Cooking Klass

I keep thinking that I'd really like to take some cooking classes, but then I make a dinner like the one I made tonight and I figure there really isn't any thing they could teach me.  Here's the run down of me cooking dinner tonight:

Me thinking about how ingenious I am that I'll be using the rest of the spaghetti sauce from a previous night to make hamburger pizza for the kids' dinner.  

Me spreading the spaghetti sauce on the pizza crust only to find out that I didn't have *quite* enough sauce for the pizza.

Me wondering what the heck I was going to do now.  I certainly don't want to open a new jar of sauce when I needed less then a half cup...

Me squirting the pizza with ketchup, mixing the spaghetti sauce and ketchup around on the crust, and then sprinkling the 'new' sauce with garlic, onion powder, and oregano.

Me excusing myself from the dinner table to take a picture of this fancy pizza.

The kids wondering out loud why I am taking a picture of their dinner. 

Me laughing hysterically while I tell them I'll be blogging about their dinner later.

The whole family playing the game "Guess what mom made our pizza out of?"

Me ending dinner thinking that not only am I a genius, but I'm pretty freakin' funny too :)

I posted the recipe in case you wanted to recreate this dish for your own family:

"Cheeseburger Pizza"

1 Pre-made store bought pizza crust
Small amount of left over spaghetti sauce (that contains ground beef)
Generous squirt of ketchup
Sprinkle of garlic powder, onion powder, and oregano
Hand fulls of mozzarella cheese

Pre-heat oven to 350 (or what ever the package of pizza crust calls for)
Place ingredients on the pizza crust in the order listed above.
Bake for the recommended time listed on the pizza crust wrapper.
Turn oven up to 450 when you get impatient to make the pizza cook quicker.
Cut into squares and enjoy!

~The MFP

Cleaning Out the Pantry

I cleaned out our pantry this week and one of the things I found was a mostly used bag of rice.  That night for dinner I was making sweet and sour venison.  I thought it would be a perfect way to use up the rest of the rice.  As I double checked the directions I noticed this suggestion on the back of the bag:

"To retain vitamins, do not rinse before or drain after cooking."

It's white rice.  Really...how many vitamins are there in *white* rice?  I'll tell you how many:

Yeah, be really careful with this stuff.  I'd hate to see the nutritional value of it if you were to rinse it.

Freezer Hide and Seek

From time to time I play a little game with my family.  It's called something like..."How Long Can Mom Go Without Stopping At The Grocery Store?" or I like to call it "How Creative Can Mom Get Before We Refuse To Eat?"  We've been playing the game this past week.  We did really great until Sunday.  Sunday was Easter and we had a wonderful dinner, while visiting family.  But, we came home late and hungry.

I scanned the freezer and fridge.  I decided to make some sort of creamy-lemon-caper-chicken-pasta thing.  I was tired though and really did not feel like cooking.  Natron made me a deal that we could order Chinese food for dinner if I could order for less then $20.  DEAL!!!  We had Chinese, sent the kids to bed, and all was good at the Olson House.

The next day for dinner I looked in the fridge for the chicken I had taken out the night before.  Hmph.  I can't find it.  I search the freezer.  No luck.  Well, that's weird.  I *know* I took it out to defrost because I was going to use it.  What the heck?  I search the fridge again.....and the freezer.  Wow, it's no where to be found.  And then I open the microwave...yep, there it is.  Nasty, defrosted, ruined chicken.  Did it wreck my game? Oh no, it just ended up getting a bit more interesting :)

Monday I made some sort of pork chop stir fry.  Tuesday we had pork chop, rice, frozen veggie hotdish.  (Nasty, but the kids ate it up like crazy!)  Wednesday we had venison stroganoff on spaghetti noodles (totally klassy) and tonight....well crap.  I'm out of proteins. 

We had nine chicken nuggets that I split between the three kids.  Then they ate up what was left of the noodles (no sauce) and hotdish.  BUT WAIT.  What is that shiny package at the back of the freezer?  A rouge package of pork chops?  I squeal with delight!  I rip open the package and find: A FREAKING PORTION OF GROUND BEEF!!!  SCORE!  Thursday night ends with Italian Nachos (tortilla chips topped with beef - browned with the rest of the bruschetta I had in the fridge, and mozzarella cheese).  It's Friday tomorrow and I get to go shopping.  Team Olson wins!

Going Out vs. Staying In

One of the things I really enjoy doing is going out for dinner.  I love looking at the menu and having a glass of wine while deciding what to eat.  I enjoy the fact that someone else set the table and will bring me my food.  I especially like someone else cleaning up the mess.  We used to go out quite often, but over the last few years it has been harder and harder for me to go out to eat.

First off, (as with a lot of people right now) we're on a pretty tight budget.  We're making conscious decisions on how/where to put our financial energy.  We've decided that good, healthy food is towards the top - going out to eat is at the bottom.

Then there's the fact that I love to cook and I mean I LOVE TO COOK!  So this weekend we stayed home for date night.  Nathan and I cooked a fantastic meal of shrimp cocktail ($5.45 + sauce we had on hand), scallops with basil oil & bacon ($8.06), and lamb/feta fatayer ($18.21).  We spent hours cooking, laughing, drinking a couple glasses of boxed wine, and eating awesome food.  Not only did we spend less then $35 on a great meal, there's enough left overs to make the fatayers again today :)

*cheers* to at home date nights and if there are any other foodies out there, I'd love to have you over for dinner!