steaks - about a pound; or leftover ham)
Some carrots (I had some matchstick carrots left in the fridge - easy route, no shredding)
oh, and some water - kinda important :)

Cook in the Crockpot on high for about 5 hours (give or take). You'll want to taste it and see if it needs salt (depends on how salty your ham was). If you leave it on low for another couple of hours, you get mush (which some people like). We like to eat ours with some shredded mozzarella.

Turkey Quesadillas

Got leftovers? Need some ideas to use them up? Well, here's one for you: Turkey Quesadillas. Quick, easy, yummy, and it uses up stuff taking up space in your fridge.
Mom brought us some turkey and ham leftovers (at Braden's request). So we chopped up some turkey, stuck it on a corn tortilla with some cheese and another tortilla, and heated them up in a skillet. They were really good. We mostly had dark meat and used cheddar, but I had mozzarella with the only white meat in the container (this was my favorite). I'm not sure what happened, but there was only a tiny bit of salsa left in the whole house! That's okay, these were excellent with the leftover cranberry-orange relish. I had entertained the idea of putting corn in with the meat and cheese, but was afraid of a pint-sized mutiny.

Steak Nachos

What do you do with leftover steak? Why, nachos, of course. I had been chopping my onions and celery for tomorrow's stuffing (because I'll get it in the crock pot in the morning), and decided to cut up last night's steak leftovers. I let the meat sit in a bowl of apple juice for about an hour and a half - I think it made it a bit softer. Chips, meat, cheddar, some lettuce and salsa - yummy.
We have a tendency to let the leftovers sit in the fridge until they must be thrown out. Good thing I was paying attention when my brain was speaking today.