Chicago-Style Deep Dish Pizza

By the hand of Brian. Unfortunately the crust of this pizza was bland. BUT! The toppings were AMAZING. So I suggest making this with regular pizza dough (this particular recipe used cornmeal and no salt) and squish it into a round cake pan. Maybe use this recipe. We topped the dough with SLICES of mozzarella (yes! FIRST!), then some diced tomatoes (from a can, drained), coarse salt, fresh basil, and 1 clove minced garlic. The other pan had some pepperoni added. Deep dish style takes extra time to cook, by the way. This version was baked for about 25 minutes at 475 F.

I have  yet to post my favorite homemade dish. We call it "Thai Ruby curry." Yes, a la Thai Ruby in Provo, UT. The house special. Oh my it is good. Look for it soon!

Pigs-In-A-Blanket. Sort of.

So, this is SO not how mine turned out. But pretend that I'm a culinary genius that makes all my food look palatable.

Mine are a little simpler because I just buy the 'lil smokies from the store and then wrap biscuit dough around them. If you want them to be pretty you can roll out the dough and do fancy shapes, but usually I make a double batch of biscuits, half plain and half with the smokies. I use about half a biscuit's worth of dough around them.

Biscuits (Eggless!)

2 C flour
1 Tab baking powder
1 Tab sugar
1/2 teas cream of tartar
1/4 teas salt
1/2 C butter or margarine at room temp, although I have been known to slightly melt mine when in a hurry. Ok, confession. I've sometimes accidentally melted them all the way and whoop-dee-doo, they still turn out fine.
2/3 C milk

Preheat oven to 400º.

Put dry ingredients in a bowl and whisk with fork. Cut in butter, although if it's slightly melted it's more like mixing. In the end it should look like cornmeal. Add milk. Fold a few times on a floured board. Cut out.

Place fairly close together on ungreased cookie sheet and bake 10 - 12 minutes. I'm in Colorado and it usually takes about 13.

Stromboli

This is sorta like Jenny's Stuffed Bread. Only I use pizza/pasta sauce, ground beef (I actually used ground bison), and lots of mozzarella cheese. Just use your favorite yeast bread recipe and spread on the pasta sauce, then the ground beef, then the cheese. Fold up the ends and roll it up. When it's done I brush on melted butter and sprinkle McCormick's Salad Supreme seasoning on it. Gosh, I like that seasoning! You could just use anything though, I think. Italian seasoning, garlic powder, or just leave it plain on top. Bake on a greased baking sheet at 375 F for about 15-20 minutes or until golden brown.

If you want a dough recipe, here's one I used last night. Not sophisticated... I didn't have a lot of time.

4 cups flour

2 T instant yeast

1 1/2 tsp. salt

about 2 cups of warm-hot water

Just mix the flour, salt, and yeast together and then pour just enough warm-hot water into your mixer until the dough is not longer sticky, but smooth and elastic. Knead for a few minutes then let rise in a warm place for 30 minutes.

Broccoli Cheese Soup & Italian Bread Bowls

I followed the recipe found on My Kitchen Cafe. Find the soup here. Find the bread bowls here.

Folks, it was good. Oh, wow it was good. And FILLING. Oh, and do yourself a favor and don't try to make the bread bowls and the soup at the same time, okay... ? ;-)

Recipe Swap

Go here to find great recipes and swap favorites. The idea is to see everyone's 'staples' in their recipe boxes.

Hot Dogs in homemade rolls

I know these look huge, but...they're not. I made them hot dog sized to go with the package of hot dogs I got. I used my french bread recipe, and cooked them for about the same amount of time 20 - 25 minutes, but it WAS raining. Anyway, a good fix for when you haven't got any hamburger or hot dog buns but have a frozen pack of something in the freezer.

Cafe Rio Pork

Sorry - no picture, we ate it all too fast. This is the closest recipe I have found to Cafe Rio's Pork Barbacoa. It's fabulous. FABULOUS.

Stick your pork roast in your crock pot and enough water to go about half to 3/4 of the way up. It can be up to 6 pounds, but I had a 2 pounder. Sprinkle liberally with salt and pepper.
Cook on high 3 -4 hours, then drain out water.
Pour in 12 oz La Victoria Red Taco Sauce (almost the whole container), 1 C loosely packed brown sugar, and 12 oz of Coke. Cook for about an hour or so, then shred the pork and let it simmer in its juices in the crockpot for another hour or so.

Serve Cafe Rio style by layering: Tortilla, beans and rice, pork, lettuce, pico de gallo, sour cream, tortilla chips, guacamole, etc. A quesadilla with it is fabulous as well.
For the dressing, there's a whole lot of recipes out there, but I just take ranch dressing, add some lemon or lime juice and some fresh cut up cilantro and it tastes great.

Greek Flatbread Sandwiches

We used to just call them chicken pitas. But since we've found this flatbread, we prefer it to the pitas. Hence the new name.

We pile them with homemade hummus, lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes, greek-seasoned chicken, feta cheese and sometimes ranch dressing (some do not like dressing).

Homemade Hummus

1 can garbanzo beans, drain but reserve about 1/4 liquid
2-3 garlic cloves (depends on how much you like garlic, I guess)
about 1/3 c peanut butter
a little water
about 1 tsp salt

Put all this into a food processor and puree. I sometimes add a little water to finish off the hummus to make it smooth. Here's a different recipe for hummus I got in college. It's a little more ethnic style:

2 cups canned garbanzo beans, drained
1/3 cup tahini
1/4 cup lemon juice
1 tsp salt
2 cloves garlic, halved
1 T olive oil
1 pinch paprika
1 tsp minced fresh parsley

Place garbanzo beans, tahini, lemon juice, salt, parsley, and garlic into a blend or food processor. Blend until smooth. Transfer mixture to bowl. Drizzle olive oil over the hummus. Sprinkle with paprika.

Chicken Chalupas

A Beck Family classic. Always a hit. The missionaries came over for dinner on Sunday and I made chalupas and they loved them. There was only half a chalupa left. I think they left it alone because no one likes to be the one to finish a dish!

2-3 large chicken breasts (cook in butter. Season with salt, pepper, onion powder)
2 cans cream of chicken soup
1 pt. sour cream (the 16 oz container)
1 small can diced green chili peppers
1 small can sliced black olives
3-4 green onions diced
2 cups monterey jack cheese shredded
10 flour tortillas
1 c. shredded cheddar cheese

Cook chicken, dice and set aside. Combine in a medium bowl soup, sour cream, peppers, olives, and onions. Add jack cheese.
Take a small amount of the mixture to cover the bottom of baking dish (to prevent the bottom of the tortillas being too hard).
Remove 2+ cups of mixture and add to diced chicken. Place chicken-soup mixture into tortillas, not too full, and roll up.
Place in a 9x13 baking dish.
Spoon remaining mixture over top.
Top with shredded cheddar cheese.
Cover with foil and bake at 350 degrees for 40-50 minutes or until hot & bubbly.

Mexican Lasagna

A favorite. We brought it to some friends after they had their baby, and they said they loved it too. Recipe comes from Brian's Mom, Jill.

Ingredients:
corn tortillas (about 12)
1 lb. ground beef, browned
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp each: cumin, oregano, garlic powder, chili powder, cayenne, onion powder
1 16 oz. can diced tomatoes
1 cup salsa
2 8 oz cans plain tomato sauce
16 oz. container cottage cheese
2 c. mozzarella
2 eggs

Directions:
Brown beef. Add salt, spices, tomatoes, salsa, tomato sauce, and warm. In separate bowl mix cottage cheese, mozzarella, and eggs. Put half meat sauce in baking dish. Top with a layer of tortillas. Top with half the cheese mix. Repeat.

Bake 350 for 1 hour. Serves 8-10.