Pizza Margherita

I am behind in posts because I was in France last week, so the next posts will be from several weeks ago and France posts will follow afterwards.

Much to my dismay, Devin doesn't often enjoy Italian dishes because he doesn't like most tomato-based sauces. When I came upon this sauce-less Pizza Margherita recipe in my Betty Crocker Entertaining Basics cookbook, I knew it would be perfect for Devin.


As I mentioned in an earlier post, I absolutely fail at doughs, so I cheated on this recipe and used a premade pizza dough bought from the grocery store. Although the recipe didn't call for any garlic, I crushed two garlic cloves and spread them over the pizza dough so the final product tasted like garlic bread pizza. On top of the dough and crushed garlic, I layered mozzarella cheese, sliced roma tomatoes, salt, pepper, basil, additional mozzarella cheese, and a drizzle of olive oil.


As much as I love, absolutely love, my carbs, I also enjoy a good thin-crust pizza. This was a fantastic pizza that was just as easy as frozen pizza and much faster than delivery.


And of course, being the dipper that I am, I always use this sushi plate to eat pizza because it has a perfect reservoir for holding olive oil and balsamic vinegar so that I can dip the crust.

Quiche

Men do eat quiche! At least, I know for a fact that Devin eats quiche.


As I started to prepare this quiche, Devin informed me that he doesn't like quiche. This is because his only prior experience with quiche has been an airline meal.


Well, the quiche that I made for dinner turned out to be as much a success as the Five Layer Tortilla Pie, because I was able to reverse Devin's prior negative opinion of quiche. I used a quiche recipe which called for eggs and half and half. I used egg substitute to make the recipe heart healthy and added one cup of swiss cheese, half a red onion, sliced mushrooms, one red pepper, and two crushed cloves of garlic. To top the quiche, I used cheddar-flavored Veggie Shreds.

Devin loved the non-airline quiche so much that I decided to make another one for dinner a couple of nights later. Another reason for making a second quiche was because I used pre-made pie crust (acknowledging my failure at making dough), which came with two pre-made crusts.


I used the same basic quiche base, using egg substitute, half and half, one cup of baby swiss cheese, sliced mushrooms, one red pepper, half a red onion, two crushed cloves of garlic, and this time adding broccoli.


For both quiches, I first sauteed the vegetables in a little bit of olive oil so they wouldn't be raw in the quiches. I love making quiche because it is so easy, delicious, and you can just throw in whatever you have on hand, so give quiche a chance!

Hummus & Pita

I love hummus. For Christmas, I had a Cuisinart Mini-Prep Processor on my Amazon wishlist, which Devin's father and step mother very kindly bought for me. There was only one thing in mind when I added this food processor to my wishlist: HUMMUS!


Hummus is so ridiculously easy to make and contains so few ingredients that I feel it is outrageous to pay close to $4 for the shallow containers sold at the grocery store. With my wonderfully powerful food processor, I can whip up a batch of Sun-Dried Tomato Hummus in no time! And I can add as many sun dried tomatoes as I want.


Using recipes from All Recipes, on the left is Sun-Dried Tomato Hummus and on the right is Hummus III. I usually halve recipes because I am only feeding myself and Devin, but in my eagerness to make hummus on this day, I enthusiastically opened two cans of garbanzo beans right away when I only needed one. Consequently, I just had to make two batches of delicious hummus. I haven't been able to get the consistency correct yet and may need to peel the skins off of the garbanzo beans next time to make a more smooth hummus.


What goes better with hummus than pita bread? Maybe falafel, but I actually prefer tzatziki sauce with my falafel. In any case, I made pita bread to accompany all the hummus I made. Unfortunately, I really fail at making breads, so my Peppy's Pita Bread from All Recipes did not puff up and had a texture closer to naan than pita bread. Although my yeast was not expired, I don't think I had the water at the correct temperature to active the yeast.


Trial and error. That's what this blog is all about.