You call yourself Italian?

I am proud of my Italian heritage. In someways I am very Italian in others, not so much. I love pasta. I talk with my hands. I have an overwhelming desire to feed and mother everyone I come across.  

On the other hand, I don't drink coffee of any kind (latte, espresso, cappuccino me no likey). My cousins called me the hairless Ginny and....

I am not a big fan of pizza per say.  It is a little too bready for me and I never seem to get a take out pizza that has enough sauce on it for my taste. (I like a very saucy pizza!)  Often I am expecting one thing and receive a version I would not have anticipated. Burned broccoli on a white pizza. Sausage that looks more like rabbit pellets than sausage.  Crust burned on the bottom.  These are things that will ruin my night. 

This being said. I do enjoy making my own pizzas at home. I can control the ingredients and the sauce content.  I like a thin crispy crust but not burnt.  I also like to fool around with non traditional pizza ingredients on my pies.  BBQ chicken, Chicken Satay, Ruben, BLT.... 

One of my favorites is BBQ Chicken Pizza.  I love Sandra Lee's concept of semi homemade. Ingredients prepped for you by the store that you can then pull together to make your own dinner. 

On a recent trip to Florida I stocked up on Curly's Sauceless Pulled Chicken. I am not sure why but they stopped selling it up here by me.  I love to make myself little White BBQ pulled chicken sliders on King's Hawaiian Sweet rolls. But I digress.  I realized I had room in my cooler for more of the sauceless pulled chickens and sent my wonderful husband to Publix to get more.  HE came back with Curly's Pulled Barbecue Chicken. (I guess the universe was saying 9 packs of pulled sauceless chicken was enough!) No worries, I can use that too!  One of the things I can do with it is my yummy Almost Homemade BBQ Chicken Pizza. It is a favorite in our house. A little bit pizza, a little bit bbq summer. 

Almost Homemade BBQ Chicken Pizza

1 Pillsbury Thin Crust Pizza Crust

1/2 cup BBQ Sauce

1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese

1/2 cup shredded cheese pizza blend

1 container Curly's Pulled BBQ chicken

Pre heat oven to 350 degrees. Open Pizza crust and spread onto pizza stone or greased sheet pan.  Bake crust for 5-7 minutes until top is firm but not golden.  Remove from oven and spread BBQ sauce onto crust.  Next evenly spread BBQ Chicken onto crust in thin layer.  Sprinkle with cheddar cheese and then shredded pizza blend.  Return to oven for another 10-15 minutes watching so cheese does not form a hard crust but remains melty and bubbly. 

Winter Fake

It is winter break here in the great northeast. I can't think of a worse week for the kids to be off.  It is too cold to send them out to play, most often the weather is wet or snowy.  I would rather get off a week early in the summer.

I was looking for a little fake sunshine here.  Why not provide it with food?  Since I can't be in Florida, how can I bring Florida to me... ORANGES!

Orange Marinated Chicken Thighs

4 chicken thighs skin on
2 cups orange juice
1 1/4 cups orange marmelade
2 tablespoons chopped roasted garlic
2 tablespoons dijon mustard
Seasoned salt to taste

In a gallon zip bag combine orange juice, 1 cup marmelade, garlic and mustard.  Add chicken and marinate over night in refrigerator.

Pre heat oven to 350 degrees.  Remove chicken from marinade and season with Seasoned Salt to taste.  Place chicken in baking dish with about a 1/2 inch of marinade.  Brush the top of chicken thighs with 1/4 cup of reserved marmalade.  Bake for 45 minutes or until internal temperature is 165 degrees.

This was so yummy and delicious. It made the house smell wonderful and perfect for forgetting a snowy night.

It's All Greek to Me

I am writing tonight tucked up in my new Sunbeam Electric Throw! I will be wearing this everywhere until spring. Now I just need to find an extension cord long enough. It is cold here with a capital C and we are not expected to make it out of the teens all week. I am trying to figure out of I need to leave the house before Friday night for Keely's skiing at the Double H Ranch.

We had a wonderful day today. We celebrated the 2nd birthday of a very special little boy at the Children's Museum at Saratoga.  It is such a great space. So many different activities for the children to do. Keely spent quite a bit of time in the Cafe. She loved cooking, taking orders, handing out checks. She was a regular Flo and just need a "kiss my grits". (I bet that just aged me! Ok 41, I am 41.) She also really liked the fire truck.  My nieces Joy and Elise loved it too!

My Mommy is in town for two weeks. I am very excited to be spending time with her.  That is another one of those silver linings about losing my job last year.  I get to see my mom all day when she is in town.

Dinner tonight was Chicken Gyro Burgers with Tzatziki sauce. I love Gyros! They are my fair food of choice.  In fact, it is what I get everyday I am at the fair. No matter how many days I go. I think the cold has me craving summer.  To me nothing says summer like a day at the fair. This is sort of an amalgam of all the Gyro and Tzatziki recipes I have tried over the years and now it is my own.

Chicken Gyro Burgers with Tzatziki sauce

1 package of Perdue Ground Chicken Patties  (4 4oz patties)
4 pita pockets
1 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp sweet paprika
1/2 tsp oregano
1/2 tsp plus 1 tbsp garlic powder (or one clove finely chopped garlic)
2 tsp Lawry's Seasoned Salt
1 cup plain Greek yogurt
2 tbsp lemon juice
1/4 cup finely diced cucumber
1 tomato
remaining cucumber sliced thin
olive oil

Spoon Greek yogurt into a bowl.  Add lemon juice, cucumber and 1 tbsp of garlic powder or fresh garlic if you prefer. Mix to combine and place in refrigerator to chill until ready to use.

In a small bowl combine cumin, paprika, oregano, Seasoned Salt and 1/2 tsp of garlic powder.  Generously apply seasoning mixture to both sides of chicken patties.  In a flat skillet heat olive oil (just enough to keep chicken patties from sticking. Cook patties over medium high heat 5 minutes per side (or until cooked through if you have chosen to make your own patties)

Remove chicken patties from heat.  Split pita to create pocket. Insert chicken patty, cucumber slices, diced tomato and tzatziki sauce.

Notes:

1. I cut my burger into thin strips and assembled my "burger" like a taco on top of the pita then folded the entire thing in half.  
2. You can also mix the spice blend with ground chicken and 1 egg to form your own patties.  If you make your own patties please note that cooking times will vary depending on the thickness of your burger.  As a rule poultry needs to be cooked to an internal temperature of 165 degrees.   
3. Finally, if you choose, brown ground chicken and spice blend as you would taco meat.  I like to do this and toast pita triangles to make Gyro Nachos. It is nice with a little feta cheese and black olives.  

Crock and Roll

I love my crockpot, particularly on days like today.  Every Monday Keely has Aqua Therapy. It would be so easy to just order in or swing through Burger King on the way home.  I find it just as easy to toss something in the crock pot for a hot, healthy home cooked meal.  Today was a chicken day. I found a super yummy recipe on Pinterest (as I am typing that word I sing it in my head opera style).

It's Crock Pot Creamy Italian Chicken from a blog called Life as a Loft House. This is the second time I have made this recipe. My thought was to Kimify it by adding some canned or frozen mixed vegetables and serve it over a nice big hot biscuit. A sort of deconstructed chicken pot pie.  However, I had no such vegetables in my pantry or freezer. I would have known this if I had gotten to my inventory earlier in the day.

Regardless, it was still a nice hot meal waiting for us when we got home. We finished up Keely's homework while the biscuits were baking. I cut two into quarters and tossed them into the crock pot to see what would happen... dumplings(!) that is what happened.

On the menu plan for tomorrow are Tamales with pintos and cheese and green salad. Tomorrow morning I will be finishing my inventory and then running to Price Chopper to take advantage of their Can Crazy sale and pick up some canned veggies which I clearly need. Once that trip is done I will only need milk and fresh fruit from the market for the next couple of weeks.


...

Update on last night's shopping trip. Let me tell you how much I love the Ad Match policy at Walmart! I super pink sparkly love it! The ad matching combined with the coupons I had saved me a ton and got me some super deals on several items and then savings overall were great!

Here is a little sampling. Purex detergent is $2.97 for a 33 load bottle at Walmart.  Price Chopper had it on sale this week for $1.99. Walmart matched that price. I had a $1.00 off coupon so I got the detergent for $.99! I bought 4 to add to my stockpile. That was a sensible purchase... My splurge purchase was Hershey's Simple Delights. Walmart had them for $2.98, they matched the Kmart price of $2.49 coupled with my $1.50 off coupon and I only paid $.99 for a bag of chocolate! Yippee.