home-made asiago wheat 'pizza'

(with chicken!)

   prior to a few months ago, i was cellphone free for a little over a year. i found this very liberating, and after a while i honestly could say i didn't need a phone. i didn't even bother getting one of those pre-paid deals. it just wasn't necessary for my life style. but then, i caved in and got myself a trusty ol blackberry. which i eventually grew out of. within 30 days. i was hungry for more! 
 

 

i ended up with an android phone, and promptly became addicted to the different camera apps available. the different settings took some getting used to (ie: image on the left) and at often times frustrate me...but hey, beats lugging a 15lb camera around the kitchen, eh? and now that i'm addicted to camera apps, i no longer need to go into my closet to whip out different cameras! which i never really do anyway..

i have become a lazy photographer. 

the badly exposed photo above (ohmygo- is that a real polaroid??) contains the ingredients for this particular evenings dinner: chicken, chopped spinach and mushroom, and some bits of fragrant asiago cheese. a good friend stopped by (who also happens to be heavily interested in the culinary arts) and we got a little creative..

working with whatever we had available (literally), wheat flour seemed like a great start. we looked up a quick no-yeast recipe (a little olive oil, water and a pinch of salt) and improvised with some honey. it didn't quite take the right consistency at first, but an egg and a pinch of regular flour later...pizza dough! kneading it was most fun, and reminded me quite of a bit of taking ceramics class in highschool. i kept repeating to myself, "no bubbles! it'll explode in the kiln!" 

well, it worked. my kitchen is intact. despite not having a kiln.

for the sauce, we used a generic four cheese alfredo sauce with some parmesan cheese melted in. both the mushrooms and spinach were prewrapped from the supermarket, as was the shredded cheese. i got the asiago from work <3 the chicken was boiled the day prior, in parsley, celery, carrot, parsnip, and onion. my mother had been making a broth, so the chicken was fairly lean at this point. and since everything was ready-to-eat, it only needed to be in the oven long enough for the cheeses to melt. (i had it in around 350)

 

 

we were inventive, and it paid off. somewhat. honestly, the sauce should have been a sweet tomato sauce to bring out the honey in the crust more. which was amazing. but often overshadowed by the cheeses. i love asiago, but it wasn't for this meal. in fact, a lot of this sounds like a mismatched nightmare, but it was really good - i promise!!!

taco fail

i wish i could change the dates on these entries, because i have a lottttt of catching up to do. clearly i'm not ontop of this whole blog thing. i get distracted too easily!

but i digress...

<-- pretty generic taco/burrito night

(i forgot the rice)

man...doing these updates is making me hungry. i have go to get off my butt and cook that steak already!

pork chops with cheddar and honey brown beer

an extremely simple dinner! 

after tenderizing the pork chops (prior to owning a meat tenderizer i used a fork and stabbed the hell out of meat), i spiced them (in this instance, simply adobo) and pan fried them in olive oil, as always. prior to pan frying the pork, i cut red potatoes. after sprinkling them with a little garlic salt, i placed them on a sheet pan with olive oil to bake at 350 degrees in the oven. growing up, my mother cooked very simple meals involving meat and potatoes. she has this way of perfectly salting, and using no other ingredient, to make the dish. in the end you were fed an authentically flavored, wholesome and filling meal.

*for this very plain pork chop and roasted potato dinner, i decided to make a sharp cheddar "gravy" by melting sharp cheddar cheese bits in a small amount of milk simmered over a very low heat (*take care not to let this mixture boil and burn the cheese. my burner is a bit warm and i periodically lifted and moved the pot to maintain heat.)

* reader tip: "treat the cheese as if you are melting chocolate!"