Whoa, this thing still works!?

So, it's been a couple of years with no updates.

I stopped because I was in a rut, food wise, as well as not having as much space to prepare food at home.

BUT

As I was perusing the web, I saw something that piqued my interest.

There may be some posts to follow, that will be in the same vein but different.

We'll see...

p.s. I have not tried the bacon wrapped pizza from Little Caesar's yet. You can be that'll be put up here when I do.

Pan Pizza Pie

All righty, after all the lead up, it's here.

The Pan Pizza Pie

I don't make this sucker often, but I'm considering changing that stance because it's easier than I remember (when I do it in the right order) and it's REALLY good.

So, we take 3 pizza crust pouches (this time I went with Chef Boyardee). I put 2 together for the bottom crust and 1 for the top. Start the oven preheating to 450. I make them according to the instructions, except I add a good dose of oregano / Italian seasoning and some garlic powder. Mix those up, cover their respective bowls so they can rise up a bit, and then I work on the toppings / filling.

For today's, I went with sausage and pepperoni. I belive it was some Jimmy Dean sage sausage, use whichever brand / flavor floats your boat. I didn't toss any pepperoni (Hormel in the resealable pouch) in with it like I did last time (no reason, just laziness more than anything). I also tossed a bit of the oregano / Italian seasoning on the sausage as it cooked. Once it was done, drained it, then tossed it back in the skillet and put a little of the sauce I was using (Prego Meat Sauce) in there to flavor it a little more.

At this point, I roll out the bottom dough until it will fit in the cast iron skillet (not the same one I used for the sausage) with some of it coming out of the top. Once it's in there, I poke some holes in it with a fork (to avoid bubbles) and then dust the bottom with some Parmesan  and mozzarella cheeses. Next is a layer of sauce (amount to taste). Next is a layer of pepperoni. Next is the saucy sausage.

I forgot to get pics before this stage, shows you how out of practice I am. Then I added some more sauce (this thing is a TON of bread, so you will want to add more sauce than you would normally add for a pizza). Next is a good layer of mozzarella and little bit of Parmesan cheeses.

Again, this part can vary by taste. I probably should've gone a bit more cheese, but I'm still relearning this recipe. After you've cheesed it, then you get the top crust, roll it to where it'll fit on top, but not over hang too much. And then you roll the edges together.

I then brushed it with some olive oil, instead of doing an egg wash as you would for a normal pie.

BUT, since it is more pie than traditional pizza, I usually cut some vents into the top crust.

A smiley face for all the readers.

Next we go into the oven. I let it go at 450 for about 10 minutes, then knock it down to 375 for another 30 minutes or so. This is what it looks like when it's ready...

I brushed a little more olive oil around the edges. If you're really into cheese, you could toss some on top of it at this point, then throw it back in the oven for a few more minutes (knocking it back up to the 450ish range) to brown it to your liking. I'd recommend letting it sit for a little bit when you take it out of the oven, gives the insides time to solidify a bit. If you try to cut it as soon as it comes out, it'll ooze everywhere. To each their own. I took this one to work today, and after the 45 minute trip (had it in a Pyrex stay warm pouch), here's what 2 slices look like:

The crust has a good Italian herb-y flavor, the cheese was a bit understated, but tasted good. The sauce was very prevalent and tasty. A great cold rainy day treat. 

Sorry about the tease

I had really intended on returning sooner. And that tease was supposed to be just a little tease.

BUT.

I was making dishes for a Pie themed Christmas party. The entrees were pizzas and then whatever dessert pie you wanted to make. So, I was making my stuffed pizza pie and attempting a chocolate pecan pie for the dessert pie*. As things in life are prone to doing, I got running late, and by the time the pizza was done cooking was when I was supposed to be at the party. Luckily it wasn't too far from the house, so it wasn't a big deal. What was a big deal was me forgetting to document the construction of the pizza AND the finished product. I will say this about it, while not pretty in the least, it was VERY tasty. So, to rectify this situation, I've just gotten done preparing another one, this time for work. I DID happen to get some pictures of the construction of it (excepting the mixing of the dough, but come on, it's dough) and the final product (it's still cooking). So, you will get the pizza post later today, or sometime tomorrow (hopefully).

As for the chocolate pecan pie, I used a Paul Deen recipe, but I wasn't happy with how the chocolate didn't melt and fuse with the rest of the pie goop, so next time (yep, there'll be another of those to make up also) I'll be doing it a hair differently. I'm not a pecan pie fan, so it's not high on my list, but as I still have plenty of ingredients left over (save the pie shell), it'll be happening sometime soonish.

*Reason for making a pie I'm not going to eat...

Edwards (I think it was them) used to make a CBPP (Chocolate Butter Pecan Pie) that most of the people that were going to be at this party LOVED. Then they stopped making it. This was years ago, and they loved it so much, they STILL check the pie isles (in vain) when they go to the store hoping to find the elusive beast. So, as it was a Christmas party, I wanted to give a gift. I was told a couple of people tried it and said it was pretty good, but I want to do better by them and it.

A Taste of Things to Come

8-9-12

On Thursday, the 9th, I went with a turkey and bacon wrap, an egg roll, and a cupcake for lunch:

The lady didn't offer to panini press it, so I just nuked it once I got it back to the office. It was ok, it needed something, maybe I'll see if they have some  honey mustard they can spread around the inside of it next time. The egg roll was pretty good, they're still not as good as they used to be. They're still making these evile cupcakes, and they're still stupidly tasty.

Didn't have dinner, but after the game, Jody, Grynner and I ventured to the old IHOP as we've not done in ages. I was fairly hungry, so I went with the country fried steak breakfast:

The pancakes were outstanding and finally quenched my pancake craving. I didn't even realize I was still having the pancake craving until I ate the first bite of them. The eggs were really good, and the hashbrowns were really good, for IHOP's. Still didn't hold a candle to Waffle House's. The country fried steak was the let down here, it was riddled with way too much connective tissue, so much so that I didn't eat much more than what you see in that pic. The flavor was good, but it was just a bad cut of meat, and I was so full off the other stuff on the plates (Jody got an appetizer sampler, so I had a chicken tender, a cheese stick and some onion rings off of it) I didn't finish it.

Ohmahgawd, I'm fat

On Wednesday, Shawn and I didn't care for what was in the cafeteria, so he suggested ordering pizza for lunch. His Dad, Mike wasn't too keen on his sandwich, so he liked that idea. So, I went with the old standby in this situation, the $10 pizza box from Pizza Hut:

Now, I usually end up getting this from a different PH location, as I usually order this for game night. But, I must say, even though they were about 5 minutes late, it was still nice and hot when it got here. Plus it was in the middle of lunch rush, so I wasn't too upset. The pizza was really good, the cheese sticks were just barely good. They had some cheese on them, but not a lot and it had been done longer than the pizza had, so they tried to cover up the fact by dousing it in their herbed parmesan mix. The cinnamon sticks were outstanding.

On the way home, I felt like a burger, so I stopped off at Sonic:

I went with the usual Super Sonic (only ketchup, which they put cheese on, so she had to take it back and fix it) and tater tots. It was good (once it was fixed) and seemed a lot bigger than usual. I managed to eat all the sandwich and tots, and felt around the same size as Jabba the Hutt afterwards. The coke was a really good mix between the syrup and carbonated water.

Olive Garden

On Tuesday afternoon / evening, I met Jody and Jesse at Olive Garden. Now, I don't see any pics from this, but I could've swore I took some.

I started off with a pick 2 appetizer of toasted ravioli and chicken tenders. I love both of these. The ravoli is usually a little tougher than I like but the flavors are great. Their chicken breading is outstanding. I love the flavor it imparts to the chicken and it gives it a nice crunch to go with it.

Next up I went with their zupa toscana soup, which is a creamy-ish chicken broth, with lots of Italian sausage, potatoes spices and some kind of greens in it. I nice zesty and slightly spicy soup. I went with 2 bowls of it, and should've only done 1.

For the main course, I went with their lasagna. It was good, meaty, cheesy and gooey. The sauce had a nice tangy-ness to go with the meats in it. I couldn't quite finish it, though, hence me saying I should've only gone with one bowl of soup. All in all, it was everything I wanted out of the trip.

More Arby's

On Monday, the 6th, I'm not sure what I had for lunch. I don't think anything, but maybe some chips. For dinner, I stopped in at the old Arby's and went with the #2 combo with 2 potato cakes. I didn't get a picture of it, but sheesh after all the Arby's I've had lately, you should know what it looks like at least as well as I do. As is usual (and the reason I keep going there so much) the sandwich was hot, juicy and filling and the potato cakes were the perfect compliment of flavor and crunchiness to the sandwich.

Pizza

Sunday afternoon after church, I stopped in at the local Brick Oven Pizza. I went with the usual Pulled Pork BBQ:

It was outstanding. Tons of cheese, the bbq sauce was nice and sweet, and the pork was tender and flavorful.

I don't remember what I had for dinner that night, and I didn't get a pic of it. It was either chicken tenders and tater tots or fried rice. I'm leaning towards the chicken and tots.

A cafeteria miracle

I worked on Saturday the 4th. And it was a good thing I did. For the only time our cafeteria does what EVERY OTHER PLACE that does Southern Fried Chicken does normally is on the weekends:

I present to you all: Fried Chicken, mashed potatoes with gravy, and corn on the cob.

EVERY TUESDAY, our cafeteria has Fried Chicken. And NEVER does it do mashed potatoes with their fried chicken on Tuesdays. NEVER. It's always rice, and some kind of odious potato concoction. But, because I wanted to make some hours up, I got lucky and got what everyone should get whenever they go someplace with fried chicken. /end rant

The chicken was pretty good, the flavor was confined to the skin for the most part. The potatoes were tasty, the gravy great as usual. The corn was merely ok, it had a flavor in there I couldn't really identify, as I was really just expecting corn, butter and salt. It definitely needed more butter, which I didn't think to get at the time and we didn't have any in the office fridge.

On the to Greg's, I stopped off at McD's and grabbed some nuggets and fries. The nuggets were really good and the fries were pretty good. I had to add some salt, as apparently that location was going easy on it.

Sweet Pepper's Deli

On Friday, the 3rd, I went to see the Total Recall remake. It was pretty good, but as usual for my movie going, I had a corn dog and a frozen coke for lunch. No pic, too many people to potentially annoy with a flash picture in the auditorium. The corn dog was pretty good, flavor wise, but it looked pretty bad. Not the best cooking job on it. The frozen coke was merely ok, it didn't have enough syrup in the mix, kind of bland.

For dinner, I met with the gang to try out Sweet Pepper's Deli in Olive Branch. It's kind of like McAlister's, but I liked it a lot better. I went with their Blitz sandwich, minus cheese, a cup of potato soup and a chocolate chunk cookie:

This is the regular size sandwich (on white) that you could also get in a large. They either nuke or steam it, either way the bread is warm and the meat (beef, turkey and ham) was hot and moist and extremely tasty. The soup had a good flavor, it was a little light on potato chunks, but the ones in there were well cooked and the bacon pieces were tasty. The cookie was pretty good, I probably won't get it again, but not because it was a disappointment. If you're a cookie fan, you'll definitely like them, I'd think.

Thursday, 8-2-12

On Thursday, the cafeteria had their Salisbury steak, so I went with that:

I added an egg roll, some mashed potatoes and gravy and some English/sweet peas. The steak was pretty good, but still way too tough for Salisbury steak. The gravy was tasty as usual. The potatoes were pretty good and great with the gravy. The peas were very good. They should carry them a lot more often. Nice and plump and they pleasantly popped in your mouth. The egg roll was ok, they seem to be going downhill on their quality lately.

Chicken and Waffles

On the 1st of August, one of my coworkers decided to get a platter of chicken tenders from Chick-fil-a. Some of the other coworkers brought some chips and I brought some Sister Schuberts rolls and we did a mini-pot luck lunch:

The tenders were pretty good. They weren't too cooled off by the time they got here, and their flavor was pretty good. The first batch of rolls came out fine, but I overcooked the second batch. The wavy lays chips were good, but those bbq chips in there ... OUTSTANDING. They're Lays Barbecue chips, no special flavor other than that. But best bbq chips I've ever had.

For dinner, I had a sweet craving, so I hit up the old Waffle House and went with the All Star Special:

Ham, scrambled eggs, hashbrowns, a waffle and some toast. The ham was really tasty and tender, the hashbrowns were cooked just right, as were the eggs. The waffle was cooked just shy of crunchy-ness, which is how I like it. A good dinner (breakfast).

Stir Fry and Pizza

The boss took us to lunch on the 31st of July to Benihana. They got some sushi rolls and shimp tempura for appetizers:

The sushi was pretty good, and the shrimp was tasty as well. Nice texture on the batter. Next up was the salad:

I'm usually not to big on salads, especially Japanese, but their dressing wasn't too strong. So, all in all, it was a pretty good salad. Next was the chicken fried rice:

This came out pretty good, but could've used a bit more pepper and soy sauce in the cooking. And the main dish, which I forgot to get a picture of, was their beef julienne and some yakisoba noodles. The beef was cooked well, but I always forget they put that sweetish teriyaki sauce on there at the end, instead of cooking it in there. For me, that kind of ruins it, flavor wise. The noodles were ok, but they didn't add any real flavors to them in the cooking. I was kind hoping they'd do the steak with them, but oh well.

Pork and Beef

On Monday, the 30th of July, I went with the least evil (taste wise) from the cafeteria, which was their pork tenderloin and some mashed potatoes:

The pork loin was nice and tender, and fairly juicy, but it just didn't have any flavor. The mashed potatoes, were pretty good though, and the gravy just helped it all.

For dinner, I had a burger craving, so I stopped in at Sonic:

I went with a Super Sonic (double burger) and an order of onion rings. They were very well salted, so I dumped them into the main bag and tried to gently open the salt package they gave me, and it fairly well exploded into the bag. I shook the bag up to help distribute the salt as evenly as possible, but they were pretty much coated. Luckily, I had a ton of coke to help wash them down.

Sunday Burger and Rice

On Sunday, I went to lunch with Mom and Sis. Mom wanted to get a burger from Tops BBQ, and as a fan of burgers, I didn't have a problem with that.

 

As you can see, I forgot to take a picture before digging in. And as I didn't think that this shot gave you a full appreciation on how big this burger is, I took this one to drive it home:

That is a big burger. And I ate it all. It was really good, as you can see in there they salt and peppered it while it was cooking and they don't skimp on the ketchup when you order it on the burger.

I was so stuffed from this lunch, I didn't get hungry till around 9 that night, so I went with the quick and easy fried rice:

Tossed it in the rice cooker, then once it was done in the skillet with some olive oil, garlic powder, onion powder, some butter, and soy sauce. Fried it up while stirring / flipping it a lot, then cracked an egg into it and scrambled it all together while adding in a little salt and a lot of pepper. It was nice and tasty, a good late night dinner to watch The Newsroom with.

Outback

On Saturday, the 28th, I met my friend John for a dinner at Outback Steakhouse. It had been a while since I had been there, and I was fairly hungry, so I went with an appetizer (plus I wanted John to try it):

This is the seared ahi tuna appetizer. I was introduced to this by my friend Whitney, and I've loved it ever since trying it. The orange sauce is a bit sweeter than the green one, but they're both good. The orange one is outstanding with their steaks, imo. John also enjoyed it, which (pleasantly) surprised me.

I went with a salad with Italian dressing (they didn't have their outstanding potato soup, as usual) for the next course. It was ok for a salad.

For the main course, I had their 6 oz filet mignon with some grilled scallops. Unfortunately, I somehow forgot to take a picture of it, or it got ate by the phone, not sure which. The steak was outstanding. It had a great flavor, was cooked just right and exceedingly tender. The scallops were very good as well, being tender and flavorful. For the side dish, I went with their garlic mashed potatoes instead of a baked potato. I've had bad luck with their baked potatoes in the past, so the garlic mashed are a much safer bet, imo.

Cracker Barrel & Arby's

On the 27th of July, a Friday, I took the day off. I hit up Cracker Barrel for brunch:

I went with Grandpa's Country Fried Breakfast. I chose chicken fried chicken (big surprise), went with scrambled eggs, regular hash browns, biscuits and gravy and added a pancake (as I was still having a pancake craving).

The chicken was really good. It was cooked just right, still very juicy and hot. The eggs were nice and fully cooked, no runniness to them at all. The hashbrowns were just ok, they're never as good as Waffle House's. The pancake was good (for Cracker Barrel's, they're one of my least favorites). The gravy and biscuits were about as perfect as they can get.

For dinner, I had another Arby's craving, so I went with the usual #2 combo:

The potato cakes were good, and the roast beef was outstanding. Hot, juicy and flavorful, it was everything you'd want in a roast beef sandwich.

Thursday, the 26th

Not much to say, or at least that I can remember to say. I had chicken fried rice and a couple of egg rolls:

The rice was just ok. It was a little too ... goopey I guess. The egg rolls were pretty good though, as usual.

Beef, it's what's for food

On Wednesday, the cafeteria did us the great honor of providing country fried steak and mashed potatoes, so I did my part by eating it:

The potatoes were fairly weak, flavor wise, but had great texture, the steak was good, but the breading was a bit tough to get through. The gravy was its usually great self.

For dinner, I was having an honest to <deity> Arby's craving, not just a "Well, it's usually good and it's not too expensive and it's so CLOSE to home" settle for Arby's craving. After the good and filling lunch, but really wanting the food, I settled on a medium combo:

This meal brought to you by Weyland-Yutani Corp.

The sandwich was everything I'd hoping it would be. The potato cakes were great. A meal that lived up to the craving is a wonderful (and rare) thing of beauty.