Halloween Treats - Pinwheels and Pizza

One of my favorite holidays is officially over. It makes me sad because I absolutely love Halloween, but I'm also excited because it means the holiday season has officially started. When I was little my parents would let me go all out for Halloween, sometimes having multiple costumes for school and trick or treating. As I got older I looked forward to the month long airing of scary movies. Now I would never say that I'm too old for trick or treating because you can never be too old for a costume and candy, but since my life has been getting increasingly more hectic, the thought of walking in the cold, dressed as a sailor, knocking on strangers doors in an area I'm still new to didn't sound like my kind of thing, besides I had already gone out on Saturday night and had a fabulous time.

 

It didn't help that Halloween was on a Monday this year either, so I was ready to kick back and veg out. I did buy two bags of candy for any trick or treaters that might stop by (but what kid wants to climb stairs just to get candy... ok probably a lot) but our plans consisted of a scary movie marathon, margarita style pizza, and spinach and tomato pinwheels. I don't know if the whole bowl of candy was intended to be on the menu, but Mike and I ate it as an appetizer, main course, and dessert. Ooops...

Right before the good parts of Signs started we made our pizza. In 20 minutes dinner was done. As most of my go-to meals, these are semi-homemade to - you know how I roll.

Pinwheels

I'm not sure what these are really called but this name works for me. I got this idea from a Pillsbury commercial shown during the holidays last year, but I added a little extra oomph - tomatoes!! This is the perfect appetizer. I'm thinking about making these for Christmas Eve when I visit my family because they're so easy.

What You'll Need:

1 can (roll?) of refrigerated biscuits

chopped frozen spinach

1/2 a tomato

1/2 C of mozzarella cheese

Start by taking out all of the biscuits and rolling them into one piece of dough. Make sure the dough is rolled about 1/2 an inch thick. Sprinkle the cheese, spinach and tomatoes and lightly press down into the dough. Then roll the dough as tightly as possible and cut the roll about a 1/4-1/2 inch thick and place them on a greased cookie sheet. Bake them for as long as the container says to - about 10 minutes.

Eat them while they're hot. We ate ours with the pizza and it was the perfect meat-free (guilt-free) meal for a night in. 

Margarita Style Pizza

Once again this is an ode to a semi-homemade meals. I didn't feel like making a homemade crust so I bough one from the store. The crust was a little more spongy than I'm use to but the taste worked because of all the flavors on top. I made my own pizza sauce too.

What You'll Need:

Pizza Sauce

Pizza Crust

Mozzarella cheese slices

Basil

Tomato slices 

How could a pizza this simple be bad? For my sauce I just used one small can of tomato sauce and added some salt, garlic powder, Parmesan cheese, pepper, and oregano. I spread the sauce over my store bought crust, then put a layer of basil, cheese and then tomato.

Bake the pizza for 14 minutes at 450 degrees. This is just long enough to put the dishes in the sink (to wash later) and perhaps make a drink...hmmm...

This pizza is the perfect light pizza to eat while your sitting in sweats watching scary movies on the couch. I put a little fresh basil (which is currently my new obsession) on top and curled up - mainly because I was too scared to keep my feet on the floor... The tomatoes are so juicy and the cheese is so creamy that you should probably make two pizzas because they're so good.

We ended up having the best Halloween. It was perfectly relaxing and I couldn't have asked for anything better. I hope you all had a good Halloween too. I look forward to starting the fall off with you guys. Cheers!

Chicken Stir Fry... And Top Ramen

Hello everyone, I'm back! I've been on a hiatus for the past 2 weeks, working on a big paper and making Halloween cakes for work. Ugh - I've already talked too much about work and school in this post. Food! Just because I've been super busy, doesn't mean I haven't been cooking, actually I have a whole list of things I need to blog. Today's post comes from one of those nights where you know you have to eat so if you're going to cook, you might as well put in some good effort - but not too much of course.

My chicken stir fry, that I sometimes replace with beef, is one of my favorite go-to meals because you can't really mess it up. As I'm sure you know, you can add whatever veggies you have with whatever proteins you have and you're going to end up with a pretty rockin' meal. The best part? There's only 5 ingredients in mine.

What You'll Need:

2 chicken breasts

2 zucchini 

1 onion

6 small mushrooms

1 packet of Ramen noodles (go with me on this)

Start by cutting your chicken breasts into 2 inch bite-size pieces. Put a little olive oil in hot skillet and add the chicken. I only added a little seasoning (Season All and garlic powder) to my chicken because I had some great veggies that I wanted to come through.

While the chicken is cooking, cut your zucchini, onions and mushrooms in rather large pieces. There's about a zillion different types of veggies you could use but my personal goal was to not go to the grocery store for this one meal and use only what I had at home. I think at the time, these were the only 3 types I had in my whole apartment.

When the chicken is done, put it aside. You're going to add to the skillet again at the end so you don't have to keep it warm. 

Put your zucchini in the hot skillet with a little more olive oil. When they soften up a bit, but they're not fully cooked, add the onions.

When the onions start to become translucent add your mushrooms. These need the least amount of time to cook. I've found that when mushrooms are with other veggies that intensify in flavor as they're cooked (like onions and zucchini), mushrooms don't stand out. They definitely taste more like mushrooms if there's still a little bite to them. Honestly, at this point I could have eaten the veggies just like this!

Now comes my little secret ingredient. I like some pasta or rice with my stir fries but I usually use a thin spaghetti noodle. The problem was that I only had enough spaghetti for a spaghetti dinner (which is another go-to for us) I didn't want to "waste" it on this....especially when I had Top Ramen in the pantry. It's the easiest cheat pasta to go to. You put it in a bowl, cover it with water, and put it in the microwave for two minutes (without the seasoning).

Add the cooked chicken back to the veggies 

Then add all of the noodles to the skillet and use a fork to break them up. I wouldn't recommend using the seasoning packets for any flavoring because I'm not really sure what's in it and I recommend just staying away... 

I meant it when I said I didn't plan on buying anything extra for this meal - if you know me, you know I'm serious about my personal food challenges.

So this is what I ended up with. The veggies play just as much of a part in the meal as the chicken and noodles. This might be my girl math, but this has to be pretty healthy if there's that many vegetables in it. Right? (Just tell me yes...) Overall this is super simple to make and packed full of natural flavor. Enjoy!

Pesto Pasta with Scallops

This meal is one of our favorites! I make this quite a bit and always change it up. I usually use a long stringy pasta and shrimp, but this time I made it with pasta shells (conchiglie) and scallops. This is a great one-pan meal, the kind of meal where you just keep layering flavor to a plan then serve hot. Deliciousness!

What You'll Need:

1/2 pound of pasta

2 1/2 T butter

1 1/2 T flour

1 1/2 C milk

1/2 C heavy cream

2 T pesto

3 cloves of garlic

2 T Parmesan cheese

1/2 tsp pepper

1 pound of seafood

Broccoli or Asparagus 

Start by getting your water boiling. There's only two of us so I only used half a box of pasta. As far as pasta is concerned I'd have to say shells are the best for this sauce. This was the first time I used them but because of the shape, they held sauce the best. I don't think I'll ever use another type of pasta.

Start the sauce by making a roux. Do this by letting your butter melt in a hot pan then adding the flour when it's melted. Let it get a golden color.

When the roux is done pour in your milk and cream. Keep it on low heat to let the liquids thicken up a little. I know, I know, I'm not suppose to use cream because of fat or whatever... ehhh...

While the liquid is thickening run your seafood (scallops in this case) under water to defrost them. I love frozen seafood because you can buy it once and have it ready to add to anything you want. As for my vegetables I like broccoli and asparagus for this dish, but it's just a matter of what I have in my freezer or refrigerator. This time I had asparagus in those easy steam bags - 3 minutes and they're done. The kind of veggies I usually have range from fresh organic to frozen organic to cheap frozen. All of it works for me - and this dish, so work with what you got.

By now your sauce should be a little thicker so you can add your pesto, garlic, cheese, pepper and salt to taste. It's really hard to mess up the ratio because everything really goes together.

When that's mixed, add your scallops. Again, shrimp rocks in this too but scallops were on sale. You know how that goes.

Add your pasta to the sauce...

Then add the asparagus....and stir.

   

I threw some Texas Toast in the oven for 5 minutes and had an amazing dinner.  

This meal is so creamy! Seafood is perfect in this dish because it adds a pop of freshness in the rich sauce. It's one of those meals where you keep on eating even after you're full. If you ask me, those are the best kinds of meals! Enjoy!   

Spinach Quiche

Quiche is one of the things I have always loved but left for other people to make. My favorite version is mini quiches - like the adorable ones that are always served at fabulous parties. There's something crazy good about a flaky crust filled with an almost creamy, fluffy, center. Not to mention I love any dish that can be made with pretty much anything I have. As a working college student I love me a no-fuss recipe. I adapted my recipe from Just Eat, it's such a great blog, check it out. This is super easy to make and really really delicious.

What You'll Need:

4 eggs

1/3 C milk

1 1/4 C cheese

2 tsp salt

1 1/2 tsp pepper

1/2 chopped onion
1 tomato

6 sliced mushrooms

1 1/2 packages of frozen spinach

1 cold pie crust (below)

Pie Crust

I started by making my own pie crust for this. If you usually rock a pre-made pie crust those work just as well but pie crusts are soo easy and they get really flaky. Here's how I made mine:

What You'll Need:

1 1/4 C all purpose flour

1/2 C cold butter (cubed)

1 tsp salt

1 tsp sugar

3-5 tblsp of water

Mix your flour, salt, and sugar in a mixing bowl. I still don't have a standing mixer but my grandma doesn't need one for her pie crusts so I'm going to say I don't either, I just use my hand-held dough cutter to, well I'm assuming, "cut" in the butter. Once it looks like course sand, add your water one tablespoon at a time. This time I ended up needing four tablespoons to get the consistency I wanted, kneading it continuously. Knead it into a ball and keep in the refrigerator until your quiche (or any other type) of filling is ready. 

First, preheat the oven to 350 so you don't have to wait later on, it's lame.

My quiche was filled with two kinds of cheeses, 1 cup of mozzarella and 1/4 cup of a Mexican blend (which included pepper jack and cheddar cheese). The pepper jack ended up adding a really nice, deep flavor to the quiche.

In a bowl I mixed the eggs, milk, and cheeses. Then I added the salt and pepper and set it aside.

In a large pan, saute the onion until they're translucent then add the mushrooms. I decided to add a little chopped garlic because I'd pretty much eat garlic on anything and this was no exception.

I wanted to add some tomato because I was sure they would add some awesome color to my quiche. Red pepper would have worked too but I always have tomatoes on hand and they seem to always add a great color, texture, and taste to my meals. I love the little things.

The last thing you want to add is your defrosted, drained spinach. The colors are about to get insane right now! Make sure everything is mixed and fully incorporated.

Add your spinach mixture to your egg mixture and fold in. 

Take out your crust roll it out on a clean, well-floured, surface. It's good to have the chunks of butter in the dough because that's what makes it flaky. Pour the spinach mix over the pie crust.

Place this in the oven for 25 - 30 minutes, until the top is a light golden brown.

When the quiche comes out you're going to see that this recipe is a keeper. Now, I'm a "sides" kind of girl, I love serving main dishes with some sort of side. I guess I feel that a meal isn't complete without them. This was an exception. This was the only thing on our plates and it's all we needed. The spinach was crazy, crazy, crazy it was so good and everything else was fluffy. You can taste every single thing that goes into this. And the perfect thing about this is, if you're like me and you get home late most nights, you can eat this and you don't feel like you over-ate even though you're full. I now have a great recipe that I can make into fabulous mini quiches or smaller personal sized portions.