Recipes

As promised, here a few recipe tips we have recently tried and like for its ease and taste. Let me know if it works as well for you.

Pizza--We started making the crust ourselves from a recipe found in the "Jamie at Home" cookbook by Jamie Oliver. It makes 8 med to large pizzas (depending on how thick you like your crust). I use a pizza pan (one with holes all over) and in 12 minutes, you are done. He suggests using "Tipo 00" flour. It really exists. I found it at an Italian grocery store.

I've found making your own pizza sauce not worth the time and effort so I use good spaghetti sauce and sprinkle rosemary, thyme, oregano, parsley, chili pepper flakes etc on it. I also use good Italian mozzarella and pepperoni.

The dough freezes well, as does the cheese and sauce. We have found that one standard can of sauce is good for 5 pizzas and 2.2 kg of cheese does 10 pizzas.

We package cheese, dough, sauce and pepperoni in freezer bags and pull them out an hour before making. This has replaced our takeout and frozen pizza buys. Price wise we figured out that we are on par with the frozen pizza cost (depends on how much you choose to spend on cheese and pepperoni) but the taste beats it hands down.


Chicken Fingers--Here's a link to a recipe I found online that is really easy and tasty. The only think I've changed about it is that I season the chicken as well with salt and pepper in addition to the flour and breadcrumbs. We use a deep fryer and for us, it takes about 5 minutes.

http://www.helium.com/items/393697-recipes-fried-chicken-fingers


French Fries--We buy potatoes in bags of 10lbs as there are only 2 of us. Invest in a french fry cutter. Ours came from Canadian Tire but we've seen them in kitchen supply stores. Again we use a deep fryer. Contrary to popular belief, food out of a deep fryer (we use vegetable oil) isn't soaked with grease at all. We cook the fries for 8 - 9 minutes at the highest temperature on our fryer and then let it sit for 10 - 15 minutes. Then re-fry for 2 -3 minutes for the final crisp up. Shake up and season with sea salt.


Stuffed Peppers--We just tried this recipe last week. With the fall harvest upon us, we felt this was a great thing to make a big batch of and freeze.

http://www.elise.com/recipes/archives/000039dads_stuffed_bell_peppers.php


Almost forgot dessert!! A simple Brownie recipe can be found on a container of Fry's Cocoa. It makes what I consider to be "regular" brownies vs. the half ton ones you get at coffee shops. We make a batch, free half (or we'd end up eating everything).

Finally, our favorite Butter Tart recipe. We do not make the shell part. We buy a no name 30 pack pre-made, unsweetened tart shells. We eat the buttertarts straight from the freezer.

http://www.joyofbaking.com/ButterTarts.html


Have fun and Enjoy!