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!

Spreads & Other Snacks for "Grown Ups"

I dedicate this post to World Market and my fellow foodies who go shopping when they're hungry. There's no denying it, and I applaud you for it because this is when I find some of my favorite snacks. Mike and I went to World Market today to look around and came out with some great stuff - including a much needed lamp shade. But food-wise we scored some new snacks too. We ended up with some Scottish strawberry champagne preserve, Cafe Du Monde beignet mix, two plates, and a little dipping dish - all for just over $26! We decided to wait on the beignets (as hard as it was) and picked up a baguette to try the preserves instead.

I was really excited to try this because the cashier lady said it was one of her favorites. Really, at that point I was so hungry I would have tried it regardless. 

My new little dish :)

I washed some grapes I had in the fridge and decided to see what else we could snack on. I had some dried cranberries leftover from my Cranberry Orange Scones so I took them out too. All we had to buy was a "rustic sweet baguette" loaf. It must have been destiny (or at least luck) because we got the last fresh loaf.

We sat down on the couch (turned on the television) and got ready to try our little snack feast. The preserves were so delicious but they were definitely on the sweet side. We needed something to cut down on the sweetness so I brought out some brie (the Laughing Cow brand) that I had in my fridge. I put some cheese on a piece of bread then some preserves - foodie heaven, let me tell you!! The brie made it really creamy. I absolutely love strawberry jam and this one is definitely a keeper. It had a slightly stronger taste and a more intense flavor. I loved it!

     

                                                                                                                                                                                    

Oh, here's a little extra info about the difference between jelly, jam, and preserves - for anyone, like me, who didn't know until today. According to TLC Cooking,

• In jelly the fruit comes in the form of fruit juice
• In jam the fruit comes in the form of fruit pulp or crushed fruit
• In preserves the fruit comes in the form of chunks

After snacking on this for a while we decided we wanted a more savory spread - but that's one thing I didn't have laying around in my fridge.... so we made a pesto butter. It was so simple to make. 

What You'll Need:

1/2 a stick of butter

3 tsp of pesto

salt and garlic powder to taste

Make sure the butter is room temp and mix your pesto in. Add your seasonings to taste. When it's how you want it, put in in the fridge for 10 minutes. We use this pesto for everything. I've mixed it into pastas and put it on chicken. I always have a jar of this in my fridge.

When the butter was chilled, we cut some more bread and sat back down. I have to say the mix between the savory pesto and the sweet preserves was unbelievable! All together it was an awesome snack that's so much better than your average bowl of chips. You could definitely serve these as snacks for guests or as a date night snack for a night in. Either way I love you enough to share this simple snack with you! Enjoy!

Real (Easy) French Toast

It was just one of those days where we were destined to have something with a lot of syrup. Wheat bread is the usual for us but we went all out for this. After a morning full of classes, thick slices of french toast drenched in syrup was pretty much exactly what we needed. We used the thick bread (apparently made just for this kind of thing) and it was worth it! I don't know if I can go back to regular bread after this... The best thing about it- because we're broke college students- is that the bread is all we had to buy, everything else is stuff that we all have in our cupboards. Now, there is no specific measurements for this one so just go with it. If in doubt, add a little more...

What You'll Need:

6 slices of think French Toast (but regular bread will work too)

vanilla extract

3-4 eggs

cinnamon

milk

Pam spray (because it's important to be healthy)

real butter

syrup

Crack all the eggs into a medium size bowl. With a fork, beat eggs. Add a few strong dashes of cinnamon.

Add milk, vanilla, and cinnamon. Start off with a little. If it looks like you want more go for it. Mix all three ingredients well.

Spray pan with Pam (AWAY FROM STOVE!) and put pan to heat. Dip each slice in the egg mix and place quickly on pan.

Wait until each side turns a deep gold color, they should be soft and fluffy. Plate them and butter them. Mikey likes powder sugar but that's optional.


The extra egg mix that's going to be left (unless you really soaked the bread) has a lot of potential. Take what's left and put it into the pan you just used for the french toast on low heat. They are going to cook really fast so watch them and keep stirring them.

They're full of cinnamon and taste really good with a little syrup, too. No waste here.

Our Cheddar Bay Biscuits

These biscuits are so perfect for any meal (or by themselves). They're crisp on the outside and amazingly soft in the middle. This is our go-to recipe for a really good side dish.

View full recipe

INGREDIENTS

2 C. all purpose flour
2 t. baking powder
1 t. salt
1.4 t. garlic powder
1/3 C. cold butter
2 T. canola or veggie oil
1 C. grated cheddar cheese
1/2 C. milk

ADDITIONAL INGREDIENTS

3 T. butter
1/2 t. garlic powder
1/2 t. dried parsley

STEPS

Preheat oven to 400° F

Combine flour, baking powder, salt, and garlic powder in large bowl. Add chunks of butter using pastry cutter. Add oil, grated cheddar, ½ cup milk, and stir (add more milk until not sticky).

Spoon ¼ C portions on non-greased cookie sheet.

Bake 15-17 minutes.

AFTER BUSCUITS ARE MADE...

Melt butter, add garlic powder and parsley. Brush mixture on top of warm biscuits.

Serve warm. =)