Valentine's day and amazing home-made pizza sauce!

Valentine's Day: The one holiday you really want to say "whatever, it's just a Hallmark holiday, no big deal" but secretly hope that your significant other does something really special. Disappointment ensues. I blame my mother. She still sends me Valentine's Day gifts.

Boyfriend took me to dinner over the weekend and actually volunteered to go see The Vow (I kinda loved it, not gonna lie), But I decided to make the plans for actual V-day this year and picked something a little weird unique: Church bingo!! I didn't tell Tom where we were going, just picked him up, parked in front of a church, and walked in to the school gym. We were surrounded by very passionate seniors, who had their lucky daubers lined up in a row and about 20 bingo boards in front of them. After purchasing one packet of boards for each of us (with only 6 boards per game, such amateurs), we figured out the rules (with a little help from people around us), and conquered that Bingo Night. Ok, so we only won $5 in a raffle, but we were SO close to getting Bingo many, many times. With the game, making art with the daubers and the treats I brought, we had an awesome time.

Wine in a water bottle, straight class.

In addition to wine in a water bottle, my other treat for Bingo was a home-made version of Red Lobster's Cheddar Bay Biscuit. Tom and I have discussed going to Red Lobster lately, mainly because of these biscuits, and one day the recipe from The Girl Who Ate Everything randomly popped up on my Pinterest. Well these ended up being DIVINE. They taste just like the restaurant's biscuits but without the embarrassment of telling your friends that you drove 15 miles to go to Red Lobster. I suggest attempting this recipe. My note would be that they are pretty hard to mix, and even after mixing for a while, the batter doesn't look right, but it is! The recipe warns against over-mixing, so even though I was worried about their look, I put them in the oven anyway and they turned out great! The dozen that came out of the batch is already gone.

After Bingo I took Tom back to my place, where I made him a heart-shaped pizza, as I have previously revealed his addiction/obsession. It turned out very good and the best part was this home-made sauce that I want to tell you about.

After deciding the plan for Feb 14th about a week ago, I searched the internet for the "best" home-made pizza sauce recipe. Well, there sure is a lot of different advice floating around out there. I told my friend Sam about my quest and, being an Italian New Yorker with a father who knows what's what with pizza, she told me to ignore everything I had read thus far and follow her families extremely simple recipe. It called for little more than tomato sauce, olive oil and italian seasoning. 

"No fennel seeds?" I asked her. "There are a few recipes that insisted that you use fennel seeds."

"Those things are gross," she snorted. 

"But every recipe I've looked at either calls for sugar or honey."

"These are exactly the type of things Americans like to add to their sauce that my family laughs at them for."

"Fine."

 So respecting her advice, I basically followed her family recipe, with a few embellishments that I thought would help. And they really really did. Also, the most important part of this sauce turning out so well was storing it overnight, It made the sauce flavorful and rich, but not over-powering. Here's a run down:

2 8oz cans tomato sauce (I tend to buy store-brand stuff, but this time I spent a little more on nicer tomatoes and I think it paid off)

1 tsp Italian Seasoning

1 tsp Oregano

1tsp Basil

1 tsp Garlic Powder

1 tsp Onion Powder

Sprinkling of Red Pepper Flakes (per your spicy preference)

1 Tbsp Parmesan cheese

1Tbsp white wine (I used Savignon Blanc)

1Tbsp olive oil

You simply toss all of those ingredients in to a tupperwear container, shake, and throw in the fridge for 24 hours.

After arriving home from bingo, I just rolled out the pizza dough (using my usual garlic and herb crust from Trader Joe's), carefully placed it in my greased heart-shaped pan, brushed some olive oil over the whole crust and popped it in the oven for about 8 minutes. The next tip Sam's dad gave me was, before putting down the sauce, toss some mozzarella around that pizza. I complied. I also got a little fancy and included some goat cheese along with the standard mozzarella.

After baking this bad boy for about 10 minutes, we then took it out of the pan and placed it directly on the rack, to ensure the crust cooked fully. And then we ate our hearts out (Ehoh!)!

Tom may have grabbed a piece and taken a bite before I could yell "NO! I have to take a picture!"

This was a great valentines day meal! What's your favorite go-to pizza sauce recipe?

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!

Pizza Pot Pie: Party in your mouth

So I don't want to say that this is the best meal I've ever made, but I WILL admit that I've never thought so much about a meal after eating it. Since Friday night, anyone who has been around me has heard about this creation and seen the look of longing in my eye...*siiigh* AHEM

A certain Chicago restaurant made pizza pot pies famous, and I've been craving to go back there for a while, but seeing as I'm on a tight budget, Tom and I decided to try and make our own. I have to be honest, these were better than the restaurant's popular pie.

Since I'm not a real adult yet I haven't quite finished my collection of necessary kitchen supplies, I didn't have any ramekins to make these in. Instead of opting to make one big pot pie in a baking dish (which I can imagine still tastes great), we found these soup mugs for pretty cheap at target. They worked perfectly! Tom's instincts told him that we should use vodka sauce instead of pizza or marinara and I do believe this inclusion made this in to the glorious meal experience that I am now bragging about. These are the ingredients we ended up with

1/2 jar of vodka sauce
1 medium onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
Handful of cherry tomatoes, chopped
1/2 package fake beef tips/strips (This was the first time I've ever tried Gardein's Beefless Tips, and I was very impressed.)
1/2 package shredded Mozzarella and Parmesan (we opted for a combo package, but one or the other would do)
1 Tbsp Italian seasoning
1 bag garlic pizza dough from Trader Joe's

We preheated the oven to 400 degrees, then combined the onion, cherry tomatoes, and garlic in to a sauce pan. We let those items sizzle for a while, then added our fake beef tips, which I thawed in the microwave for about a minute before throwing them in the pot.

We then threw in the 1/2 jar of vodka sauce and about a tablespoon of Italian seasoning, and stirred until everything was well mixed. I rolled out the pizza dough using a wine bottle since I still don't have a rolling pin and cut the top of our pies by simply placing the upside down soup mug on the rolled-out dough, and cutting around the mug, about one inch out from the rim.

We started packing our pies by beginning with a layer of our cheese, then a quarter of the sauce mixture, per pie, another layer of cheese, the rest of the sauce and topped it with more cheese (I'm not sure if you've noticed, but I'm quite the cheese fanatic). Your ingredients don't need to be at the very top of the cup, but they should be close to the top.

I gently placed the dough on top, we cut it to vent, and sprinkled some more Italian seasoning over the top. After placing them on a baking sheet, we popped them in the oven!

They were in the oven for about 30 minutes, and we knew they were ready to be consumed when they looked like this:

Some recipes call for you to turn these upside down and empty them on to a plate before eating, but we just dove in with a fork. These pot pies, with a side of Yuengling and a serving of Friday the 13th part 7, made for an excellent Friday evening!