In the Kitchen with Spiderman

Today we have a special guest appearance at the Grow.Food.Love Kitchen! Its none other than Spiderman! Spiderman has joined us today to show us how to make Twirly Whirly Pizza originally shared with us online by Parents magazine.

Twirly Whirly Pizza

1 tube (13.8 ounces) refrigerated pizza dough
1/2 cup pizza sauce
1/2 cup shredded Italian-mix cheese, divided
1 cup fresh baby spinach leaves

1. Heat over to 400°F. Unroll dough from tube. Spread pizza sauce on top.

We caught Spiderman getting ready to lick the spoon while he helped spread the sauce on the dough...this is why spiderman does NOT get to help when we make food for guests.

2. Sprinkle with half of cheese and top with spinach leaves.

What a great leaf spreader you are Spiderman!

3.Roll up, starting with short end.

4. Cut into 8 pieces, then lay pieces flat in a greased pie tin. Sprinkle with remaining cheese and bake 22 to 25 minutes or until golden brown.

**my dough was really moist for some reason and this made cutting it and keeping its shape very difficult. Next time I think I will flour the dough a little bit and not roll it quite as thin.

This turned out to be a fun recipe for us and you could really add just about anything you want to it. Its just pizza that looks kind of like a cinnamon roll.

Pantry Raid: Sweet Craving @ 10pm on Sunday

I don't really buy sweets-OK, well sometimes I do, but I make a conscious effort to keep things like candy bars, baked goods and other store bought goodies out of the house most of the time. Yet, even without having ice cream sitting in the freezer or Oreos in the pantry when that unrelenting merciless late night craving hits-I still find a way to get my sweet fix.

I have been known to whip up a batch of cookie dough to binge on if the craving comes on too strong. In terribly desperate times I've taken a spoon to the honey flavored peanut butter jar and went at it. Its sad really. Sad.

Well last night the craving came on, and I thought I'd throw together a batch of chocolate chip cookie dough and be a happy fatty mcfatterson-but come to find out I only had a little more a cup of flour left. Not good...what to do? what to do...

I scanned the pantry and my eyes fell upon a box of banana pudding. Hmm...but there's no milk for the pudding. More hmmm...I want cookies dammit-is all my brain is screaming at me. Now we live 12 miles from the closest store and being that Hurricane Ike is responsible for the gas shortage here and the high price of gas if you can find it-I wasn't making any cookie runs...

I kept eyeing the pudding and thought "pudding cookies"...and off to Google I went. I came up with this recipe from About.com...it was the easiest recipe yet and seriously took only about 15 minutes start to finish before I was able to pop a hot baked cookie in my mouth.

The recipe calls for vanilla pudding, but all I had was banana. I decided instead of loading my cookies with chocolate chips I would just do a thumbprint in the middle to press them down a bit and drop a couple of chips in the indentation.

Now these were by no means some to die for, heavenly cookie-but they were tasty, quick and satisfied my sweet craving just fine.

Pudding Cookies

1 cup self-rising flour
1 package (3.4 oz) instant pudding mix, Vanilla or French Vanilla
1 egg, lightly beaten
5 tablespoons butter, melted
1/2 cup chocolate chips (optional)

Preparation:

Combine all ingredients except chocolate chips.

Stir in chips.

Form small balls of dough; place on unbaked baking sheet.

These cookies don't spread, so you may want to flatten a bit.

Bake in preheated 350° oven for 10 to 12 minutes, or until lightly browned.

Makes about 18 cookies.

Weekly Menu Planner: Sept 13-19

I'm late with my menu planner-I spent all night Friday in line at the gas station to buy nearly $5 per gallon gas then came home and just sat and watched Hurricane Ike coverage. I really need to wean myself off the news for a bit-its just making me too depressed.

I'm not feeling inspired-well I am, but I'm so broke that we are sticking to large batch cooking and lots of leftovers this week. This menu sure won't be hard to stick to at all-not alot of planning or cooking required. I really feel like baking-but just discovered I'm out of flour. BOO to that.

Saturday- Corned Beef, Cabbage and Smashed Red Potatoes
Sunday- Leftovers
Monday- Chili and cornbread
Tuesday- Leftovers
Wednesday- Leftovers
Thursday-Pasta Bake and Salad
Friday- Leftovers

Angel Hair Pasta with Red Pepper Pesto

Once again I fell off my meal plan bandwagon...I was supposed to be making a couple of new dishes-Turkish Chicken thighs and Curried Baked Brown Rice and Lentil Pilaf-but I rummaged through my freezer and found the chicken thighs I *thought* I had were non-existent. So for a short on time adjustment I pulled out some salmon fillets and figured I'd just grill them on the Georgey and browse some blogs for a side dish recipe while at work.

Can I just say, Gawd I love the food blogging community?! There are so many creative and amazing foodies out there and they've become such a great resource and source of entertainment for me. While browsing I came upon a blog called La Mia Cucina that I decided to add to my favorites because I really relate to her love of cooking and her sense of humor.

Through her blog, I read about a blogger who had recently passed. It was touching to read all the comments on her page from all of her food blogging friends. What an odd thing our Internet is-its almost ghostly in a way-these little biographies we will leave behind for our children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. I don't know why it seems so different than writing a book or a diary-but it does. Its a strange feeling of some sort of ongoing spirit. I can't really describe it...

Anyway-I decided to browse this woman named Sherry's recipes and make one in honor of her. Weird I know, but I just felt like I wanted to. She had recently made a simple dish of Angel Hair Pasta with Red Pepper Pesto that was perfect. I had all of the ingredients on hand thanks in part to my little garden! YAY! And...it involved pine nuts and I do love me some pine nuts.



Aren't the veggies pretty? Its so nice to just go out on the deck and pick what I need-rinse it off and use it. (I used the cucumber and the green pepper for a salad to go with my pasta)

Part of the recipe called for roasting your own peppers-and although I've seen it done before-I have never taken them time to do it myself. I'm a little freaked out by fire-but I chose a gas stove for my house-go figure...I'm just full of contradictions. Its sort of who I am. I think I rushed the charring a bit and they could have been charred a bit more-because I had a bit of a hard time peeling them.


Sans roasting the peppers-this recipe takes maybe 20 minutes total from start to finish to complete. Nice and easy and it tastes great too. Thanks to Sherry for sharing this great recipe with all of us!

Sherry's Angel Hair Pasta with Sweet Red Pepper Pesto

3 medium red bell peppers or bottled roasted red peppers

1 tablespoon pine nuts

1 small garlic clove, smashed

1/4 cup basil leaves, plus 2 tablespoons chopped basil

1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil

Salt and freshly ground pepper

1/2 pound angel hair pasta

1/2 cup grated pecorino cheese

1.Roast the red peppers over a gas flame or under the broiler, turning occasionally, until charred all over. Transfer the peppers to a bowl, cover with plastic wrap and let cool. Peel, core and chop the peppers.

2.In a small skillet, toast the pine nuts over moderate heat until golden, about 4 minutes. Let cool.

3.Transfer the peppers and pine nuts to a blender or food processor. Add the garlic and whole basil leaves and blend until coarsely chopped.

4.Add the olive oil and cheese and puree to a chunky pesto. Season with salt and pepper.

5.In a large saucepan of boiling salted water, add the pasta and cook until al dente. Drain and cool slightly under running water.

6.Transfer the pasta to a bowl and toss with the pesto. Season the pasta with salt and pepper.

7.Top with the chopped basil and pecorino and serve at room temperature.

??? Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies ???

I developed a sweet craving last night around 9pm and didn't really have anything ready-made in the house to put a dent in it so I pulled out a cookbook and started skimming...I didn't want anything too labor intensive, and actually I thought I'd just whip up a batch of cookie dough and snack on some dough and then maybe bake the cookies the next day. I kept thinking chocolate chip and fell upon this Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe from the Gooseberry Patch: Sweet and Simple Cookbook

Not a ton of ingredients and not much more work than mixing a few things together...nice and easy.

I love pumpkin so I figured this would be a winner. I wasn't really impressed though. the dough isn't really all that great for snacking on. SO I just went ahead and decided to bake the whole batch last night. the bake time was only 8 minutes so I figured I'd have the 3.5 dozen baked in no time.

I baked one batch for the allotted time and they just did seem done at all, and I am not someone who is afraid to take my cookies out a little under baked-I actually like them better that way. I love a soft gooey cookie. these-just seemed more than a little underdone. So the next batch I let bake an additional 2 minutes and checked them-they still seemed like they could continue baking...I added another 2 minutes and pulled them out. Still seemed the same.

I think these cookies just have a more cake like consistency. Which is fine-but I was going for cookie-not cake.

Another thing I wasn't thrilled with was the nutmeg-I just think there was too much in this recipe. I think maybe the addition of some brown sugar and maybe pumpkin pie spice instead of the 1 tsp of cinnamon and 1 tsp of nutmeg would have made these better.

I do have to say though that my husband came home and was at first turned off by how soft the cookies were but when he tasted them he said he thought they were pretty good and gobbled up three of them right there. That's a feat in itself because this man is not much of a foodie and isn't impressed with much when it comes to food.

Then this morning I gave two to Red to take as a morning snack to school. He ate them in the car before we even arrived at school and said he liked them and a 3 year old has no qualms about letting you know when they DON'T like something they are eating.

So maybe they are tasty-I mean, they weren't gawd awful. *I* just think they could be better...

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

1/2 cup butter or margarine

1 1/2 cups sugar

1 cup canned pumpkin

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla

2 1/2 cups flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp nutmeg

1 tsp cinnamon

6 oz chocolate chips

1.Preheat oven to 350. Lightly grease cookie sheets.

2.In a large mixing bowl cream together butter and sugar. Add pumpkin, egg and vanilla and mix together.

3.Sift dry ingredients into a bowl and then add to pumpkin mixture. Stir well to combine.

4.Stir in chocolate chips and then drop by tablespoon onto greased cookie sheets. Bake 8-10 minutes or until slightly browned.

Weekly Menu Planner-Just a Little Late...

It was a busy weekend so I didn't get my meal plan done for this week until this morning. I'm feeling kind of uninspired and craving alot of bad food so I hope I'm able to pull off the meals this week. It would be nice if we get some rain to cool things off too. I love to cook when its rainy and cool.

Monday-Grilled chicken and pineapple kabobs, veggie fried rice
Tuesday-Leftovers
Wednesday-Turkish chicken thighs and curried brown rice and lentil pilaf
Thursday-Leftovers
Friday-Twirly Whirly Pizza and Salad
Saturday-Grilled T-bones with chimichurri, smashed red potatoes and roasted green beans
Sunday-Dinner Out!

Bar-B-Cups, Because Sometimes You Have to Improvise

Yes, Yes, I made a menu plan...but just because I have a written menu plan-it does not mean I will suddenly leave behind my entire old unorganized self-cold-turkey and be able to stay on task all the time. Tonight is Kid's Choice night and I had planned on making some Grilled Nutter Butter Nana Sammiches and Triple Berry Smoothies-but when I went grocery shopping on Saturday-the bananas were looking too sad for me to waste my money on them so I passed them up.

I planned on picking some up at the store on lunch break today-but it was an insane day at work and I also had a lovely appointment with my fav doc-Dr. Joe, for an adjustment and deep tissue massage. Ahhhh, so the whole muscular zen thing got me all distracted and alas, the bananas melted from my mind along with all the other tension of the day.

Luckily though, there was a recipe posted on Taste and Tell, a rockin' blog I seem to be stalking and copying from pretty often as of late, that I wanted to try and had all of the ingredients on hand already.

The recipe is Bar-B-Cups and its totally a fun kid friendly recipe. I adapted it a bit so that it would be a little less fattening. I bought the reduced fat version of refrigerated biscuit dough and used some cooking spray to grease the muffin tins. The use of LEAN ground turkey made a difference in the fat and calorie count as well. I also cut the biscuits in half and used less biscuit in each muffin tin and more of the turkey.

**Side note-check out these really cute summery plates and tumblers I found at CVS for 75% the other day! SCORE! I know its the end of summer-but they can be used next season and they are kid friendly plastic and for 19 and 25 cents each you can't beat it.**

OK, back to the recipe-this takes less than 30 minutes to make. We had it with some steamed broccoli and baby corn spears.

Bar-B-Cups-My Adaptation of the ORIGINAL

1 lb. lean ground TURKEY
1/2 cup barbecue sauce
1/4 cup chopped onion
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 can reduced fat flaky refrigerated biscuits
1/4 cup shredded cheddar

Heat oven to 400°F. Spray 12 muffin cups with cooking spray. In large skillet, brown ground turkey over medium heat until thoroughly cooked, stirring frequently. Drain. Stir in barbecue sauce, onion and brown sugar. Cook 1 minute to blend flavors, stirring constantly.Separate dough into 12 biscuits. Depending on the size of biscuits you buy-you might be able to cut each biscuit round in half and then place 1 biscuit in each muffin cup. Firmly press in bottom and up sides, forming 1/4-inch rim over edge of cup. Spoon about 1/4 cup turkey mixture into each biscuit-lined cup. Sprinkle each with cheese. Bake at 400°F. for 10 to 12 minutes or until edges of biscuits are golden brown. Cool 1 minute; remove from muffin cups.