Appetizer Recipe: Spicy Pizza Thins

Growing up, we celebrated the family Christmas with a meal of all appetizers. One of my favorites was a Pizza Thin recipe that my family had made for as long as I can remember. Now that I'm older, I still love it and enjoy it but have been inspired by #FranksRedHot to jazz it up a bit. (And I'm entering this in Frank's RedHot Recipe Contest!)

Spicy Pizza Thins
Ingredients:
1 Pkg Cocktail Rye
1 16 oz Pkg Sausage
1 Lb Processed Cheese Loaf
1 can Pizza Sauce
Franks Original Hot Sauce to Taste

Directions:
Brown sausage; drain well
Cut cheese into small pieces; melt
Add pizza sauce to melted cheese; stir until well dissolved
Combine cooked sausage with cheese mixture
Add 3-4 teaspoons Franks Original Hot Sauce (more for bite!); Thoroughly mix it in.

Spread onto slices of cocktail rye.

Broil until cheese is nicely browned. Enjoy!

If you're looking for a recipe with even MORE bite, eliminate the pizza sauce and double the Frank's Red Hot Sauce. It doesn't taste as much like pizza but it still tastes great!

Note: These can be prepared ahead of time and frozen on a cookie sheet. Allow to defrost slightly before broiling.

Mistakes You Only Make ONCE

Rotisserie Chicken Salad Recipe

I'm not very creative in the kitchen. I can follow a recipe (most of the time) and it will turn out okay (most of the time). Fortunately, DH is a good cook and has been the head chef of our family for the majority of our marriage. Being that I'm thrifty, it was killing me to keep paying deli prices for chicken salad. My favorite hotspot for it was SuperTarget where they had a Rotisserie Chicken Salad but it was very expensive. Finally, I decided to research recipes and experiment until I had one that I really liked. I found that it was easier to just modify the recipe each time I made it until it was right - trying different spices or extras such as onions. To my surprise, I came up with my own recipe for Rotisserie Chicken Salad. There's probably one exactly like it somewhere on the internet but I didn't find it before and I don't plan to search for it now. Instead, this is a brag and share post.

My first custom recipe…

Nicole's Next-Day Rotisserie Chicken Salad
3 lb Rotisserie Chicken (Our favorite – Sam's Club)
¼ tsp Oregano
¼ tsp Basil
¾ tsp Tarragon
1 tsp Garlic powder
¼ tsp Kosher salt
1 cup Mayonnaise (not Miracle Whip! Our favorite – Hellmann's)
Pepper to taste (Straight from the pepper mill)

Note: Best if prepared while the chicken is still warm then allowed to chill in the refrigerator overnight.

• Pull and dice entire rotisserie chicken. Discard all but a few well-seasoned pieces of skin for added flavor. Dice skin pieces.
• Combine all ingredients. Don't skimp on the mayo - It may look too creamy but much will be absorbed while refrigerated.
• It's great on crackers or as a sandwich… but we love it best by the spoonful!
  
  Enjoy!

Cookies from Heaven

So... I'm working my tail off at the gym and what do I decide I need to do? Bake cookies with the girls. It's been miserably cold here and baking just seemed like a good idea.

A few days ago, I wandered over to Cookie Baker Lynn's blog and searched for something that the girls would like that wouldn't require a trip to the store. After browsing her tag for chocolate cookies, I found Perfect Presentation Peanut Butter and Chocolate Cookies. I had all the ingredients except for the peanut butter chips. Actually, I thought I had those too but couldn't locate them once I was emotionally invested in making these. I used milk chocolate chips instead of semi-sweet which worked great for the cookie, but not for the ganache. They weren't "perfect presentation" when I made them, but they were scrumptious. Note - WERE. Past tense. Almost all gone. Ugh.

Although I'm trying to create healthier meals, I feel that baking cookies with the girls is a right of being a mom. So we made cookies, gave some away to lighten the load and enjoyed the rest. If you're in the mood to bake and want something different, give these a try.

Play With Your Food

I generally try to keep my blog focused on personal, individualized content... but occasionally, something on another site strikes a chord and I just want to pass it along.

When DH forwarded me a link to the Evil Mad Scientist site demonstrating how to make edible googly eyes, I was in awe. In a few years, my kids will be doing the whole Girl Scout thing as well as needing cool ideas for school treats so learning some of these tricks may come in handy in the future.

Enjoying a Good Iowa Steak

I grew up in Iowa and took for granted that steaks are pretty tasty. When I moved to Los Angeles, I realized that not all steaks are created equal - if you wanted a good steak in LA, you really needed to find the nearest Ruth's Chris or Morton's. Granted, there are other steakhouse chains that had decent steaks, but to truly understand what a great steak is, you just need to fly to Iowa and experience it for yourself.

For Christmas one year, my mom and dad actually purchased a freezer for us so we could have an Iowa side of beef shipped to us. About that time, I (finally) got pregnant and beef was absolutely on the bottom of my list of tastebud pleasers. In fact, I had a tough time with many meats and significantly reduced the amount I consumed of each. My poor brain continually tried to remind me that I'm not a vegetarian but pregnancy tastebuds will win every time. Needless to say, we didn't place that order for the Iowa beef. It didn't come up in discussion again until we started talking about moving back.

So what do you think we did our first summer back in Iowa? I talked to my Mom/Dad and brother/SIL and they agreed to let us become equal shareholders in their annual beef purchase. The freezer got stocked with lots and lots of delicious corn-fed Iowa beef. We opted to go for just the main cuts - roasts, round steaks, T-Bones, porterhouse, ribeyes… mmm…ribeyes with everything else arriving in lean ground beef or patties. The nice part of going direct to the locker (read: slaughterhouse) is the luxury of requesting all the steaks cut to your specifications (for us that meant thick) and having the round steaks seriously tenderized. Since order #1 went over so well, we placed another order this past summer and split a side with my folks (the owner found a buyer for the other side.)

DH is the grill chef of the family and we were both perfectly happy every time a plain ol' steak came off the grill. It was such an improvement over what we had been eating in California that nothing needed to be done to make them taste good. I'm not sure what compelled him to search for recipes/techniques or if he just stumbled upon it, but he found a post titled "How to Turn Cheap Choice Steaks into Gucci Prime Steaks" on the Steamy Kitchen blog. You absolutely have to read her post because I'll never be able to explain all the technical aspects of it and, as a bonus, she's a hoot. To paraphrase, you salt the steak A LOT for about an hour before cooking it. The result is a very tender, slightly salty steak that doesn't need to be slathered in A-1, 57 or any other letter/number combination steak stuff. Unfortunately, you may find that you want steak on the menu more often.

Since discovering the recipe, we've used this technique about 30 times and shared it with anyone who will listen. Basically, depending on the thickness of your steak, you adjust the technique slightly. Our steaks are typically 1¼" so we heavily salt each side and let it sit on the counter for one hour. This is a perfect amount of time because we've found that a steak should be allowed to rest (come to room temperature) for about an hour before grilling it anyhow. We had a few opportunities to try it on ¾" cuts and decided that it was best to only salt one side of the steak in those instances. After the rest period, thoroughly rinse the steak off and pat it dry before sending it off to the grill.

During these winter months when we're freezing our tails off, shoveling snow or simply not enjoying the subzero wind chill, I remind myself that Iowa does bring some advantages with it… then I head to the freezer to pull out a steak.

Stuffed Mushrooms - No breadcrumbs!

Several years ago, I was a Pampered Chef consultant. I absolutely loved the products and being a consultant rewarded me with just that. Since I enjoy being around people and talking, it was a perfect fit for me and a nice offset to the usual monotony of the accounting world I lived in. Unfortunately, the strains, stresses and time required for the annual audit and financial statement preparation forced me to drop Pampered Chef from my agenda.

Along the way, I met a lot of great people and sampled some fabulous recipes. Although I only occasionally requested a recipe from a hostess, there is one that has stood out over the years. It was hands-down the best stuffed mushroom recipe I have ever encountered. Mushrooms stuffed with sausage - with cream cheese that made it rich and creamy. Unlike many stuffed mushroom recipes, this one didn't contain breadcrumbs.

I went back through my old hostess list and I believe I acquired the recipe from a woman named Cindy Platt of Lancaster, CA. Visually, I can still see the layout of her home and recall how the cream cheese melted like butter in the hot sausage mix. She verbally told me the recipe and it was so simple, I never bothered to write it down. I made it several times shortly thereafter, but eventually I stopped having the opportunity to serve such an appetizer. As a result, the recipe has faded. I know most of it, but I’m missing something. What I’m hoping is that someone will recognize the recipe and clarify for me. Maybe I’ll get lucky and my original source (believed to be Cindy Platt of Lancaster, CA) will come forward! I’m not positive if she’s the person and I really hope that someday someone will email me and tell me if I’m right or wrong. Not only do I want to give credit where it is due but I also need the formal recipe!

Last week, we were invited to a neighborhood backyard party. Everyone brought along an appetizer or dessert (or both for the ambitious) and I decided it would be a great opportunity to retest the recipe. When I lived in California, the sausage available was Jimmy Dean and it was a smaller package than the Bob Evans I found here. I’m hoping that the increased sausage in the recipe is all that is different. Next time I make it, I’ll be sure to use the smaller Jimmy Dean sausages. Here’s the (rough) recipe:

Stuffed Mushrooms
2 packages medium sized “button” mushrooms
1 package Jimmy Dean sausage – regular flavor
1 package Jimmy Dean sausage – hot flavor
1 brick cream cheese
1 onion
Garlic
Salt and pepper to taste
*Parmesan cheese

Clean the mushrooms and remove the stem. Set aside.
Sauté the onions and garlic.

Brown the sausage, drain.

Stir cream cheese into sausage/onion mixture.

Add salt and pepper to taste

Stuff mushrooms and broil until desired consistency.

*Note: We topped them with parmesan cheese before broiling to provide a pretty browning, but I don't think that was part of the original recipe.

Looking forward to hearing some replies!