Deep Dish Homemade Pizza

Pizza, in our home, can be a bare cupboard meal since I almost always have a can of tomato paste, flour, and some shredded cheese in the house. But the great thing about pizza is you can make it as fancy and delicious as you'd like. My husband spent a lot of time taking our basic recipe and tinkering with it to get a delicious deep dish pizza, much like what we enjoy at the restaurant Old Chicago.

 

My pizza crust recipe:

3 cups flour 
3 tsp yeast
1 cup very warm water
2 Tbsp olive oil
2 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt

- Preheat oven to 200.
- In a large bowl combine 1c flour and the yeast. Add the water and stir.
- Add the oil, sugar, salt and remaining flour, blending it until it forms a ball. (You may need to add more water, oil or flour depending on the texture and humidity in the air. It should be smooth and velvety, not sticky or dry.)
- Turn it out on a lightly floured surface and knead 8 - 10 times, form it into a ball.  
- Place the dough in a lightly oiled, oven safe bowl. Flip the dough over so the bottom is now on top, with a light film of oil. Cover with cling wrap.
- Turn off the oven and place the dough inside. Allow it to rise about 1 hour.



Assembling the Pizza:
Pour vegetable oil into the bottom of a cast iron skillet so that it forms a shallow pool. (The oil essentially fries the bottom, giving it a crispiness while the inside of the dough will still be soft.)
Dump the raised dough into your hand, gently letting the dough stretch itself into a circle.
Plop the dough into the skillet and stretch so it can reaches the sides of the pan. 

Put the sauce* on the dough, leaving a ring of dough about 1" thick along the outside.
Add whatever seasonings you'd like: pineapple, peppericinos, sausage (it can be raw as long as the clumps aren't too big), etc.
Cover with shredded cheese.
Bake for 12 minutes in an oven preheated to 500 degrees. 

Several inches of awesome.

*You can use a store bought or homemade sauce. My recipe is below.

My Homemade Sauce: 
minced garlic
olive oil
1 can diced tomatoes
1 can tomato paste
oregano
basil
sugar
parsley
salt
pepper


- Add 1 Tbsp olive oil to a heated pan.
- Add 2 Tbsp minced garlic and saute for ~1 minute.
- Add diced tomatoes, undrained, and the tomato paste. Fill the cans each with water and stir it in until the sauce is smooth. 
- Season to taste, approximately 2 tsp oregano, 1 tsp basil, 1 tsp sugar, 1/2 tsp parsley.
- Keep on a low simmer until sauce is desired thickness.

Super Easy Chicken Pot Pie - egg and dairy free

This recipe I improvised one cold Fall day. 

I wanted something easy, something in one dish, and something that the whole family - including my son with dairy and egg allergies - could eat. 

We didn't have a lot of groceries, but my standard frozen chicken breasts, frozen veggies, and four meant I could make this happen.

It turned out well and all my kids liked it - good, warm comfort food on a cold autumn night.

I hope you like it, too! 

Filling
Ingredients
2-3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1 Tbsp oil
2 12oz bags of frozen mixed veggies
salt and pepper
3 Tbsp flour
1 tsp parsley
1/2 tsp onion powder

Directions:
Heat oil in a large pan.
Cut chicken breasts into 1 inch cubes. Season well with salt and pepper and add to pan.
Once the chicken is cooked add the frozen veggies.
Sprinkle flour, parsley, and onion powder on top and then mix to coat the veggies and chicken.
As the veggies heat you may need to add water or more flour to adjust the gravy coating to your preference - more flour for a thicker gravy, more water for a thinner one.
Season with salt and pepper as needed, according to preference.

While this cooks preheat oven to 400 and make pie crust.

Pie Crust

Ingredients:

1 C + 2 Tbsp flour

1/2 tsp salt

1/3 C vegetable oil

2-3 Tbsp cold water

Directions:

Mix flour, salt, and oil.

Add water until it forms a ball - it's better to add too much water than too little.

Roll out between two pieces of wax paper or cling wrap.

Makes one crust

Pour chicken and veggies in a greased deep dish pie pan. I used a 1.5 quart Corningware dish. Cover with the pie crust, making slits on the top to vent.

Bake for 20 minutes or until the crust is a nice golden brown.

Mexican Lasagna

This recipe comes from Rachel Ray.  We loooooved this dish.  It was relatively easy to make and was so, so good.  We topped ours with sour cream and served it with salad, chips, and guacamole.  Yum!

The recipe below is not Rachel's original, but how I altered it.  Hope you like it!  Also, it could easily be converted into a bare cupboard meal if you make the tortillas from scratch.  Or at least in this house since I'm ridiculous about always having black beans and canned tomatoes in the house.

Ingredients


3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 pounds ground beef
2 tablespoons chili powder
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1/2 red onion, chopped
1 (15-ounce) can black beans, drained and rinsed
1 (14-oz) can stewed tomatoes
1 cup frozen corn kernels
Salt
8 (8 inch) wheat flour tortillas
2 1/2 cups shredded Cheddar or shredded pepper jack
2 scallions, finely chopped
sour cream

Directions
Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F.

Preheat a large skillet over medium high heat. Add 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil - twice around the pan. Add chicken and season with chili powder, cumin, and red onion. Brown the meat, 5 minutes. Add stewed tomatoes. Add black beans and corn. Heat the mixture through, 2 to 3 minutes then season with salt, to your taste.

Coat a shallow baking dish with remaining extra-virgin olive oil, about 1 tablespoon oil. Cut the tortillas in half or quarters to make them easy to layer with. (I used a round Corning Ward dish and didn't have to cut the tortillas!)  Build lasagna in layers of meat and beans, then tortillas, then cheese. Repeat: meat, tortilla, cheese again. Bake lasagna 12 to 15 minutes until cheese is brown and bubbly. Top with the scallions and serve.

home made cream chicken and toast

Mom gave me this recipe.  She told me it was good.  She was right. 

 Ingredients:

2 Tbsp butter

4 Tbsp flour

2 C milk

2 chicken breasts, cubed

salt and pepper to taste

6 slices of bread

Directions:

Place slices of bread into muffin pan, pushing them into cups.

Place pan into oven and begin preheating to 350, once it reaches temperature turn oven off.

Meanwhile, cook chicken.  Set aside.

In the same skillet, melt butter over medium low heat. 

Stir in flour until smooth.

Slowly add the milk, stirring the whole time.

Season to taste with salt and pepper.

When gravy is desired consistency remove from heat and add chicken back in.

Take the toast out of the oven, and fill the cups with the creamed chicken.

Comfort food tastes sooooo good.

corny chicken wraps

Recipe from Taste of Home Busy Family Cookbook.

Ingredients:

2 cups cooked, cubed chicken (I used 3 small chicken breasts)

1 can whole kernel corn, drained

1 c salsa

1 c shredded cheese

8 flour tortillas

In a large saucepan, combine the chicken, corn, salsa and cook over med heat until warmed through.

Sprinkle cheese on tortillas, place about 1/2 c chicken mixture down center.  Roll and serve.

In order to stay within my budget I made the tortillas.  They definitely taste better than any store-bought tortilla I've ever had, maybe even better than any tortilla I've ever had.  Because I have to cook them one at a time they seem a little labor intensive, but they're really not that bad.  And they make Travis really happy.  (Maybe I should use my griddle...)

tortillas:

2 c flour

1 tsp salt

1 tsp baking powder

2 Tbsp shorting, such as Crisco

3/4 c warm water

Mix ingredients. 

 Finish by kneading dough into one smooth ball. 

Pinch off pieces (I made 5 large tortillas for this supper) and roll dough out - the thinner the better. 

Place in heated, ungreased skillet over med high heat. 

When the tortilla begins to bubble flip it.

Thoughts:  These were simple and okay.  They'd be good for a "bare cupboard meal" since I almost always have corn, salsa and chicken on hand.