Valentine's Day Cheeseburger Pizza

Yes, I know.  It's well past Valentine's Day.  I just couldn't help but share with you guys what I made for Andy on Valentine's Day.

And some of you may turn your nose up to some of the ingredients... well, one in particular - Velveeta.  Yes, I know, it's not real cheese.  But to Andy.  It is real cheese.  In fact, he thinks it's the best cheese.  While we don't obviously share the same opinion regarding this, Valentine's Day is a day of love.  And because I love that man, regardless of his food and cheese preferences, I set my food snobbishness (or well, real sensibility, hehe) aside, and made this heart-shaped pizza for him using one of his favorite things... Velveeta.

Hope you guys have a great weekend, and I promise to post those Nutella cupcakes next week!



Ingredients:
Adapted from a Taste of Home recipe

2 cups bread flour
2 tablespoons sugar
1 & 1/2 tablespoons active dry yeast
1 & 1/2 teaspoons salt
3/4 cup warm water
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 lb. meatballs, about 10-15 (you can use homemade or frozen - just make sure to defrost them a little if they're frozen), chopped
3 garlic cloves, minced
salt and pepper, to taste
1 cup Pecorino-Romano cheese, grated
1/2 cup homemade tomato soup, or sauce (I made a tomato soup recently that had a pizza sauce taste, so I used that)
1/2 onion, sliced
4 strips bacon, cooked and chopped
1/2 cup Velveeta cheese, chopped
1/2 cup pepperjack cheese, shredded

Start by making the crust. In a large bowl, combine the bread flour, sugar, yeast, and salt.  Add the warm water and oil.  Mix until the dough is smooth.  Add additional flour if dough is still sticky.

Knead on a floured surface for about 5 minutes or until dough becomes elastic and smooth.  Cover with a warm damp towel and let rise for about 10-15 minutes.

In a large skillet, cook the chopped meatballs and garlic.  Season with salt and peppper, if desired.

Preheat oven to 450 F.

On a floured surface, roll out the dough into a large circle, about 1/4 inch thick.  Or if you like a thicker crust, you can always make a smaller circle.  If you want to be cutesy like me, you can make the circle into a heart shape, but it's not necessary.

Roll the edges slightly to form a thicker outer edge.  Poke the dough with a fork. 

Place crust on a greased baking stone or baking sheet.  Bake for about 7-10 minutes, or until crust is slightly browned. 

Sprinkle the crust with the pecorino cheese and top with tomato sauce/soup.  Add meatball/garlic mixture, onion, chopped bacon, and Velveeta and pepperjack. 

Bake the pizza for about 15-20 minutes or until cheese is melted and golden.  Slice and serve.

Seriously.  This was a 'man' pizza.  Andy said he liked it a lot.  I could give or take on it.  We both agreed that the crust was different and unusual.  Not something you associate a pizza crust with being, but it was pretty tasty.  The toppings, of course, could be alternated to suit your tastes.  This was a winner in Andy's book, and seriously, that's all that mattered to me. =) 

So have a great weekend guys and I'll see you back on Monday!

Meatball Subs

Happy Friday everyone!  I'm definitely ready for the weekend.  This weekend, especially, because it's Andy's Birthday!  He'll be 32 years old!  He definitely doesn't look his age, and sure as hell doesn't act it either!  But I love him either way and have some special things planned for him!  I'll definitely update you guys on Monday!

Oh, and as a side note, I won a contest!  "FoodieBlogRoll's Comment to Win a Mello's Chourico Sausage Sample Pack" contest, to be exact!  So soon, I'll be enjoying a sample pack of Mello's hot chourico, chourico franks, and buffalo chicken chourico!  I'm pretty stoked and can't wait to see what crazy recipes I come up with using them!  Definitely check out their site if you're a sausage fan... they've got some good stuff!  And I wasn't paid to say that, just stating my honest opinion!

As a kid, my favorite sub at Subway was the Meatball Sub.  I loved the melty cheese, soft bread, and what I thought to be delicious meatballs (I definitely have a different take on what delicious meatballs are made out of these days, but oh well!).  So I figured I'd bring back an old favorite and do my little take on a childhood fave.


Ingredients:
Adapted from A Food Lover's Journey's recipe


Meatballs:


1/2 lb. ground beef (I used the last of my homemade ground beef)
3 cloves garlic, chopped
2 green onions, chopped
1 can water chestnuts, drained and chopped
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 tablespoon sugar
salt and pepper, to taste
1 tablespoon fish sauce
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

Tomato Sauce:

3 cloves garlic, chopped
4 tablespoons tomato paste
2 tomatoes, seeded and chopped
2 cups chicken stock
salt and pepper, to taste
1 tablespoon fish sauce
1 teaspoon sugar
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/4 cup red wine

1 french baguette

Preheat oven to 400 F.

In a large bowl, combine ground beef, garlic, green onions, water chestnuts, egg, sugar, salt, fish sauce, Worcestershire sauce, and pepper.  Mix well.  Form small meatballs and place on a baking sheet.



Bake in oven for about 15 minutes, or until meatballs have started to brown.  Remove from oven and set aside.  Don't worry if they're cooked through, because they will finish cooking in the tomato sauce.

In a large dutch oven, heat olive oil under medium high heat.  Add garlic cook until fragrant, about a minute or two.  Add tomatoes and cook until juices are starting to bubble, about 2-3 minutes.  Add tomato paste, chicken stock, fish sauce, sugar, red wine, salt, and pepper.  Let simmer for 2-3 more minutes and then add meatballs, along with any juices.

Simmer meatballs in the tomato sauce, uncovered, for about 25 minutes or until they are fully cooked.  The sauce should be reduced and somewhat thick.  Season with salt and pepper, if needed, and remove from heat.


Cut the baguette into sandwich-sized portions and slice open lengthwise.  Spoon a few meatballs onto baguette and top with sauce.  You could definitely add some mozzarella cheese in there too, but I chose just to have it plain and enjoy it's simplicity!  Serve with chips along side, or feel free to have a different side!

This was definitely delicious!  Different from Subway's version, that's for sure!

What were your favorite childhood eats?



Enjoy the weekend guys!

Homemade Pizzas

Everybody loves a good pizza pie. Throw anything you want on there and bam, the perfect pizza. But it all starts with a good dough. And a good sauce. Then you can do your thing. For this recipe, I saw a good video tutorial about tomato sauces, and within that, there was a pizza dough recipe. So I figured I'd give it a go...

Dough Ingredients:

1 & 1/4 cups warm water
1/2 teaspoon sugar
2 teaspoons instant dry yeast
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 cup all purpose flour
3 & 1/4 cup bread flour
2 teaspoons salt

In a large bowl, combine the water and the sugar. Sprinkle the yeast on top and wait for it to dissolve. Then add olive oil, and half of each flour. Stir a few times and add the remaining flours and salt.

Bring dough together and knead on counter top until it feels smooth. Form dough into big ball, cover lightly with olive oil, and place in bowl covered with plastic wrap. Place in fridge and leave there over night. This step is VERY important. I once only let my dough sit in the fridge for a few hours, maybe 3 or 4. NOT ENOUGH. You won't get the air pockets or the texture of a perfect pizza! Trust me, this is not a step you want to cut corners on! Or you'll regret it. There's my warning, what you do after this is not my fault.

Dough will be about double in size the next day.

Tomato Sauce Ingredients:

1 can crushed San Marzano tomatoes
2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
1 teaspoon salt
freshly ground black pepper
4-5 basil leaves, roughly torn
1 tablespoon olive oil

Combine all ingredients in medium bowl, and there you have it, pizza sauce. Simple, right?!

Roll out dough to about 8-10 inch rounds. Roll it out pretty thin. You can be all fancy and spread it out with your fingers, but I took the rolling pin approach because I tend to be hasty with the other method and always end up with holes.

The topping of the pizzas are pretty much up to your own preference.

Personally, I made three pizzas all together, the dough will make four, but with the fourth ball I made breadsticks because I had TONS of left over sauce. And 3 pizzas was way more than enough for the two of us.
Two of the pizzas were prosciutto, mozzarella, and parmesan.


The 3rd pizza was a sinful mouthful of heat. I had some shredded chicken, buffalo sauce, cheddar and mozzarella cheese, and Serrano peppers.


Make sure you put a THIN layer of tomato sauce on the pizzas. Too many people put too much sauce and it weighs AND waters down the pizza. In other words... it won't be perfect and it won't cook properly.

Preheat oven to 450 degrees and cook each pizza for about 10 minutes or until done to your liking. And no, I didn't have a pizza stone, I just put the pizzas on a baking sheet, but I'm sure they would have been even better on a stone, but you have to improvise when you have little to work with. Enjoy!

Pancetta Wrapped Meatloaf

There is nothing more satisfying than bacon. I absolutely LOVE bacon. Almost more than Andy. That says A LOT. So when I saw that Food in My Beard had this awesome recipe for this meatloaf, I knew it was going to be amazing. Besides, how can you go wrong with crispy bacon-y goodness?!?!


Ingredients

1 lb ground beef
1 lb ground turkey
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 green pepper, chopped
couple bunches of parsley, chopped
1 onion, chopped
1 yellow squash, chopped
1/2 cup of breadcrumbs
1/2 cup of Parmesan cheese
freshly ground pepper
pretty big pinch of red pepper flakes

Meatloaf isn't rocket science, so this is pretty straight forward. Throw all the ingredients in a bowl and mix up until everything is evenly throughout the loaf. Form the meat madness into a big loaf.

Then on some parchment paper, line up pancetta rounds. I did a 5 x 3 grid. Then put loaf on top of pancetta, kind of in the middle and wrap loaf with parchment paper. Unravel parchment paper, but be careful not to unravel the pancetta. It should stick pretty well to the loaf. I didn't have enough pancetta to wrap the whole loaf, mainly just the top, but that was fine with me. Get more pancetta if you think you need it though.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees and bake the loaf for about 45 minutes to an hour. I found that 45 minutes wasn't enough for my thick hunk of meat, so after 45 minutes, I drained the loaf of the juices, and put it back in the oven for about 15 more minutes.

It was DELICIOUS!


I also made a quick tomato sauce for on top with 1 can San Marzano tomatoes, garlic, olive oil, and parmesan cheese that was also on FIMB page.

Enjoy!