French Bread Pizza

Last night, our nephew was coming over for a sleep over. Everytime he comes over, the kids have deemed it necessary to have pizza. Sometimes we order out, sometimes we get take 'n bake, but usually me MAKE our own pizza! They kids love rolling out the dough and adding toppings, but knowing ahead of time it was probably going to be a fairly busy day, we decided to try something else... FRENCH BREAD PIZZA! Super easy, affordable & quick!

We hadn't planned on this being a blog entry, but KK quickly snagged the camera off of Dad's desk in her jammies straight from her bath and pleaded we add this to her blog too. How can I say no?! Plus... no measuring required.. just throw it all together!

French Bread Pizza Ingredients

• French Bread {We used a thick sourdough baguette}
• Olive Oil
• Oregano
  
• Marinara Sauce {We always choose this option, as it's cheaper than pizza sauce & then can always incorporate it into a dish later in the week as only about 1/3 of the sauce gets used}
• Shredded Mozzarella & Cheddar Cheeses
• Toppings of Choice
  

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cut bread into 4 equal pieces, slice down the middle if not pre-sliced. Transfer to pan & lightly coat with Olive Oil.



Sprinkle with Oregano. Spoon sauce onto bread for desired amount of saucey-ness.



LOTS OF CHEESE!



Add toppings. We chose Olives, Pineapple & Pepperoni {Except for Mom's!}. Add an extra sprinkle of cheese once toppings are in place & a few shakes of the oregano.



Bake for 5 minutes or until bubbly & hot! Enjoy!

xoxo,
kk {& Brooke}

Butternut Squash & Gorgonzola Sauce over Penne

Wow! A week & a half since the last post! We've been cooking a lot lately, just not doing photos of it! KK was given her choice of a couple dozen recipes to choose from making, and surprisingly chose this one. This has to be a new favorite, and didn't take too much effort to make. We made the recipe with 1/2 cream & 1/2 water, but can be substituted as ALL water. Additionally, we steamed a medium butternut squash, but in a pinch pureed canned squash of any sort could be used. Enjoy!

Ingredients

• Medium Butternut Squash
• 1 package Penne Pasta {or any desired pasta}
• 2 Tbsp Olive Oil
• Small Onion
• 3 cloves Garlic
• 1 bunch fresh Sage {Chopped}
  
• 1/2 cup Water & 1 Tbsp No Chicken "Better than Bouillon" Base {or 1/2 cup Vegetable Stock}
  
• 1/2 cup Cream
• Fresh cracked Pepper
• Sea Salt
• 2 cups Fresh Baby Spinach
• 1/2 cup Crumbled Gorgonzola Cheese {plus more for garnish}

• Cut squash into pieces & transfer to large pot with steamer insert. Steam for 30 minutes, or until soft.

• Remove squash & cool. Once squash has cooled, remove skin. Set Aside.
• Heat Olive Oil on medium-high heat. Start to boil water & cook pasta per package directions.

• Add chopped onions to oil, cook until soft.
• Reduce heat to medium, and add garlic. Once garlic has cooked for one minute, add water, cream, squash, sage & no chicken base, stirring constantly until all has been incorporated.

• Add Salt & Pepper to pan, continue stirring until heated through.
• Once mixture has been heated all the way through, carefully transfer to food processor and blend until smooth.

{To make things easier for KK, we transferred the cooked penne & sauce to a larger bowl, then added the spinach, but all could be mixed into the pot the penne had cooked in to avoid further dishes being used.}

• Stir spinach into sauce & penne mixture, then, stir in Gorgonzola to fully incorporate.

• Transfer to previous pot used to cook pasta and cook on medium-high stirring constantly until cheese is melted and spinach has wilted.
• Garnish with additional Gorgonzola cheese & serve warm! Eat up & enjoy!!
  

xoxo,
KK {and Brooke}

Apple Pie... from scratch!

Cooking with apples twice in one week... peeling, cutting, coring... I'm done with apples now. I'm going to have to convince KK to move on to making something non-apple related. We did buy an apple "cutter" at the store today though.. which, helped some. She loved making pie, and in all actuality, it didn't really take us that long to make [and in between me helping her make her pie was able to successfully make a Southwestern Frittata for dinner!]

Apple Pie Crust

• 3 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• ¾ cup margarine
• 1/4 cup [or more] water

1. Stir together flour and salt.
2. Cut in margarine until mixture resembles coarse crumbs.
3. Add water little by little, until dough is no longer flakey
4. With hands, shape dough into ball
   
5. For a two crustcrust pie, divide pastry into 2 pieces
6. On lightly floured surface with lightly floured rolling pin, roll larger ball into a 1/8 inch thick circle, 2 inches larger all around than pie plate.
7. Roll half of circle onto rolling pin; transfer pastry to pie plate and unroll. Fill with pie filling.
8. For top crust, roll smaller ball as for bottom crust; with sharp knife, cut a few slashes or a design in center of circle; center over filling in the bottom crust.
9. With scissors or sharp knife, trim the pastry edges.
10. Bake pie!

Apple Pie Filling

• ¾ sugar
• 2 tablespoons flour
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• ¼ teaspoon cloves
• dash of allspice
  
• 2 lbs sliced, peeled and cored organic applescooking apples
  
• 1 tablespoon margarine[we use Earth Balance]
  

1. In small bowl sugar, flour, cinnamon, cloves & allspice.
   
2. Place half of the apples in pie crust; sprinkle with half of sugar mix. Top with rest of apples, then rest of sugar mixture.
3. Spoon margarine on to the filling.
   
4. Preheat oven to 425° F.
5. Bake pie for 20-40 minutes or until crust is golden.

The turned out pretty good! Probably wouldn't do cookie cutter top next time, and it only took about 20 minutes to bake.. but a good first try for us [it has been YEARS since I made pie from scratch!] .. Start to finish took us around an hour & 15 minutes... Not too bad! I should also note... 2/3 of the pie is now GONE!!

xoxo
Brooke & KK

Organic Applesauce

KK has been asking for over a week to make applesauce, and as it is very simple for such a delicious reward at the end, we made no-sugar added applesauce Sunday morning!

5 pound bag Organic Apples
1 cup water
Cinnamon
Cloves












Wash & Peel apples... we were using too big of a pot & had to transfer to a smaller pot for cooking the applesauce.




Add spices..
















Cook on medium heat & stir every 5 minutes



Once applesauce has cooked down for 20+ minutes, mash!




Continue simmering on low-medium heat for an additional 30-60minutes & then enjoy!

xoxo,
Brooke & Ceilidh