Doctor Who Night: Pizza Bites

Doctor Who night, which sadly will end for the year tonight, was the time for appetizers. Sam and I came across a blog talking about pizza bites a while back, and we decided to try our own take on them.

Pizza Bites (intermediate difficulty)

What We Used
Dough:

• 1 package active dry yeast
• 1 cup warm water
• 2 cups flour
• 2 tbsp oil
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 tsp white sugar

Filling:

• Pepperoni
• Mozzarella Cheese
• Cheddar Cheese

The dough was actually fairly easy to prepare, though time consuming. We dissolved the yeast in the cup of warm water and let it stand about ten minutes until it was milky.

When the yeast was done turning into slime, we stirred all the dough ingredients together in a bowl, then kneaded (add a little more flour if it's waaaay too sticky during this stage) until it was thoroughly mixed. Then we let it sit for a couple hours until it doubled in size.

When it was done growing, we pulled off little palm sized chunks and formed them into little discs. We filled the discs with a few pieces of cubed pepperoni and cheese then pinched the discs closed to make little filled balls which we placed in a 9 x 11 cake pan. We covered again and let them rise again for a while.

Once they were the size of small buns, we placed them in a 350 degree oven for about 20 minutes until golden brown. Before you put them in the oven you have the option to brush them with olive oil and herbs... we used garlic and basil, which was awesome. Some parmesan cheese would have been lovely as well, but we didn't have any.

We served with a dish of maranera sauce, and the entire thing was fantastic. Nice little snacky pizza pockets.

-Jess

Chicken Cordon Burgers

Ryan is kind of a pre-packaged type guy. Frozen chicken...fries... sidekicks. That there is the repitoire.

One of our favorite 'Ryan' foods, however, is Chicken Cordon Burgers... we usually do it with pre-frozen chicken patties, ham, swiss cheese... We decided to do a new take on it and make our own chicken patties for this particular version of the meal... which is what Sam set out to do while I was making Chocolate Chip Cookies (from the same kids cookbook as the delicious brownies we made last time.)



Chicken Cordon Burgers

What We Used
The burgers:

• 3 boneless skinless chicken breasts
• 1 tsp black pepper
• 1 green onion
• 1 tsp smoked paprika (or regular if you don't have smoked)
• breadcrumbs
• 1 egg
• onion powder

The Fixings:

• Old Fashioned Ham deli meat slices
• swiss cheese
• mayo (if you like it...)
• whatever type of hamburger bun you prefer

Sam started out by mulching the chicken breasts with the pepper, the green onion and the paprika in the food processor. Bread crumbs and egg were mixed in until the mess had the proper consistancy (ie: It would hold a patty shape)

The patties were covered in bread crumbs and a little onion powder and then put in a pan with grapeseed oil to fry. After the patties were done, they were topped with a slice of swiss cheese and the ham and placed lovingly on a bun.

Ryan, of course, approved. Which is what was important.

And there was cookies!



-Jess

Wednesday Movie Night: Big Trouble

Sam's turn for the movie of the week, and her choice was 'Big Trouble', a comedy that quietly snuck in and out of theatres in the aftermath of September 11th (September 21st 2001 was the original release date, but it was pushed back to 02 because of a scene involving smuggling a bomb onto an airplane... so no one has really heard of it.)

"A chain of events starts with the arrival of a mysterious suitcase in Miami. Arthur Herk, a corrupt business owner, wants to get his hands on the case. At the same time, two hit men want him whacked. Tired of his constant fixation on drinking and television, Herk's wife Anna and daughter Jenny decide to find new love interests in divorced dad Eliot Arnold and his son Matt. To add more complication, two thieves decide to steal the case and lead a Miami police team and two FBI agents on a wild goose chase."

So the food of the week was miami cuisine... Which for us meant Key Lime Pie, cuban sandwiches, and Arugula pesto.

Unfortunately, Key Limes aren't in season up here... So lame lame Jess made Lime Out of a Box.

Sam, on the other hand, was still delicious.

Pasta with Arugula Pesto

What We Used:

• Fresh baby Arugula ( not sure about how much, I used about half a 142g package )
  
• 1 cup pecans
• 1 cup olive oil
• 1/2 cup parmesan cheese
• 1/2 clove elephant garlic
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1/4 cup fresh parsley
  
• 2 cups macaroni

Okay, well, this was supposed to be an easy thing to make, but it took a little bit more effort than I remember. First things first! Prep your ingredients, make sure you have them all on hand and get your food processor ready.

Start with some of the arugula, put the pecans on top to weight the leaves down (I found it a little hard to get the right consistancy at first) and start grinding them up. Add the garlic, the parsley and the olive oil, and more arugula if you need it. After that, add the grated parmesan!

After everything is ground up nicely, taste it. Add salt and pepper if you need/want to.

Cook your pasta, and toss it with some of the pesto, using however much you like! Add more parmesan as a finisher and voila!

Cuban Sandwich

What We Used:

• 1 loaf french bread
• Grainy deli mustard
• pickles (bicks garlic baby dills)
• roast pork deli meat
• old fashioned ham deli meat
• swiss cheese

It's fairly quick and easy. Slice the french bread open like it was one enormous kaiser roll. Slather some mustard on the bottom layer, then a layer of sliced pickles, a layer of roast pork, a layer of ham, then finish off with swiss cheese. We put the top back on, sliced it up into portions, then due to our lack of panini press we just put portions into a hot frying pan and pressed on it with a second pan until the cheese was melted.

Anyway... time to get back to work. I have a key lime pie in a box that needs making.

-Jess and Sam

Stuff in the Fridge Sunday: Rainbow Cake and Nachos...?

I got ambitious and decided I wanted to try my hand at a Rainbow Cake!! I've been seeing so much about them on the internet, I figured, 'how hard could this be?'

I suppose we shall see. We went to the store to get more food paste for the colors (all the colors of the rainbow!) and gathered some extra things we needed for dinner, then it was to the Kitchen of Despair for an adventure!

Suze's Wedding Cake*

What We Used:

• 4 eggs
• 1 and 1/3 cups milk
• 4 cups flour
• 2 cups sugar
• 1 tbsp vanilla
• 5 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 cup softened butter

First step was to grease and flour the pans. We then beat the eggs with 1/3 cup of milk and the vanilla and set this aside.

We stirred together the dry ingredients (flour, sugar, baking powder and salt) and beat in the butter in what appeared to be a modified version of 'cutting the butter in.' This is a new recipe, but the effect of what seemed like a strange way of doing things at the time turned out nicely. and remaining milk at medium speed.

Okay... the batter did something really weird here. It started looking a little like bread dough. We thought we were doing something wrong, but adding in the egg made it look marvelous. Do this in three batches, scraping down the sides as you go.

Once it was all mixed, it was time to break out the food coloring. We put about a cup and a quarter of batter into a different bowl and added the red food coloring, then repeated with the orange, seeing as it was easier to do two colors at a time. The batter looked great! Food paste totally rocks! Continue mixing colors till you've got the whole rainbow... Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue and Purple! (though, you can do only a few colors, if you so choose. Some people only do three or four, we're just crazy.)

We scooped the batter into the prepared pans and spread it as flat as we could, then baked it in the oven at 350 degrees for approximately 12 minutes. We had to watch them really closely because they were so thin.

Put them on a cooling rack and when they're all done cooling, ice the layers and the top with buttercream icing. We piped some decorations and used crushed and whole Smarties to make our cake look extra rainbow-y!

Verdict?

Very sweet and buttery. This isn't the type of cake that you can have a big piece of... We shared a single piece and still had trouble finishing it!

*Our friend Suze is a very colorful individual. We've joked in the past about making her a garish wedding cake, and this might just be the scary prototype.

Nachos

What We Used:

• Blue Corn nacho chips
• 1/3 can refried beans
• 2 cups cheese
• 2 chorizo sausages, uncased and ground
• Homemade salsa
• 2 avocados
• sour cream
• chili paste

I prepared the salsa in advance, and mashed up the avocados to make guacamole. I usually add extra garlic into the guac, but with how much garlic was in the salsa, I didn't bother this time. What you do to make guac is just mash the avocados then add salsa in to taste. It's quick and easy and really healthy!

We made some spicy sour cream to go with it, too, by adding the chili paste into the sour cream.

Grate the cheese, uncase and grind up the chorizo, prepare your refried beans, then layer it all on top of the corn chips and shove it in the oven. Then sprinkle on some salsa, drizzle on some spicy sour cream, add a dob of guacamole and you're ready to go!

-Sam