Day Sixty-seven--PIzza night

Yes, I know. I'm two days late. I have two posts to do. Sorry. I couldn't get any time on the computer yesterday. Between my being busy all day and Connor hogging the computer, it just didn't happen. I am going to do two posts right now instead of being lazy and lumping two dinners into one post. That's good, right?

So Friday...that is our pizza night. What a pizza I had. Oh my. I was afraid I had missed my opportunity of asparagus pizza this year. I thought asparagus was done for this season. Imagine my surprise when one of the farms at the market had beautiful bunches of asparagus. I snapped up two bunches. I would have my pizza after all.

Asparagus Bacon Pizza

This pizza, I think, is my new favorite pizza. I was scared to try it because well, it's asparagus on a pizza. Fear not. Try it, when it's in season again. I tweaked my recipe a bit to add the bacon but I had a little bit of uncured bacon left in my fridge and I didn't want it to go bad. I fried up the bacon and then discarded most of the grease. In what little grease that was left I fried up some sliced onions. While I was doing that, Tim was kind enough to roll out the dough for the pizzas. I made the kids pizza and threw it in the oven and then got to shredding my asparagus. This was not an easy task. I think it was because the stalks were thin tender little guys. I did my best until I had a big bowl of shredded asparagus. I tossed it with the tiniest bit of olive oil and salt and pepper. My pizza crust was waiting for me and I got to building my pie.

First thing that went on the crust was some of my sauteed onions. I didn't use any pizza sauce, just put the onions right down. Then I had cubed up a little ball of mozzarella cheese and scattered that over the onions. Then I dropped all the shredded asparagus on top of the cheese. I finished by crumbling a couple of strips of bacon over the top. That's all that I put on it.

Oh. My. God. This pizza was so good. The crust came out perfectly too. I don't know if it was because I had my oven hotter than usual or if it was because there was no pizza sauce on it, but my crust was perfect. I love making my own pizza dough. It always does so well.

So there you have it. Friday night pizza night. The kids and Tim made different pizzas and we munched on the leftovers yesterday. Everyone was happy with this meal. We always are.

Day Sixty-four--Bacon Spinach Quiche

Wahoo. I'm posting dinner right after dinner. I know, novel idea. Tonight's dinner was a home-run. It was supposed to be a fritatta, but my cousin-in-law(there is such a thing, right) posted on facebook yesterday that she made this quiche and her family enjoyed it. I decided to give it a try. I'm glad I did.


Bacon spinach quiche

I had to make a pie crust. Actually, I have one crust in my refrigerator still that I need to figure out what to do with it. I'm thinking Shoo-fly pie. We'll see if I'm being overly ambitious. Anyway, back to dinner. I rolled out one of the crusts and put it into my pie plate. That got set to the side while I got everything else ready. Four slices of pepper bacon, fried and cut up. Four eggs. Some milk and shredded cheese. Some chopped onion and spinach. All of those things got mixed together into a bowl and then put into the pie crust. I did run in to one problem. That problem was the fact that my pie plate was apparently not big enough. The egg mixture spilled out over the top a bit. No problem. I just pushed a cookie sheet in onto the bottom rack of my oven and it caught everything that spilled out of the pie plate. I did sprinkle a little bit more shredded cheddar on top and then carefully put the quiche in the oven. It baked for 40 minutes and then was done.

This meal was so delicious. It was everything in one plate. Protein, veggies, carbs...all in one plate. It can't get much easier than that. Aidan didn't really like it. I think it was because of the onions and spinach and the fact that it was something new that we've never had. I think a couple more times and he'll eat it. He did tell me that he wasn't that hungry.

So, thanks Emily for posting your meal last night. We enjoyed it tonight!

Day Fifty-nine--Macaroni and Cheese

Wow. I'm late in posting today. My pizza dough for tonight's dinner is going through it's final rise and I'm just now getting to posting last night's dinner. Last night's dinner was done on the road. We had Macaroni and Cheese. None of that gross boxed stuff here.



I've made this recipe several times. It's from the River Cottage Family Cookbook. The first time I made this recipe Aidan swore off boxed macaroni. Both boys helped make it this time. It's pretty simple to throw together. You make a flour/butter rue and then slowly add warmed milk. Once it's slightly bubbling, then you get to the cheese shredding. We picked up a nice big brick of cheddar cheese in Cuba, NY while we were visiting Laurie last week and I used that. This is where the boys came into play. They were in charge of shredding. They added the shredded cheese to the milk mixture and melted it all down. Oh, and there was a bay leaf cooking in the milk the whole. My macaroni was boiling the whole time the milk and cheese was melting together. Then, you just drain the macaroni and add it to the cheesy goodness that is bubbling away in the other pot. I also added a wee bit of salt and fresh ground pepper. Then it all just gets dumped into a casserole dish and I put some fresh shredded Parmesan cheese on the top of it. Throw it in the oven and bake it for 20 minutes. Then it's done.

The recipe also calls to put 8 slices of bacon on top of it. I only used 3 slices that I cut in half. It adds a nice smoky flavor to the mac n cheese. I wish I would have thought to bring some hot sauce with us in the car because I think that would have added the last finishing touch to the meal, but we were in a rush to get out of the house. It was enjoyed by all on the road.

Whew. Now it's time to go make tonight's dinner. Until later. Happy cooking!