Deep Dish Cheeseburger Pizza

This was a great weeknight meal – very tasty, and very quick to throw together!

I used a raw pizza dough ball purchased at a local pizzeria for my crust, but if you had pizza dough on hand in your freezer, that works too!

Deep Dish Cheeseburger Pizza

(Real Simple)

1/2 lb. ground beef (or turkey, or chicken)

1/4 cup barbeque sauce

1 lb. raw pizza dough (thawed, if frozen)

1 cup sharp cheddar cheese, shredded/grated

Directions

-Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.

– Brown 1/2 lb of ground meat, add barbeque sauce and stir to mix

– Oil an oven-safe 10″ skillet (I used a cast iron skillet) and press the pizza dough into the bottom and up the sides of the skillet

– Top with the ground meat and cheese

– Bake 20-25 minutes, or until golden brown

– Top with arugula, sliced red onion, sliced tomato, and a drizzle of olive oil (We skipped this step and had a side salad instead)

Creamy Taco Mac

This recipe was originally described as a “healthier” version of Hamburger Helper — but since it’s been so long since I’ve had Hamburger Helper, I don’t know if that’s correct! Ha!

This was tasty — we’d have it again in a heartbeat. I think it would be a hit with relatively picky eaters or kids…it tastes JUST ENOUGH like junk food to lure you in. 🙂

When you re-heat leftovers of this, you may need to add a small amount of water to it — it dries out quickly!

Creamy Taco Mac

(delish blog)

1.25 lbs ground meat (turkey, chicken, beef…pick your pleasure)
8 oz dry pasta + 1 cup reserved pasta water
1 can (14.5 oz) petite diced tomatoes
1 packet mild taco seasoning
3 oz cream cheese  (can use low fat)
1/2 cup sour cream (can use low fat)
salt & pepper
cheddar cheese (optional)

Directions

– Bring a large pot of salted water to boil and cook pasta per directions. Reserve one cup of pasta water

– Over medium heat, brown ground turkey until no longer pink. Add taco seasoning and diced tomatoes. Allow to simmer over low heat for 5 minutes

– Add cooked pasta, reserved water, cream cheese and sour cream

– Give it a good stir until cheeses are melty and incorporated.  Simmer over low heat for 2-3 minutes. Season with salt & pepper, as desired

– Top off with cheddar cheese

Fried Rice

We don’t normally eat “make it at home” Chinese food because it is simply never as good as the Chinese restaurant stuff. (Must be all that MSG? haha)

Regardless, I periodically want to try another recipe. This time I decided to try fried rice…it seemed pretty basic, so I thought it might come out a little better than our previous attempts at “Chinese at home”.

This recipe is phenomenal. The key really is cold rice, just as Joelen remarks on her page. I made the rice 2 days in advance and kept it in the fridge. I also made real ‘rice cooker’ rice, although I’m not sure if it would matter or if you could just cook up a package of minute rice. 🙂

I also cooked off my chicken (I just put it in foil packets with salt, pepper, onion powder and garlic powder and baked at 375 for 45 minutes) and cubed it in advance. This meant the meal took me a whopping 15 minutes to put together on the evening we ate it.

Awesome. 🙂

Final thought: I doubled the recipe when we made it (original measurements are below) — it served two of us dinner, and easily two lunches, with that amount as an entree. I didn’t serve anything with it, but egg rolls would be delicious!

Try this soon! We’ll be adding it to our rotation meals, and I’m dying to try it with pork, shrimp, etc!

Fried Rice

(Joelen’s Culinary Adventures)

1 cup leftover meats – pork, chicken, beef, seafood
1-2 eggs
3-4 cloves minced garlic
1/2 onion finely diced
3-4 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 cup chopped vegetables (fresh or frozen) — Add whatever your family will eat. I added frozen peas/carrots mixture this time, but next time I’ll DEFINITELY add sugar snap peas and some of those mini corn cobs
salt & pepper to taste
1/2 tablespoon onion powder
1/2 tablespoon garlic powder
1-2 tablespoons light or dark soy sauce
1-2 cups prepared rice, cold
Directions

– In a hot skillet or wok, heat oil (I used a large ‘chicken cooker’ with sides, as I don’t own a wok)
– Add garlic and onions & stir, then add leftover meats of your choice, chopped up in bite sized pieces
– Stir fry meats until you get them a bit crispy, then push the meats aside and crack eggs into the pan
– Scramble the eggs into the pan until cooked
– Add cold rice over the eggs & meat into the pan, making sure to crumble it in your fingers. (Dumping a large chunk of rice is not going to work here. You need to crumble it so it separates nicely)
– Add salt, pepper, onion & garlic powders and soy sauce; toss
– Allow the rice to heat up and absorb the spices and soy sauce, tossing to help it along
– Add the fresh or frozen veggies and toss into the rice
– Continue cooking it all on high heat until rice is heated through and veggies are cooked

Sometimes….you just need nachos for dinner

And so that’s what we did!

– 3/4 lb. ground venison

– taco seasoning

– 1 can fat-free refried beans

– 1/2 bag baked blue corn chips

– 1/2 bag baked chili lime chips

– generous sprinkling of mexican shredded cheese

and then we added…

– low fat sour cream

– fresh guacamole

– fresh salsa

yum yum!

Roasted Garlic and Mozzarella Meatballs

These meatballs were delicious! And it was fun cutting into them and seeing the mozzarella cheese oozing out 🙂

Roasted Garlic and Mozzarella Meatballs

(Culinary Carrie)

1/2 lb ground beef

1/2 lb ground italian sausage

1 egg, beaten

1/3 cup breadcrumbs

1 head roasted garlic (cut off top of bulb, drizzle olive oil, bake wrapped in foil for 1 hour, 400 degrees F)

1/2 cup cubed mozzarella

Directions

– Preheat oven to 350 F

– Squeeze garlic into mixing bowl and add in all other ingredients

– Combine all ingredients with your hands until it looks uniform throughout

– Form mixture into golfball sized balls trying to get all mozzarella covered in meat so that when it melts it doesn’t run out completely (it will probably run out a little bit which is fine) and place in a greased baking dish

– Bake for 30-35 minutes or until done

Old-School Stuffed Peppers

I don’t know why, but I’ve had a hankering for stuffed peppers lately.

What makes this odd, is that I HATE — venhemently hate — peppers. Most of my aggression is towards green peppers (which I think taste like toxic green clumps of dirt) but still.

Peppers are not my thing.

Nonetheless, I was hungry for them. So, I took out an ancient family recipe card, and made some changes, and came up with stuffed peppers.

They were deeeeeeeeelicious.

Old-School Stuffed Peppers

(Makes 8 medium-sized peppers full)

8 medium-sized peppers (I used all red, since my farmer’s market had them)

1 1/2 lbs. ground beef or ground turkey (your pick)

1/2 cup minced onion

1 1/2 cups cooked rice (white or brown; your pick)

1 1/2 tsp salt

1 1/2-2 cloves of garlic, minced

2-15 oz. cans of tomato sauce

1 cup shredded cheese (your pick on type) — optional

Directions

– Cut the tops of the peppers off, remove all the membranes and seeds. You can stuff these peppers whole, but I like to cut them in half and stuff each pepper half. Cut them however you’d prefer to do it.

– Cook the peppers in enough boiling water to cover them for 5 minutes, then drain

– Cook the ground meat and onion in a large skillet for 8-10 minutes over medium heat, until meat is browned and cooked through. Drain the meat and onion combination and return to the skillet

– Stir in the rice, salt, garlic and 1 can of the tomato sauce, cook until warmed through

– Heat oven to 350 degrees F

– Stuff pepper halves (or whole peppers if you go that route) and place in a casserole dish, stuffing-side up.

– If you have leftover filling, go ahead and spread that over the stuffed peppers

– Pour the remaining can of tomato sauce over the stuffed peppers
– Cover and bake for 45 minutes; uncover and bake another 15 minutes or until peppers are tender

– Sprinkle with cheese (optional); serve.

Skillet Noodle Lasagna

DH and I LOVED this recipe, and it makes so much food we had it for 2 dinners, and a couple of lunches! It actually re-heats really well — better than regular lasagna!

I made it as a weeknight meal, so it’s pretty quick as well.

Our only complaint is we’d like more spinach — next time I’ll make it with fresh, chopped spinach so I can add as much as I want!

Skillet Noodle Lasagna

(Erica’s Kitchen, by way of Test Kitchen)

1/2 lb pasta, any size/shape you prefer (I used shells)

1 container (1 lb) cottage cheese

1 10 oz package frozen creamed spinach, thawed

1 lb ground meat (I used beef)

Pepper, oregano and garlic powder to taste

1 large 32 ou jar pasta sauce

1 package (8 oz) shredded cheese (I used mozzarella/provolone mix)

1/4 c grated Parmesan

Directions

– In a large skillet (12″ and probably somewith with high sides, as this layers up quickly) cook your ground meat, drain any fat and season to taste with black pepper, oregano and garlic powder.

– When done, transfer to a bowl and set aside.

– Cook noodles according to package directions. Drain.

– Meanwhile – combine the cottage cheese and creamed spinach in a bowl.

– In the skillet, spread a layer of pasta sauce, about one cup, over the bottom.

– Top with about 1/3 of the noodles, then layer in your meat, and then top with another 1/3 of your noodles.

– Top those with 1/2 of the remaining pasta sauce, then add your cottage cheese mixture and 1/2 of the package of shredded cheese.

– Finally add on your remaining noodles followed by the remaining sauce.

– Cover skillet and turn to high heat and bring to a rapid simmer.

– Reduce to medium heat, and simmer for about 10 minutes.

– Sprinkle on your remaining shredded cheese and Parmesan cheese.

– Replace cover and simmer for another 2 minutes.

– Remove from heat and let stand for about 10 minutes.

– Serve.

Meatball Subs

I’m always trying new meatball recipes — I just can’t quite find one I really like.

This is this week’s version. It’s tasty, but it’s still not quite what I’m looking for.

Meatballs always end up tasting like meatloaf to me…which leads me to believe they need more spice in them. Anybody have one to reccommend for my next trial run?

Italian Meatballs
(Brown Eyed Baker)

1 lb. ground beef
1 egg
1 teaspoon dried Italian parsley
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 cup breadcrumbs, divided
1/2 cup grated Romano cheese
1/4 cup milk
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder

Directions
– Preheat oven to 350 degrees F
– Combine 1/4 cup breadcrumbs with milk and let soak for 10 minutes
– Combine with all remaining ingredients and shape into balls
– Bake for 30 minutes, then add to sauce. If you want to cook them the whole way in the oven, cook for 40-45 minutes, depending on size.

Meatball Subs

Everybody’s got their own way of making these, but since I tried a new meatball recipe I figured I’d post it.

This meatball recipe was good, but I’ve had others that are better — I guess I need to start asking family/friends for their meatball recipes!

My family meatball recipe is super-simple, and I was looking for something with more spice and flavor. These were quite tasty — just not quite what I was looking for.

(I served them with 2 jarred sauces b/c I was lazy — 1 marinara and 1 garden style — and shredded provolone/mozzerella mix)

Italian Meatballs

(Joy of Cooking, by way of Elizabeth’s Edible Experience)

1 pound ground beef

1 garlic clove, minced

1/2 cup chopped parsley

1/2 cup grated Parmesan

1 medium onion, finely chopped

1/2 cup fresh bread crumbs

1 large egg, beaten

2 tablespoons tomato paste (I omitted b/c I didn’t have any)

1 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon black pepper

1/2 teaspoon dried oregano

Directions

– Mix all of the above together

– Form into 2″ balls with your hands

– Dredge meatballs in 1/2 cup flour (I omitted this step)

– In a large skillet over medium heat, add 2 tablespoon olive oil

– Brown meatballs in batches, then place on cookie sheets and place in a 375 degree F oven for 10 minutes to finish cooking

– Add to sauce

Altered version: For my meatball subs today, I followed the above directions, but then added my meatballs and sauce to my crockpot and placed them on low for a little while (so the tomato flavor would get into the meatballs). Then I moved them to low and left them available for football all afternoon.

Crockpot French Dip Sandwiches

I saw this recipe from a nestie a few weeks ago — if it was you, let me know! I didn’t write your name down!

It was so easy, I didn’t even write the recipe down — my kind of meal. Especially during the week!

DH and I really enjoyed these sandwiches and we’ll definately add them to our rotation. Especially since they’re crockpot-based — which means dinner is basically ready when I get home. Woohoo!

Again, though, we ate them and I totally forgot to take pictures. Next time!

French Dip Sandwiches

2 lb. beef roast
1 packet dry onion soup mix
1 can Progresso French Onion Soup
2 beef bullion cubes

Rolls
Sliced provolone cheese

Directions
– Place the beef roast, onion soup mix, can of soup, and beef bullion in a crockpot
– Cook on low for at least 6 hours
– Slice (or shred) the meat, reserving the juices in the bottom of the crockpot

– Toast the rolls, add meat and provolone, and slip under the broiler for a few seconds to melt the cheese
– Serve with juices for dipping.