Pita Pizza

 PITA PIZZA

So the other day when I made my Ritz-Cracker Chicken and Pasta, I also made these little beauties. They're perfect for when you have a craving for pizza but you don't feel like ordering one or making one from scratch. Best of all, they are EXTREMELY SIMPLE to make.

Ingredients:
-4 pieces of pocket pita bread
-Spinach (use according to taste)
-Prego pasta sauce (any flavor you want)
-2 cups of Mozzarella cheese
-olive oil

Instructions:
(1) Preheat oven to 200 degrees.

(2) Brush olive oil over each pita bread.

(3) In a skillet, steam spinach with about 1 cup of warm water. Spinach will begin to wilt. Once you remove spinach from the heat, place it in a food processor and blend until it turns creamy (about 2 minutes).

(4) On each pita bread, spread the spinach mixture. Then, spread the pasta sauce mixture over the spinach mixture. Once your pitas are sauced, sprinkle mozzarella cheese on each.

(5) Bake for 8-10 minutes or until cheese is completely melted.

Ritz-Cracker Chicken with Italian-Seasoned Bow-Tie Pasta

Just looking at these pictures, it makes me even sadder that I'm an unemployed college graduate (big surprise there!) because I need a paycheck so I can buy a better camera!!!!

ANYWAYS, I was in the mood for some chicken with a little bit of crunch to it but I HATE fried chicken so I decided to whip up my Ritz-Cracker baked chicken.

Ritz-Cracker Chicken
Ingredients:
-1 tray of Purdue chicken tenderloins
-Lawry's seasoned salt
-mayonnaise
-1 tube of whole-wheat Ritz-Crackers
-1/4 cup bread crumbs
-1/4 cup grated Parmesan
-olive oil

Instructions:
(1) Drain chicken tenderloins on paper towels. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

(2) Season both sides of chicken with the seasoned salt.

(3) Scoop out some mayonnaise in a small bowl. Spoon mayonnaise on both sides of chicken.

(4) Meanwhile,  pour a VERY THIN layer of oil in a pan (I used a pan that was able to fit all my chicken in 1 pan so just use whatever is most convenient).

(5) Place a tube of Ritz-Crackers (I left about 5-6 crackers in the tube), bread crumbs and Parmesan in a food processor and blend until crushed (don't process too much, the mixture is suppose to be slightly chunky).

(6) Take each piece of mayonnaise chicken and roll in crumb mixture and then place in pan. After you have placed all the chicken in the pan, scatter some more crumbs on chicken.

(7) Cover with aluminum foil and place in oven at 375 degrees for 30 minutes. Then, take aluminum foil off and cook an additional 10 minutes.

Italian-Seasoned Bow-Tie Pasta

Ingredients:
-10-ounce box of Barilla bow-tie pasta
-16-ounce jar of Prego sauce (any flavor you wish)
-1 envelope of Italian salad dressing seasoning mix (located by salad dressing)
-4 cups of shredded mozzarella cheese
-leftover crumbs from Ritz-Cracker chicken
-handful of flaxseed
-1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese

Instructions:
(1) Cook pasta according to package directions.

(2) Meanwhile, combine sauce, seasong mix, crumbs, flaxseed and Parmesan in a bowl.

(3) Pour pasta into a glass baking dish and cover with sauce mix. Thoroughly combine. Sprinkle mozzarella over pasta.

(4) Bake at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes.

Blueberries & Almonds Buttermilk Cake

BLUEBERRIES & ALMONDS BUTTERMILK CAKE

So yesterday my mom's friend comes over with WARM HOME MADE blueberry muffins! After eating 1 (or 3), I got a big craving for more goodies with blueberries in them. Flashforward to today, I have a GIGANTIC box of blueberries sitting on my kitchen counter with no place to go. Have no fear though, I found something to do with them! I remember a recipe a friend had given me a while ago so I decided to put it to good use (with some alterations).

Ingredients:

-1 cup all-purpose flour

-1/2 cup of sugar plus 1 tablespoon

-1 teaspoon baking powder

-1/4 teaspoon baking soda (don't add too much!)

-1 egg

-1 teaspoon vanilla extract

-1/2 teaspoon almond extract

-2 tablespoons butter, melted

-3/4 cup buttermilk (original recipe called for 1.5 cups of milk)

-1 cup of blueberries (plus an extra handful)

-1/2 tsp. ground Vietnamese cinnamon (or regular cinnamon)

-2.5 tablespoons of packed light brown sugar

-1/2 cup of chopped or silvered almonds

Instructions:

(1) In a bowl, combine the first 4 ingredients. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

(2) In a separate shallow bowl, whisk together the egg, the vanilla extract, the almond extract, the melted butter, and the buttermilk.

(3) Add the liquid mixture to the dry mixture and stir with a wooden spoon until everything is combined and moist. Then, add 1 cup of blueberries * and combine.

(4) Line a 8-inch square baking pan with aluminum foil (cover the walls so you can just pull out the bake when its done). Spray with cooking spray.

(5) Pour batter into prepared pan. Spread if uneven. Take a handful of blueberries and toss on top of batter.

(6) Place packed light brown sugar in a small cereal bowl. Smash brown sugar with the back of a spoon until it reaches a fine consistency. Then, add the cinnamon and almonds. Sprinkle mixture on top of batter.

(7) Place the pan, uncovered, in the oven and bake for about 40-50 minutes at 350 degrees. (Note: The original recipe said 25-30 minutes but my cake was still undone so it might have been my oven or because I changed the recipe)

(8) Lift cake out of pan by pulling up the aluminum foil. Let cool.

* (If using frozen blueberries, DON'T thaw them before use)

My 1st Blog Post

I feel like a little kid in a candy store. All this "blog stuff" is new to me. I'll just start off by saying my name is Ady and I graduated with a Secondary Education/History degrees in May of 2010. Being unemployed until I gain a teaching position, I have a lot of free time on my hands. After scouring blogs for recipes, I have decided to create a blog of my own. With this blog, I hope to accomplish two things. First of all, I became a born-again Christian in 2003, was baptized shortly thereafter and was baptized with the Holy Spirit during the summer of 2004. Over the years, my relationship with God has been up and down. I leaned on God when I was having hard times and forgot about Him when everything was peachy keen. Over the last year, I've come to realize that I need to put a lot more effort into my relationship with Him and I hope to encourage others to do the same. The second thing I would like to do through this blog is share my cooking experiences! God and food, what a great combination!

I'll be playing around with blogging. It's all new to me! Once I get the hang of it, I'm sure I'll be posting left and right!