Fake Chicken Alfredo Pizza

I believe I've explained the addiction to pizza that boyfriend suffers with, and I have become one of those innocent loved ones affected by by his "disease." He IS getting better, eating pizza less often, besides the fact that we ate at Piece on Thursday, then got a frozen pizza after the bar on Friday, and made this pizza on Monday, but I digress. So when thinking of what to make for dinner on Monday, he, of course, suggested an alfredo chicken pizza, I suggest adding broccoli, and we went from there.

We rolled out the garlic pizza dough from Trader Joes on a greased cooking sheet and put it in the 400 degree pre-heated oven for about 7 minutes. While that was in the oven, we fried up the broccoli and fake chicken with about 3 cloves of garlic, minced, and just a little bit of olive oil in a frying pan until the chicken was slightly crispy. Then we realized we had some fake bacon in the freezer, so we fried that up with some vegetable oil and cut it up in to small bits. I then grated the cheese, but blast me, I can't remember the name of it. I was a harder mozzerella from Trader Joes and it was perfect on this pizza.

After we let the crust bake for a little in the oven, we took it out and added the alfredo sauce. In order to keep the pizza from being too heavy in our bellies, I went with Ragu's Cheesy Light Parmesan Alfredo sauce, and it only took half of the jar to cover the pizza. I then placed 4 slices of provolone cheese around the pizza, spread out the chicken, broccoli and facon, and sprinkled Italian seasoning over everything. We topped it off with the shredded moz, and 4 more cloves of minced garlic.

It was in the oven for about 25 minutes when the crust nicely browned and the cheese looked like this

BOY was it delicious. And Surprisingly, after 4 pieces, I wasn't stuffed! So, in summary, here's a list of the ingredients:

1/2 package fake chicken
4 strips fake bacon
1-2 cups chopped broccoli (we used the frozen variety)
3 cloves, then 4 cloves garlic, minced
4 slices provolone cheese
1/2 jar light alfredo sauce
2 cups shredded mozzerella
1 pizza crust
2 Tbsp Italian seasoning

This only took about 45 minutes total to make, the ingredients weren't more than $15 and the pie was a real mouth-pleaser. I highly suggest making it!

Vegetarian Chicken Cheese Soup

As I am in my early days of actually enjoying cooking, I just discovered how wonderful Crockpots are! After making amazing vegetarian chili, I searched around for some more good crock recipes. Since cheese is one of my major food groups, this vegetable cheese soup recipe sounded delish, but changes improvements were necessary. So two weekends ago (posting on time during the holidays is just impossible), my household hunkered down  to make some cheese soup and record some songs.

As an Irish gal, I scoffed at the recipe calling for only a cup of potatoes, and cut up 3 medium sized spuds. It's difficult to have too much onion, so I included a 1 large onion (chopped). I then chopped up the cup of carrots and gathered the ingredients together for crockpot time!

It was then time to combine the 2 cans of vegetable broth, 1 can of creamed corn, potatoes, carrots, onions, 1 tsp celery seed, and a little bit of pepper. After careful consideration (see: I had a "duh!" momement), I added two cloves of minced garlic to the mix. 

The original recipe instructs us to cook this mixture on low for 8 hours, however I majorly overslept had a very busy morning, so I turned it up to high for 4.5 hours, after which time I added a 15oz jar of processed cheese sauce and about a cup of shredded cheddar.

My love of fake meat is unwavering and the meat-eating men in my life tend to prefer when I make things that include this delicious faux-animal carcass, so it only made sense to add fake chicken strips to the mix, after letting the cheese-saturated soup cook for about 45 minutes. Next time I make this, I'll probably fry the chicken strips first, to give them a little bit of crispyness. Also at this time, I was feeling that the soup looked quite runny, so I ended up adding about a cup of flour, which did help slightly. If you have any thoughts on how to not make it so watery, please let me know!

After letting all of that cook for a final hour, it was time to enjoy! So me and three boys put the music aside, grabbed a beer and turned on America's Funniest Home Videos on Netflix (trust me, it's funnier than you remember). They gave me RAVE reviews and I have to say, I thoroughly enjoyed it myself. I will definitely be making this again. See a summary of the ingredients below, and make this soul-warming dish ASAP!

2 cans vegetable broth

3 medium sized potatoes

About 1 cup chopped carrots

1 onion, chopped

1 can creamed corn

1 tsp celery seed

2 cloves garlic (minced)

Pepper - as much as you desire (I tend to use less pepper than others)

1 jar processed cheese (can be found in the chip aisle)

1 cup shredded cheddar (or whatever cheese you prefer)

1 package fake chicken strips (I used chicken-less strips from Trader Joe's but I also love Morning Star Farm's fake chicken strips)

If you have any suggestions on how to make this recipe better for the next time around, please leave a comment!