#5: BBQ Bacon and Red Onion Pizza, & Pepperoni, Olive, and Tomato Pizza

Hey there! We decided to bring in Friday night with one of my most favorite foods ever: Pizza! I decided to go with one of our new favorites (BBQ sauce with bacon and red onion) and one of our classics (pepperoni, olive and tomato). Everyone knows that homemade pizza is DEFINITELY the best! Unfortunately I didn't make the dough from scratch, but I'm interested in learning how to do so! But here's what I ended up doing:


Process: 
+First I cooked the bacon, and while doing that I also cut the onion and tomatoes.
+After I let the dough sit out for about half an hour I tried my pizza dough tossing skills. I can proudly say that it neither got stuck to the ceiling nor hit the floor. I got the pizza tray, poured a bit of corn meal, and laid the dough over that.
+I spread the BBQ sauce with a spoon all over and to the edges (It makes the crust a little more flavorful, in my opinion). Before I put the cheese on, I cut the bacon strips over the pizza and added the red onion. THEN I sprinkled half of the pizza with regular mozzarella cheese, and the other half with mozzarella rice cheese. This was our first time using the rice cheese and it worked WONDERFULLY. We honestly couldn't tell who's half was whose.
+Cooked the pizza at 425 degrees for ~15 minutes.

+I followed the same steps for our "Classic" pizza as above, however I added the pepperoni first, then the cheeses, then the olives and tomatoes on top. Take a look below to see how delicious they turned out and you can even drool a little! (I won't tell anyone ;))

(Click for Larger View)

Leftover tomatoes from the Asparagus Bruschetta

Spreading the BBQ sauce over the pizza dough

Adding the toppings before the cheese creates an amazing pizza

BBQ Bacon and Red Onion Pizza

Classic Pepperoni, Tomato, and Olive Pizza

What I learned:
+Little Miss, one of our kitties, likes olives.

Just chillin', yo.

#4: Thai Food!

Alright! Last night we (the Boy and myself) had dinner plans that were planned two weeks in advance for Thai food with two awesome friends of ours (AKA before I decided to do this challenge)! I've never made Thai food before in my life! Also since yesterday was crazy busy, I didn't have time to look up a recipe and get the food I needed. Instead, the Boy got the food we would need and was more of my "live" recipe, if you will.

Process:
+Cut all the veggies we wanted to include: broccoli, bok choy, thai basil, yellow bell pepper, and green onion. (we also prepped the beef, too)
+We made a mixture of sweet and sour, chili paste, and oyster sauce and used that for marinating the thinly sliced beef.
+Before we combined everything together in the Wok, we also made DEEP FRIED TOFU! Ahhhh! It's my new favorite thing! As soon as I was pulling it out of the wok, everyone was on that like it was deep fried tofu!
+After the tofu was done, we started cooking things in the wok. First the beef, pulled that out, added the fresh rice noodles, added veggies, and added the beef again. I mixed for as long as I could but I obviously don't have the awesome wok cooking skills just yet (AKA my wrists got tired real fast).
+We served, we ate, we ate some more, and it was delicious! Definitely would make it again!

The healthy stuff ;)

Some of the good stuff for our Thai dish

Mmmm, bean sprouts!

A shot of all our veggies and thinly sliced beef

Final dish. Soooo good!

Wish I had more pictures of the process to share with everyone, but this was a fast paced dinner. Our friends, C and L, brought over dessert: angel food cake with Roobios Chai. Mmmmm, be jealous!

What I learned:
+Cooking tofu in hot oil can really hurt.
+When I first started the tofu I would try to keep them from cooking together, which ended up in broken pieces of tofu. After the first or second round though, I was able to keep them apart and have them retain their triangular form.
+I can eat fried tofu with sweet and sour sauce every day of my life.

What kind of Thai dishes have you made and loved?

#3: Asparagus Bruschetta

Yeah, so Asparagus Bruschetta wasn't for dinner, but the Boy and I had a White Elephant party to go to last night. We ended up eating leftovers, but I still REALLY wanted to make something, so I made this for the party! (Okay, the Boy may have helped slice the bread and stuff, due to time constraints...)
A couple people have asked for the recipe, and this is the one I followed (and doubled!). By the time we left the Bruschetta was almost gone!

Process:
+I cooked the asparagus the same way I did last night.
+The Boy helped me slice some bread, tomatoes, etc...
+It was really just a bunch of slicing of things and throwing it together into a bowl! Pretty simple.

Halved tomatoes and sliced baguette

NomNom asparagus

We didn't have Basil, so I used leftover Thai Basil

Mmmm, juiced lime!

 

 

 

 

Final Bruschetta

I was unable to get a final pic of the whole thing so I apologize. The one thing I learned from this is how to use a juicer, which I used for the lime. So neat!

#2: Pasta something and Asparagus with Sweet Onion Vinaigrette

Hey everyone! Tonight was night numero dos for me to cook something up! I can definitely say I was happy to be eating at 6:30 p.m. tonight! I decided to try to re-create a dish that my mom makes: a pasta tossed in garlic butter with olives and cherry tomatoes. However, since the Boy can not have garlic, and I omitted that and added broccoli instead (yay for healthy vegetables)! I also wanted to add a healthy side and I found this recipe for Green Beans with Sweet Onion Vinaigrette. However, the Boy makes it hard on me and doesn't like green beans, so I switched those out for some yummy asparagus! ...And we didn't have a sweet onion, so I used a white onion, JUST SAYIN'.

Process:
1. I followed the green bean recipe but halved the ingredients (except for when I forgot and accidentally put in a little more olive oil...), and replaced the green beans with asparagus.
2. I prepped all the veggies for the pasta, which included broccoli, olives, and cherry tomatoes.
3. Well, at least I know how to make noodles, so that didn't take very long. Cooked, drained, back in the pot.
4. I steamed the broccoli and when that was done I mixed that, the olives and the cherry tomatoes together in with the pasta. I also added some salt, pepper, teensy bit of butter, and olive oil.

Prepped asparagus, and ingredients for the vinaigrette.

How I cooked my asparagus. It came out wonderful!

Mmmm, broccoli!

Finished dish sans Pecorinio Romano. Turned out well!

Voila! 'Twas done. I felt like more could have been done with the pasta so we added some Pecorino Romano (Sheep's dairy) on top, and I added some garlic salt to mine. That definitely improved the dish. The Asparagus turned out AMAZING and I recommend the above recipe! It definitely impressed the Boy. :)

What I learned:
+Better time management skills than last night, but I can totally still improve. For example: prepping the veggies first, getting all the ingredients out first, etc...
+When I make this again, I'll add more of a buttery sauce something for the pasta.
+When looking up how to prepare asparagus I found out that if you hold both ends about two inches in, bend it and let it snap, that's where the good part will separate from the tougher part! (Does everyone already know that? I didn't. And that's pretty cool to me!)
+There's a million different ways to cook asparagus...

How do you like to cook your asparagus?

#1: Beef and Black Bean Enchiladas

Alright! Lesson #1 already learned: when thawing something frozen under hot water, don't leave the plastic container upside down or water will get into it! (Don't judge, I'm still learning!)

So tonight I'm making beef and black bean enchiladas. Last week I had made some filling which included ground beef, black beans, onions, cumin, onions, and taco seasoning. We froze the leftovers and tonight I'm going to make enchiladas with them. I'm using this recipe from epicurious as a guide for making tonight's dinner.

Food items I'm reusing:
+Beef and Bean Filling
+Green scallions from last night's Peking Duck
+Rice from last night's Peking Duck

Other items I'm using:
+Diced tomatoes
+Vegan Colby shredded cheese
+Medium Sharp Cheddar Cheese
+Flour Tortillas

Process:
1. Thawed filling under hot water for unknown amount of time.* Afterwards I heated it some more for 4-5 minutes in the microwave.
2. Pre-heated oven to 350 degrees. Put 1/3 can of Enchilada Sauce in a non-stick baking pan.
3. Put the filling and leftover rice into a pot and stirred together with a teensy bit of water. Turned out pretty well! I did this after googling how to re-heat rice, with getting a million and a half different answers...
4. Put the filling in the tortillas. Rolled them up and put the seam side down in the baking pan. I was able to fit six in there as the flour tortillas were big. I then put vegan cheese on half, and regular Cheddar cheese on the other half. (Did I mention the Boy is lactose intolerant? Also, no garlic... This makes cooking a teensy bit more difficult...) Covered the pan with foil, cooked for 30 minutes.
5. After 30 minutes I took it out, removed the foil and spread the diced tomatoes and scallions on top. Covered again and cooked for another 5 minutes.

*What I learned:
+Don't thaw something in a plastic container that's blocking the drain upside down under hot water.
+Is there a best way to heat leftover rice? I searched for an answer, but I ended up just stirring it in with the filling with a teensy bit of water.
+I should figure out a better process, because certain things were done before others, or needed to be done before others...
+We were able to eat dinner at 7 p.m.!

Enchilada Sauce, self explanatory.

Fixing my first mistake :)

Mmm, that brown mixture sure looks appetizing!

Prepping the tomatoes and scallions

Adding the Vegan cheese (left) and Cheddar cheese (right)

Adding the tomatoes and scallions

Final Product. It was SOOO good!

Uh Oh—Sarah's in the kitchen!

Hi there!
My name is Sarah and I'm going to start making dinner. What's so unusual about that? Well, I'm a college student and I definitely live and eat like one. Luckily I live with my amazing boyfriend who has been cooking his whole life, so I've been fortunate enough to eat well the past couple of years: Pad Thai, Peking Duck, Spaghetti with homemade Spaghetti Sauce, Chicken salads with Artichoke Hearts and Kalamata Olives, Chicken Marsala, Stuffed Chicken Breast, Him Bau, and SO much more!

I would like to tell you why I am starting this blog as there is a story behind it.
As I mentioned before, I'm a full time college student. I would get up at 5:30 a.m. and get home about 5 p.m. The Boy would get home an hour and half after me, which puts us eating dinner at 7-7:30 p.m. That's SO late and I'm hungry, and I want food now!

So a month or so ago I asked him, "Hey, babe. Why don't you just get up with me in the mornings so you can get to work earlier so you can leave earlier, so we can have dinner at a reasonable time?"
"Well, why don't YOU make dinner when YOU get home so we can eat at a reasonable time?"
Totally caught off guard, I wasn't quite sure what to say. "If I make dinner when I get home, we're going to be eating burritos five days a week."
"That's fine. If you make it, I will eat it."
"Oh? Are you sure? I'm willing to take on that challenge."
He agreed.
So I made dinner the next night. We had cereal and cheesy bread sticks. ;) And he ate it and liked it!

Cinnamon Toast Crunch!

 I know I can't do that all the time, and what a skill it would be to cook amazing foods for people! So now that Fall Term is over, I've challenged myself to make dinner every week night so we can eat at a reasonable time.
I want to start this blog to document the progress that I will make over the next few weeks until Winter Term begins, and perhaps even moreso into the future.
I hope you enjoy!
xoxo Sarah