Up Next: Personal Pan Pizza

I know I said I wanted to start posting more so I shall be! I am working on catching up with school from being gone the first week due to surgery. That being said, I wanted to give everyone a sneak peak at whats coming next! We found a great dough to use for pizza crust and it worked out pretty well. We had a ton of veggies and other things in the fridge that looked good but we didn't know what to eat so we decided to make pizza! The post about all our suggestions and recipes will be up soon, get excited! 

Dinner For Three

Since being back in Utah for Christmas I ended up having to have knee surgery, which extended my stay about a week and a half. My mom, coincidentally, had to have arm and wrist surgery a week before I got home so we ended up being two helpless gimps while Grandma was left to take care of us (lucky her). So yesterday we finally got out to the grocery store and came home with a bunch of goodies - fresh mozzarella, halibut, coconut oil, and a ton of herbs and vegetables. We decided that since its my last week being home I'm going to whip up a few culinary creations while I'm here and I can use them to blog about - Yay! New years resolution fulfilled! 

Here's what we had for dinner: 

Ingredients: Yields 4

4 strips of bacon diced
1 tbsp butter

2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

3 large garlic cloves

5 small zucchinis

2 - 3 bell peppers 

2 roma tomatoes
1/2 tbsp Beau Monde

1/4 cup green onions
20 - 25 shrimp (we used 5 per person, ours were small)

2/3 cup dry white wine

1/2 cup tomato sauce
1 cup Parmesan cheese
1/2 cup fresh chopped parsley
2/3 cup heavy cream
Salt & Pepper to taste

Directions:
First off cook bacon in the oven on 450° until its crisp
 - not burnt! Chop and set aside.
Now...
1. Peel and chop garlic roughly into disks
2. In a large skillet heat the olive oil and the butter on medium until they're melted together
3. Add the garlic to the pan and cook for about 5 minutes until garlic begins to turn brown then remove from the pan and set aside. In the meantime..

[PREP]
4. Peel all zucchini into long thin strips - so it looks similar to thick linguini
5. Julliene the bell peppers and the tomatoes - taking the seeds out of both before hand
6. Cut the green onion into short strips
7. Chop the parsley and grate your parmesan cheese
8. If your shrimp is frozen - like mine - thaw it out and peel it
9. Have your wine, cream, tomato sauce and shrimp ready on hand so we can

[COOK]
10. After the garlic is taken out of the pan turn the pan up to medium high add the bell peppers (saute for 3 - 5 minutes until soft)
11. Add the tomato and green onion, cook for about 2 minutes until everything is heated together
12. Add your shrimp and cook until at least one side is fully pink then add the wine
13. Let that simmer until the wine is reduced (about 7 - 10 minutes depending on the size of your skillet)
14. Add your tomato sauce - mine was homemade courtesy of Grandma but when I'm at school I usually use a canned tomato sauce like mushroom or Italian style that I get at TjMaxx
15. Now is when I usually turn the heat up to high so that the sauce can begin to bubble and thicken up a little bit - once its at a nice thick consistency is when I add the cream, parsley, bacon and the cheese (save some to sprinkle on top of each plate though as well at the parsley)
16. I let this cook until its all combined and thick then I add the garlic back in and zucchini

Now here's some pictures for your viewing pleasure:

And vuala!! 
This recipe can be vegetarian without the bacon and shrimp or you can add leftover chicken or sausage or whatever you want! Don't have wine? That's fine just omit that ingredient, if you don't have cream add butter instead! This recipe can be changed into whatever you want, this is my version of zucchini pasta, now you can create yours!

Like my new signature! I used this tutorial to figure out how to do place it and I used My Live Signature to create it, check it out for your blog!!

Enjoy!

2013 Resolutions

Greetings! First off - Happy 2013 everyone! I hope everyone enjoyed their new years celebrations and is doing a good job of keeping to their resolutions. As for my resolutions... 

I know the "New Years Resolutions" posts are highly overrated - after all its usually by mid-February we wonder why we even put some actual thought into making this annual to-do list. But I figured that since I have a blog I might at well put this up here so I can have something more real to look back on. 

As you can see the first one is most related to my blog anyways! I started this adventure with such high expectations but it really was at the wrong time. Plus I'm terrible at time management, I'm excellent at planning and schedule-making, but I have a little trouble sticking to the outline. My boyfriend likes to joke that I could plan a really fantastic wedding and not actually show up to it - ha ha - NOT! Anyways, this year I'm not going to post certain schedule but I want to blog more than once a month. I cook all the time, way more than post, and I want to change that this year. I also need to start recording them, at first this was just a way to keep track of my recipes but I think it has the potential to be more than just a recipe tracker.

I have a few great recipes that I need to post from last year, and also a great recipe that my mother and grandmother tested tonight! Can't wait to start posting! 

Enjoy! 

Breakfast At The Arthur's

One of my favorite things about coming home to visit my family is the traditional breakfast my dad treats us to on the weekends. He prides himself in his breakfast-making skills and he loves to cook it for us. I promised him that this time while I was home he'd make it onto the blog so here it is! 

My dad is very meticulous about how exactly he prepares his dishes. His famous omelet consists of a blend of a few different cheeses, freshly whipped eggs (no milk added) and ham. This time we happened to have leftover ham in the fridge so he cut some of it into little pieces and placed it in a pan on the stove to keep it warm. For the cheese he used a combination of Tillamook Extra Sharp Cheddar and Hickory Farms Jalapeno & Cheddar Blend that he hand grated himself and combined them together in a bowl. For a regular sized omelet he uses two eggs and for a small omelet (for mother usually) he uses one egg. 

In a medium skillet that is hot he melts a little butter then pours in the eggs and it immediately starts to bubble and cook in the shape of the pan. He adds the cheese and the ham and folds it over three times until it is a perfect rectangle shape. It only takes about 2 - 3 minutes to cook until its perfectly melty and delicious. 

He served it with homemade leftover hash browns and sausage links. Mom and I had coffee and a tall glass orange juice to wash it down, it was UNBELIEVABLE delicious! Enjoy! 

Spinach and Artichoke Dip

Finally here! My summertime recipe for spinach and artichoke dip. I usually only make this when I am in New York at the lake during vacation because Wegman's is the only store that sells the ingredients that make this dip taste just right. Below are the instructions and a rough estimate of the ingredients. Since I never write any of my recipes down this might not be the exact way I make it every time but if you use the best ingredients you can find and bake it until it bubbles you can probably get it to come out perfectly! 

Ingredients:

2 jars of marinated quartered artichoke hearts

2 - 3 vine ripe tomatoes roughly chopped (depending on their size)

1/2 red onion diced

3 cloves of garlic minced

2 jars of Italian style shredded parmesan cheese

2 boxes of frozen chopped spinach

1.5 cups of mayonnaise (roughly) 

1/2 cup of cream cheese

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

Directions:

1. Pre-heat the oven to 350°

2. Defrost packages of chopped spinach

3. While those are defrosting saute your tomatoes, garlic and onion in the olive 

oil and add salt and pepper to taste

4. When the spinach is defrosted you need to put it in a kitchen towell 

(one that you don't mind if it gets stained a light green color) and squeeze out 

all of the liquid - it is very important to NOT SKIP THIS STEP because if there

 is too much liquid in the mixture it will not cook out it will make the dip 

very soupy and mushy (we don't want that!)

5. Once you have drained all the liquid place the spinach in a bowl

6. Add the marinated artichoke hearts along with their liquid 

to the tomato, onion and garlic mixture and cook for about 2 minutes

7. Add the tomato, onion and garlic mixture to the spinach once the onion 

is softened and translucent

8. Add your cheese (but save about 1/4 cup for the top), mayonnaise and cream cheese

9. Stir the mixture together until it is all combined

10. Put in a baking tin and add remaining cheese to the top.

The in I used was probably just 10" around but it doesn't really matter 

what one you use as long at your mixture isn't more that 2" thick. 

Bake for about 15 - 20 minutes and take out and serve when it is warm and bubbly! 

Happy Thursday!