Breakfast Pizza

Biscuit crust:
2 cups flour
1 T baking powder
1/4 t salt
1/3 cup shortening
3/4 cup milk
Stir together flour, baking powder, and salt. Cut in shortening, make a well in the center. Add milk and stir just until moistened(don't over mix.)

Topping:
(adjust toppings to your taste.)
1 pound sausage, browned and drained
1 bell pepper, diced
1/2 onion, chopped
1 pkg frozen hash browns, thawed
2 cups shredded cheese
9 eggs, beaten with salt and pepper added

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease 8x13 pan. Roll out biscuit crust and place in bottom of pan, pressing 1" up sides. Top with sausage and veggies and cheese. Pour beaten eggs on top and bake for 30-45 minutes or until center is set.

Lemon Bread

1 3/4 c flour
3/4 c sugar
2 t baking powder
1/4 t salt
1 egg, beaten
1 cup milk
1/4 c oil
2 t lemon zest
1 T lemon juice
1 t sugar
2 T lemon juice
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease bottom and 1/2" up sides of an 8x4x2 loaf pan. Stir together flour, 3/4 c sugar, baking powder, and salt. Set aside. In another bowl, mix the beaten egg, oil, milk, and 1 T lemon juice. Fold in lemon zest. Spoon into pan, bake 50-55 minutes. Stir together 2T lemon juice and 1 T sugar. Brush over the loaf when it comes out of the oven.

Baked French Toast Casserole

5 cups bread cubes
4 eggs
1 1/2 cup milk
1/4 t salt
1 t vanilla
1/4 cup sugar, divided
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon, divided
dash nutmeg, optional
Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease an 8x8 pan. Place bread cubes in pan. Beat eggs, beat in milk, salt, vanilla, 2T of sugar, 1/2 tsp cinnamon and nutmeg. Pour over bread cubes, let stand 10 minutes. Combine remaining 2T sugar with 1 t cinnamon and sprinkle on top. Bake 30-35 minutes or until golden.

Kitchen Clutter

That is what I think of most kitchen gadgets. Clutter that you may have rushed to use once when you bought it, but now sits cluttering up your cabinets or taking up valuable counterspace gathering dust. Here is my list of useless gadgets that I won't buy or that I regret buying(these are my personal opinions and preferences, depending on my personal cooking needs:)

-Giant Stand Mixer with detachable clutter. I know you have one of these!!
-Iced Tea Maker
-Machine just for cooking rice.
-Vacuum sealer
-Expensive, but useless, cake decorating accordion thingie. (I was better off with my tip-and-baggie routine)
-Kitchen scissors that have 50 different uses, and cost $50. For scissors. They had better iron my laundry.
-Panini maker
-Small electric grill
-Machine that does nothing well but it intended to slice and grate stuff.
-Tiny food choppers, both electric and the kind you hit(again, and again)
-Anything with missing parts, or accessories you always intended to buy, but just haven't gotten around to it.
-Expensive machines made with one recipe in mind.
-Cheap machines made with one recipe in mind.
-Cheaply made gadgets that you can't bear to throw away because you spent so much money on them.
- Anything you bought after watching the infomercial for it for an hour.
I think you catch my drift, or should I go on??

Now here is my list of gadgets I love and cannot do without. And I have very limited countertop and cabinet space, so you know these are necessities!

-A Good Blender, not necessarily an expensive one, but a quality made one. Mine is an Osterizer with a glass jar. I have had it for about 8 years. The glass jar is a must for me.
-Food and Rice Steamer, mine is not this one, but looks like this:
I received this as a gift, and it is one of the most used gadgets in my house. Fantastic for healthy cooking. A Godsend. Pros:I can cook rice below and steam broccoli above. Or steam two kinds of veggies simultaneously. Vegetables are always cooked evenly and perfectly to my taste. Wash them, put them in, set the timer and walk away. Rice is never scorched.
Cons: rice takes a bit longer to cook than on the stove top. Food has to cook longer when both baskets are full, so allow extra time. Planning ahead is a must. And so is seasoning.





-Large Slow Cooker. Mine is 7 quarts. Love it.

-Food Processor. I just got one. I think mine holds 10 cups. It is sort of like this one.

Got this about a month ago, and I have already used it to slice veggies, grate, puree soups, cut butter into flour for shortbread, and lots more.I made graham cracker crumbs in 10 seconds, then added sugar and drizzled in melted butter, and Voila! Graham cracker crust in less than 30 seconds. It is not as difficult to clean as I feared, and the parts are dishwasher safe. I would not recommend sticking a plastic spoon down the chute, however. Never never do that. Bad idea.

-Cast iron griddle. I bought mine at least 9 years ago unseasoned in the camping supply aisle for ten bucks, I think. Seasoning it was no big deal, and it was inexpensive. I use it all the time. It rarely leaves my stove. I think it came with instructions on how to season it, I rubbed oil on it and heated it on the burner, then repeated a couple times. Never put this in the dishwasher, or submerse in water. Wipe it down with a paper towel and salt to clean it. If you must wash with soap and water, I turn on the burner under it to dry it quickly so it doesn't rust. I make tortillas on it, quesadillas, grilled cheese, pancakes, tons of stuff.

-A good hand mixer. Doesn't have to cost a lot of money. I received mine for a wedding present 10 years ago, and it is a champ. It also comes with a case which keeps me from losing the beaters and such.
-A good peeler. Find one that is comfortable in your hand and WORKS. Important detail.
-an electric griddle. Again, none of the pictures are exactly what I have, but as close as I could find without taking my own pictures. Which I am too lazy to do.
Pros:You can make burgers and hotdogs on a rainy or cold day. You can make bacon, and the grease gets deposited in a little drawer for easy disposal. Make 6 slices of French toast simultaneously, or several pancakes, depending on the size. Mine has a thermostat I set for the temperature I want to cook at(325 for perfect French Toast, by the way.)
Cons: There is a slant to it for the grease to drain, so take care when pouring batter close to the edge.
-A set of quality cookware. Find which type you like and go with it. I bought a set of stainless steel pans for $20 bucks at a tool sale. No joke. So far, they work just as well as the heavy skillet and dutch oven I paid more for individually than the whole lot of 'em. So don't think you have to pay thousands for cookware. I have a large saucepan and a small skillet I love to make omelets with that are nonstick, but the rest is the stainless for me.
-One good chef's knife. You don't have to have 10,000 different knives for every purpose, one good chef knife does almost everything for me. And you can get a much better quality chef knife for less than a whole set of lesser knives.
-Baking dishes. I have a set of glass Pyrex dishes that have all the standard size pans in it, 4 muffin pans, and 4 cookie sheets. Those are all necessities for me. There are a couple more I may invest in in the future, but for now these serve my purposes.

So here is my challenge to you: take an objective look at your kitchen. What things do you really use? Get rid of stuff you don't. Donate it, or sell it if you feel like it is worth a couple bucks. Clearing out some of the clutter really is cathartic!

Apple Muffins

Made with fresh apples, these are healthy and so scrumptious! Substitute an artificial sweetener for the sugar, if you want to cut even more calories.

2 cups apples, peeled and chopped

4 cups flour

1/2 cup white sugar

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

1 tsp cream of tartar

1/2 tsp allspice

1 tsp cinnamon

----------------

1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce

2 cups water

2 beaten eggs

Preheat your oven to 450 degrees. Spray muffin tins with cooking spray. I would not recommend paper liners for this recipe.
Stir the dry ingredients together in a large bowl, add apples and stir to coat. In a separate bowl, stir together eggs, water and applesauce. Make a well in the conter of the dry mixture and pour in the wet mixture. Stir gently just until combined, do not over mix or your muffins will be tough. Fill muffin tins 2/3 full. Bake 15 minutes, don't overbake. Makes 3 dozen. Store tightly covered. They can be frozen.

Per muffin: 82 calories, .4 grams fat, .6 grams fiber

Crock Pot White Chicken Enchiladas

2 onions, chopped
2-3 cups cooked chicken, diced
1 can diced green chile
2 cans cream of chicken soup
1 can corn, undrained
1 can black beans, undrained
1 t salt
1 t cumin
1 t coriander(opt.)
1 t chili powder
1 t garlic
20-24 corn tortillas, cut into wedges
1/2 cup milk or water, if needed
2 cups shredded cheese, cheddar or your favorite

Spray a large pot with cooking spray. Spray crockpot and turn on low.
Add onion and saute on medium high for 5 minutes. Add green chile and chicken, stir in seasonings. Add cream of chicken, corn, and beans, add milk or water if the sauce seems too thick. Spread a thin layer of sauce in the crock pot, then a layer of tortilla wedges. Continue layering tortillas, then sauce until you use the last of the sauce. Top with cheese and cover. Cook on low 2-3 hours, or high 1- 1 1/2 until cheese is melted and starts to bubble up.

"Crab" Spaghetti

1 pound whole wheat thin spaghetti
2-4 T Olive oil
2 onions, chopped
2-3 small zucchini, halved and sliced into 1/2" slices
5 cloves garlic, sliced
1 8 oz pkg imitation crab
about 10 leaves fresh basil
salt to taste

Heat olive oil in large skillet, saute onion and zucchini until tender, about 15 minutes. Add garlic during the last 5 minutes of cooking.
While that is cooking, boil water and cook spaghetti according to package directions.
Take the crab out of the package and cut into bite size pieces. Add to the top of the cooked zucchini mixture, don't stir it in yet, cover and turn the heat down to low. Heat until crab is hot, then gently toss together. Turn off heat.
When spaghetti is al dente, drain and return to pot. Add zucchini and crab mixture, toss gently and salt to taste. Tear basil up and top individual portions with it.

Strawberry Muffins

Try making these with blueberries or peaches!

4 cups flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 t baking soda
1 t cream of tartar
1 cup sugar
1/2 t nutmeg
1/2 t cinnamon
2 c sliced strawberries(I halved them before slicing)
2 beaten eggs
2 c water
1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Spray muffin tins with cooking spray(do not use liners, they will stick!)
Combine dry ingredients, gently stir in strawberries. Combine wet ingredients in a separate bowl, then add to dry mixture. Stir just until combined, don't mix too much. Fill muffin tin halfway full and bake for 12-15 minutes until the edges start to look golden(do not overbake.)
This recipe made 3 dozen muffins for me, which makes them 55 calories each.

Pizza Dough/Foccacia Dough

Pizza Dough

9 Cups Flour
1 Tbsp Salt
3 cups very warm water
2 Tbsp Yeast
¼ cup sugar
½ cup powdered milk
1/2 cup olive oil(or whatever you have)

In large bowl, combine flour and salt, set aside. In medium bowl, stir sugar into warm water, then add yeast. Wait 10 minutes for yeast to bloom, then add powdered milk and oil. Add medium bowl mixture to large bowl and mix. Let rest 10 minutes, then knead until smooth. Place in oiled bowl and turn over. Cover with plastic wrap or cloth and let rise 1 hour. Roll into pizza crust, let rise 15 minutes. Bake crusts 8-10 minutes at 425 degrees, then add pizza toppings and bake 10 minutes or until cheese is bubbly. Can also wrap crusts up and freeze after baking the first time.

I actually used this pizza dough recipe to make the focaccia(I saw it on Emeril.) I made a couple pizzas out of the dough and used the rest to make focaccia bread to freeze for later. After rising the first time: for focaccia shape it into about a 12" circle about 1/2" thick. Press your finger into it and make indentations all over about 1" apart. Cover and let sit a minute while making the topping.

Topping:
1 large onion, finely diced
2 Tbsp Rosemary
1 Tbsp Oregano
1/4 cup olive oil
Saute onion in olive oil with rosemary and oregano for about 3 minutes, then let cool slightly. Spread on top of Focaccia dough, cover and let rise 30 minutes or until double in size. Bake at 375 for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown.