Saturday is pizza night

So we've started making homemade pizza every Saturday night.. Well at least that's the plan. We used to make it just here and there but we've really started to perfect it and i just cant have enough!

Basic Pizza Dough
1 c warm water
1 tsp honey
1 pkg yeast
2 1/2 c flour
2 Tbs sugar
2 tsp salt
1 tsp oregano
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1 Tbs olive oil

Mix the warm water and honey until honey is disolved. Add yeast and set aside. Sift dry ingredients and add oil and yeast mixture. Work into a dough and knead for 10-15 minutes. Put into an oiled bowl and let rise for 1 hour. Punch down and let rise another 15-20 minutes. Turn out onto floured board and roll into pizza shape. Put into pizza pan, top, and bake at 350 for 30 minutes.

Our favorite type of pizza is a chicken bacon bbq pizza. We cook off a chicken breast and cut it into strips and roll into a little bit of ranch dressing. We also cook off 2-3 strips of bacon and crumble them and saute about 1/4 of an onion. We put bbq sauce down on the pizza and drizzle some ranch on top. Then we add the chicken, mozzorella cheese, bacon and onions. Very very yummy! We also ususally double the recipe and make bread sticks out of the other half. For this we just make a mixture of butter, garlic, and italian seasonings and top the dough with that and a little bit of cheese. Also very yummy!

Thanksgiving and Christmas Yummies

So, been meaning to blog a bit about Thanksgiving and Christmas. We ended up with 2 Turkeys this year so we had one for each holiday. We almost had the same exact meal really. Here are some snap shots and tips =D

So this is our Thanksgiving bird. It came out better than the Christmas one. For this one I made a compound butter using butter (duh) minced garlic, salt and pepper, and lots of paprika. I slathered it all over the bird - inside and out, and under the skin - the night before and let it sit in the fridge. I also stuffed it with a cut up orange, lemon, and onion. Then we baked it at about 350 for probably 3 hours. I have an oven safe probe thermometer that I can put in the turkey and set a timer to. I put it in the thigh and set the timer to 175 degrees. At that point I cranked the over up to 400 to get a good crust. Cooked it like that for about 20 minutes and took it out to rest. Came out great. We did a simular recipe for Christmas but it was more 'Puerto Rican'. It was a vinager based marinade, still with paprika, but with some other spanish seasonings like Sazon and Adobe. Also the recipe said to cook breast down so I tried that. Christmast turkey came out more dry. Not sure what contributed to that, I may have over cooked it a bit, may have been the vineger, but either way Thanksgiving was better.

This is the yummyest and easiest potato casserole ever.

Potato Casserole

1 32 oz bag frozen hash browns
2 cans cream of mushroom soup
2 cups sour cream
2 cups cheddar cheese
Salt and
Pepper

Mix the hash browns, soup, sour cream, and 1 1/2 cups of the cheese. Season with salt in pepper. Put into casserole dish. Top with remaining cheese. Bake at 350 for 30-45 minutes or until cheese and golden and bubblely.

For Christmas we made it again but added diced ham and it was even better. This recipe makes A LOT so you could cut it in half.. or just have left overs..

Beef Wellington

Oh my poor food blog! Your getting forgotten! Well.. not really. Been pretty busy with the pregnancy and on bed rest so no fun.. Plus I pretty much don't cook anymore, Javier has taken over.. I do have a few recipes from Thanksgiving and Christmas I need to post tho.. But first.. A few weeks ago Javier, Jason, and I made Been Wellington! I've been wanting to make it for EVER and we finally got the courage to do it! I did learn however that I do not like proscuitto. If we ever make it again I may just use ham or pancetta...

Beef Wellington

Beef- Either one large tenderloin or we did indivual steaks
Olive Oil
Salt & Pepper
Sun Dried Tomato Pesto
Prosciutto
Puff Pastry
Egg

First you'll need to sear the beef. Season it well with S&P and coat a pan in a bit of olive oil. Get it good and hot and give the beef a good quick sear. You want to give the beef a crust, but not cook it all too much. It will be going in the oven later. Let it sear for a minute or so each side and set aside to cool.

Once beef is cool cover in pesto. I bought a jarred one. Classic recipes will actually want you to make a mushroom 'paste'. Basically just buy some portobellos and pulse them in the food processer until it turns into a paste and cover that on the beef. Whatever you use, wrap the beef in then prosciutto afterwords. Then you'll wrap in plastic wrap and let chill for 20 minutes. Go ahead and take out the frozen puff pastry at this time and let it start to defrost.

Roll out the puff pastry and unwrap the beef. Place in the middle of the puff pastry and use an egg wash to cover the egdes. Wrap around the beef and let chill for another 10 minutes. Go ahead and preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Glaze the tops of the wellingtons with the remaining egg wash. You can use a knife to 'score' the dough which will stop it from rising. Doing this you can make some pretty cool designs. Javier tried his best, but they don't actually show up that well. Top with kosher salt and bake until dough is golden brown, ours took about 15-20 minutes.