Prosciutto with Strawberry and Olive Oil Dressing

This is a simple appetizer that is easy to make

I lucked out and was able to get some prosciutto at a reasonable price, so I couldn't resist trying this idea out on an especially hectic Wednesday when I left the house at 6am and get back at midnight.

For this you will need bread, prosciutto, strawberries and olive oil.

Put some olive oil in a dish

Apologies for the pictures, I was too tired to set up even the half-assed lighting I usually have

Crush in some strawberries  and salt lightly

Crushing the strawberries is a fantastic source of catharsis.

Put some prosciutto on a chunk of bread with the dressing.

Simple but delicious

Clean Out the Freezer Asian Stew

Well, today was originally going to be a dumpling soup. It quickly became a clean out the freezer soup and then it became too thick to be called a soup. Thus, a stew. I honestly don't remember everything that got put into it but it included dumplings, peas, carrot, celery, mushrooms, a green that may have been kale, a turnip, and ginger.

This seriously isn't even everything that got put in.

 Anyway, I added everything to a pot and set it to boil until I got too hungry to wait anymore, then I cooked in the dumplings in the soup.

Easy but very thick.

Deep Dish Pizza

Here we have a recipe for an overly topped, fork required pizza. 

You will need a precooked pizza crust, a can of tomato puree, a pepper, an onion, chicken and Mexican four cheese mix.

Make a sauce (puree in a pot with garlic, salt and pepper).

Sauce in the making

 Chop up vegetables.

Choppy chop chop

 Cook the chicken.

Well seasoned, of course.

 And cut it up.

Add all of that to the sauce.

An increasingly chunky sauce.

Cook on low until the vegetables are soft, then put it on the crust and cover it with cheese.

Almost a pizza. Almost.

Follow the baking instructions on the crust container. Et voila! Pizza! 

Magically

Huevos Rancheros

Today I actually woke up early enough to make breakfast. A shocking event.

So I decided that I was going to try my hand at huevos rancheros 

For this concoction, you will need: eggs, tomatoes, peppers and onions.

Take your veggies:

Looking so fresh in the morning light

And cut them up

If anyone has a suggestion for tearless onion cutting, please share it.  Please

 Cook them with garlic, salt and pepper

Can I just start saying gsp?  Would anyone understand what I mean? Probably not.

Next take your eggs, about two for every person you will be cooking for.

One of these things is not like the others.

 Beat them up a little. Just enough sos that they gets the message.

And the moral is that we are all the same on the inside

 Add them to the vegetables, add more seasoning and scramble until cooked

Scrambled!

Serve hot with sriracha sauce, hot sauce or ketchup. Or just plain

Yet another thing that tasted better than it looks.

Baked Ziti

Today we will be making the pizza party classic: Baked Ziti

This recipe is as Italian as apple pie. But its delicious so, there's that.

For this recipe, you will need: a large can of tomato puree, a bag of shredded mozzarella, a medium sized container of ricotta, a box of ziti and a pound of ground beef. 

Put a pot on for the ziti (ie boil water). I'll wait until your finished.

Ready?

Ok.

Now it's time to make the sauce. I have discovered that the trick to decent marinara sauce is to put a can of puree into a pot, add salt, pepper, basil, garlic and onion powder and just let it simmer for a while. Don't touch it, no matter how hard that seems.

Pictured: Sauce cooking without being harassed.

While you are pretending that you don't want to play with the sauce, you can distract yourself by cooking the beef. Because of the high fat content of the level of ground beef I use (read: cheap) there was enough fat just in there that I didn't even need to use oil or butter.

Kinda gross when you think about it

Cook it until it looks done.

Brown and yummy

Add the meat to the sauce and mix it in.  I did everything in my power to avoid getting the fat that got cooked out into the sauce, however it will be more flavorful if you don't

Dump in the container of ricotta and mix it in thoroughly

It should be the color of baby food when you're done

 Go ahead and let that simmer until the pasta is cooked. When you are ready to add it, take a glass pan (or if you are smart and don't care about the environment, a tin foil pan that can be thrown out when you are done) and coat the bottom with sauce and then dump your pasta on top.

Pour the rest of your sauce over the remaining pasta and mix in so that all of the pasta is coated in cheesy, meaty goodness.

Above: Cheesy meaty goodness

Cover with a thick coating of shredded mozzarella and bake on 450 until the cheese is browned

Serve piping hot.

Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies

Ok. Whatever you do, don't follow this recipe.  I was thoroughly unsatisfied with the result, however, it is what I made so post I must.

First some explanation.  When altering a baking recipe (Not advised! The margins of error in baking are very small.) to add cocoa powder, you must add more butter, baking soda and sugar to compensate for the drying and acerbic aspects of the cocoa.

I did not add enough of any of them, apparently

 Anyway, follow the instructions under the lid of the oatmeal.

Cream together (meaning, mix until creamy) softened butter and your sugars.

This might be too creamy

Beat in eggs.

Two of them.

Add your powders, replacing a quarter cup of flour with cocoa powder

Chocolaty!

Pour in oats,

Mix thoroughly.

Ball into one inch masses and place on a cookie sheet.

Yum...?

 I got bored after one sheet so I made a sheet cake out of the rest

While those are baking, you can clean up the inevitable mess.

Cocoa powder everywhere!

I made a peanut butter sauce for my bars

And by that, I mean I melted some peanut butter. 

 And poured it over the completed bars

Add some sugar over the tops of the cookies to try to make up for the fact that I added no where near enough the first time.

Seriously, don't try this

Although the bars aren't awful frozen.

Moar Hot Pockets

Here is a slightly different take on the classy hot pockets that I made the other day.

I am going to make two variations on a kind of meat pie, the easy one and the slightly more easy one.

For the easy version, you will need an onion and some beef. For the easier version, you will need pre-cooked chicken tenders and a tomato.  For both recipes you will need a container of Pillsbury crescent roll dough (or a knock-off thereof).

First thing's first, preheat your oven to whatever it says on the dough container.

America's Choice Chicken Tenders: Just heat up!

Prep your veggies and your cutting board

Chop away.

I have yet to find an anti-crying onion trick that actually works for me. 

Put the tomato into a bowl with some chicken tenders and season well with salt, pepper and garlic and some oil. Set that aside. If you are only doing the very easy ones, skip ahead a bit. If you are trying to gain XP and up your cooking skillz, put the onion in a pan with some oil, and turn that sucker up to medium heat.  

Check!

Keep an eye on it to make sure it doesn't burn.  While you are doing all of that, you can cut your meat into edible chunks.

Note the separate cutting board

Once the onions are cooked:

They are cooked!

Throw in your meat.

Steak and onions!

And saute it until the meat is cooked through. There is no picture because I have faith in your ability to tell raw meat from cooked.

Once you have your two fillings ready, lay out your crecent dough and rip it into fourths. Since the dough comes pre-torn into eighths, you may need to squish it together at the seams a little bit. Place a pile of filling on one half of the dough,  and fold it over into a pocket.

As a note, this is the chicken and tomato filling.  If your beef looks like that,  it is probably not cooked and I revoke my previous statement.

 Follow the baking instructions on the dough container.

Meat biscuits!

 Et voila! you have easy and delicious meat pies!

Steak on the left and chicken on the right.