Entrées

Favorite Pizza Crust + Chicken Spinach Alfredo Pizza

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Remember a week or two ago when I made fresh mozzarella cheese? And I said I was gonna tell you what you could do with the 1/2 gallon + of whey that results from the cheesemaking process?

I’m here to fulfill my promise.The promise of pizza.

It’s a lovely thing when completion of one kitchen project leads inexorably to another. What better way to use a pound of fresh mozzarella than to throw the old pizza stone in the oven, pull out the pizza cutter, and have yourself a pizza feast? And this pizza crust? THIS one uses up the whey from making mozzarella. Some of it. Or if you’re moderately obsessive me, it uses all of the whey.

I’ve used several recipes over the last couple of years for homemade pizza crust. Sometimes thick and fluffy, sometimes thin and crispy, sometimes in that strange place in between. This crust is simple to put together, has a short list of ingredients, and can go from disparate ingredients to rolled-and-ready-for-toppings in less than 30 minutes.

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Chicken & Cashew Lettuce Cups

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For the last couple of weeks, my Google Reader has been buzzing with “game day” recipes. Game day party decorations. And game day craft projects (which seems a bit bizarre, don’t you think?), all in preparation that un-official American holiday: the Super Bowl!


I must confess, (braces for judgement) I’ve never really watched the Super Bowl. Neither of my parents were ever particularly big sports fan, and more often than not, we would go skiing or see a movie on Super Bowl Sunday to take advantage of empty slopes and matinee tickets. In fact, I was in college before I sat down to watch my first Super Bowl work on a paper in the corner at my dorm’s game day party.

But the food, the food! Such a celebratory spread of mind-bendingly delicious snack food I’ve never seen! Wings and ranch and chips and dips and cookies and sodas and crackers and cheeses and and and and… it’s an ode to snacking as much as it is to football. And I’m not a hater. If I could live on chips and salsa, I would totally do it.

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Sierra’s Turkey Salad

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Let’s take a minute to talk about real life.

Some days, there is time to make fresh pasta. Fancy desserts. Elaborate multi-course meals.

Most days though, it’s all I can do to get out the door in the morning toting a breakfast and lunch, and on show days, dinner, so that I can avoid the oh-so-tempting bounties of college food available at work. Especially in January, when fresh food is somewhat difficult to come by and most of my cravings are for something warm and filling.

But I’ve found an answer. An answer to the winter blues, the I-don’t-feel-like-cooking doldrums, and the whoa-we-have-so-much-leftover-turkey-from-the-holidays reality in my freezer.

Sierra’s turkey salad.

I know I’m probably way late catching this train. I’ve never really been a fan of chicken salads and won’t come within ten feet of tuna salads, so I suppose I thought turkey salad would be equally unpleasant. I. Was. Wrong.

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Homemade Dried Pasta

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There are few things that can distract a pasta lover while making homemade pasta. I was so intent on working on these lovely little noodles that Brad cooked our entire dinner, which is both lovely and rare (it was uh-mazing, by the way).

However, one thing that did manage to pull me away from a mound of fresh pasta dough was Sierra calling to inform me that she had come across a post from my little food blog (shared by Paul at Dudecraft) on a fairly major craft blog, which then led to pick ups by several other sites, and it turned out that my site was crashing from so many people trying to visit. Holy crapoly. A tiny viral internet moment!

I’ve been overwhelmed and flattered by the feedback as thousands of new readers have taken a look at 30 Pounds land. The spike will level out, I’m sure, but still! I write this blog because I enjoy it, for sure, but if I wasn’t interested in sharing with you my successes, failures, moments of confidence, and snippets of frustration, and hearing about yours in return, this site would not exist. So thanks to all of you for reading. I’m really, really happy you’re here.

Okay, sappy reflective moment over. Let’s make some dang pasta!

We’ve discussed my pasta obsession. I love it. I cook it a lot. The major part of an entire shelf in our pantry is dedicated to pasta and its friends.

(I love you pasta.)

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Lasagne

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If there’s one thing I know about lasagne, it’s this.

My mom’s recipe is the best one.

I’ve never tasted it’s equal.

Which leads me to the second thing I know about lasagne.

Sometimes, getting exactly what you want require cheap, grocery store tomato sauce, cottage cheese, and dried pasta.

Sure, I’ve localed it up a bit with some fantastic locally raised beef and parsley from my garden, but this semi-unusual way of preparing lasagne is the way I was taught, and as we’ve already discussed, it’s the most delicious way to do so. Why break something that works so beautifully?

This is not to say that I will never foray into fancy lasagnes with handmade noodles and fresh tomato sauces, but I doubt I will ever abandon this one.

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Basil Pesto Cavatappi

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Alright, so, I know it’s summer and heatwaves are just a part of the drill (stay cool, mid-westerners!) but… it’s really hot here these days. The kind of hot that makes the walk from my parking lot at 9:30am more like a slog through a sauna. The kind where my weather tracker icon blinks furiously at me, warning me to stay indoors. Or where a broken air conditioner constitutes a full-blown maintenance emergency.

Someone in my life is happy about it though. It seems to be the perfect kind of hot for my basil to go. absolutely. crazy.

I think I had a misconception about what growing basil was going to involve; I didn’t realize just how quickly, and voraciously, it can grow. I’ve given my seven plants (yes, I know now that I may have overestimated how many plants I would need) four significant haircuts this season, and just a few days after each one, the plants again look like they haven’t seen scissors in weeks.

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Bierocks

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At all of the various jobs I have held in the last several years, I’ve packed my lunch almost every day.

Sometimes I take leftovers, sometimes a sandwich, sometimes a bizarre assortment of whatever I can grab from the fridge or pantry in the morning as I’m rushing to leave my apartment and make it to work on time.

Bierocks, however, make fairly regular appearances on my lunch menu, and they also tend to illicit the most curiosity from my colleagues.

You’re probably asking yourself the same question my colleagues did: what the heck is a bierock? As a kid, I interpreted them as German egg rolls. That was… incorrect. So I did a little research: pretty much everyone seems to agree that they are “meat turnovers” originally from Eastern Europe, most likely Germany or Russia. The recipe  I modified is titled “German-Austrian Bierocks”, so who knows. They are definitely NOT fancy; in fact, they’re about as close to peasant food as you can get. I mean, they are basically little pouches of simple bread dough filled with cabbage, onion, and ground beef.

But each little wonder is warm, savory, and filling: right in line with what I usually crave for lunch. Better still, bierocks freeze amazingly well, and since each batch makes almost four dozen of them, they are perfect for days when I need to pack lunch quickly but don’t have anything else prepared. Homemade frozen meals without all the packaging and bizarre preservatives. Brilliant!

I think you should make some. They’re tasty! But, they are a bit of a process, so think of this more as a food preservation project than making an evening meal. I rarely actually eat a single one of these the same day I make them.

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Penne alla Vodka

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Hello again! I hope you’ll pardon my brief hiatus from posting…  I’ve spent the majority of the last ten days in cars, on planes, and briefly enjoying the company of friends and family I rarely get to see, traveling almost 4,500 miles and catching ten states along the way. But I’ve now returned to my humid North Carolina abode, so it is time to crack open the fridge and the laptop to share a recipe with you!

I’ve previously discussed my affinity for pasta, but just in case there was any doubt: I love pasta. I’ll eat it pretty much any time, any way, any day. Love. Pasta. Lately, I’ve been looking for new ways to prepare this versatile and scrumptious food, and this has quickly become one of my favorites.

I first had penne alla vodka at a dinner party after a successful campaign I worked on at my first job out of college. Both creamy and tomato-y, I was amazed I could like pasta sauce so much. Foolishly, I didn’t ask for the recipe. Never be ashamed to ask for a recipe that you like, it’s not worth missing out on later when you want to make it yourself. Anyway, I’ve tried a few different recipes for vodka sauce, and this one is just the right balance of savory, tangy, and smooth.

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Chicken Pot Pie(s)

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Okay, before I dive into this one, I need a favor. I have a bit of bloggie housekeeping to take care of, and it’s a bit embarrassing. Long story short, I recently installed a plug-in affecting the feed that I didn’t realize I needed when I initially launched the site. Sooooo if you have subscribed to the RSS feed, I would very much appreciate it if you would unsubscribe… and then resubscribe again and refresh the reader. Live and learn, I suppose. I appreciate your help!

Now to the tasty business.

This may be a staple comfort food for some of you, but I don’t think I ever had chicken pot pie until Brad insisted I try some of the Marie Callender one he had one night in college.  I was… not particularly wowed.

This recipe changed all that. I my original intent  in seeking out this recipe was as a surprise look-I-made-you-one-of-your-favorite-meals-ever dinner after Brad’s first round of law school exams. The look on his face when I finally let him out of the study (wouldn’t be a very good surprise if he could see what I was making, would it?) was like a six-year old’s at Christmas.

The original recipe I found for this claimed to make one 9-inch pie. With the adjustments I made, I have ended up with TWO 9-inch pies both times I’ve made it, which yields delicious homemade lunch for the next few days.  Tasty lunch, too. Also, it’s very flexible to veggie preference. Prefer potato over corn? Broccoli over peas? Both or either would probably be delicious. I like the crunch offered by the celery and the carrots, so I definitely recommend leaving them in if you’re gonna play mix-and-match, but it’s your pie, do what you like. Within reason…

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