Homemade Pizza

My freezer cooking plan fell to the wayside today as other things popped up.  I did manage to get a couple of pizza crusts made.  One of them was dinner and the other one was par-baked and frozen for a quick nite pizza dinner on a later day. Keeping the delivery guy at bay. I have a basic Pizza Dough Recipe that I have used for years.  It's great for calzones, stromboli, pizza, cinnamon & sugar twists, etc.  Easily doubled. I make it in the bread machine on my 15 minute cycle and then bake it.

Pizza Dough

3/4 cup luke warm water

1 T olive oil (canola oil will work too)

1 1/2 t salt

2 1/4 cup all purpose flour (I use a combination of red wheat and all purpose)

*making this with all wheat makes a very dense and chewy crust

1 t sugar

2.25 t yeast

(optional add ins) basil, garlic powder, parsley, oregano

cornmeal for dusting pan

1. Preheat oven to 450 degreese. Spray pizza pan with cooking spray and sprinkle with cornmeal.

2. Place all ingredients in bread machine in recommended order.  I use my pasta cycle (15 minutes). 3. Take dough out and work out to fit pizza pan. 

4. Load with sauce and cheese and bake in heated oven for 5-6 minutes

5. Remove from oven the load with remainder of toppings.  Bake for additional 7-8 minutes.

*If freezing.  At Step 3 do not load with toppings. Bake for 6 minutes, cool.

Wrap well with aluminum foil and freeze for later use.

When ready to use, no need to thaw.  Load with toppings and bake at 450 degrees for 7-8 minutes.



Ciao! Amy

Freezer Cooking Plan

My hours at work have been all over the place lately.  I am planning on taking this weekend to do a little cooking for the week.  I am hoping to prepare a few lunch items and some dinner helpers. 

The above picture is the Asiago Cheese Bread I made last Sunday. It was heaven in a loaf of bread. 

I plan on making a couple more loaves this weekend to stick in the freezer. 

Freezer Cooking Plan for Weekend

Brown hamburger with homemade taco seasoning

 (I will post the taco seasoning recipe soon, it's great and lower in sodium than packaged brands)

Make meatballs for meatballs subs

Chop onions to freeze (we have an abundance of them)

Make pizza dough times 2

Asiago Cheese Bread times 2 loaves

Freeze fresh tomatoes for use later (this is so simple, I will post a how too soon)

Muffins (I am wavering between banana nut and orange pecan)

I will post pics as the weekend progresses on my progress and end results. 

Are you doing any freezer cooking this weekend?

Ciao! Amy

Thursdays Musings

Julia Child was one of the greatest chefs of all time. She is hilarious and I love to watch her on TV. This quote from her is so true. I am one of the people that get great pleasure from cooking.

"Some people like to paint pictures, or do gardening, or build a boat in the basement. Other people get a tremendous pleasure out of the kitchen, because cooking is just as creative and imaginative an activity as drawing, or wood carving, or music."  Julia Child

Ciao! Amy

Homemade Breakfast Sausage

 

In our on going effort to eat healthier and cut back on processed foods we have created several recipes that can take the place of some of our not so healthy favs. This is one of them.

This is good for breakfast with an english muffin, biscuit or mini bagel.  It can also top a pizza or calzone and is excellent in spaghetti, lasagne or any other recipe you would use sausage in.

This recipe doubles very easily. We generally do 3-4 lbs at a time and freeze it to use later.

Homemade Breakfast Sausage

1 lb lean ground turkey (we can only get the 1.33 lb pkgs here, they work just fine)

*fresh ground pork can be subbed in for the turkey

1 1/2 t of sage

3/4 t of salt

1/2 t black pepper

1/4 to 1/2 t cayene pepper (depending on how kicked up you want the sausage to be)

1/2 t brown sugar

1/2 t garlic powder

1/4 t paprika

1/4 t thyme

Mix everything together.  Form into patties or crumble.

Cook on inside grill or in skillet sprayed with cooking spray. 

Cook until no longer pink in middle. 

Ciao! Amy